ChefCarey
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More, please !
Of course, as their experience increased they learned, like all good line cooks, to hide towels in a rice bin or their lockers, up their butts – no, I take that back, not a good idea! - or behind something in the dry goods storeroom and, if asked by a fellow traveler if they had any extra towels, sin, prevaricate, lie through their teeth. This is the kind of in-the-trenches arcanum of which a beginning culinary student is blithely ignorant.
Anybody been there?
Where is my chorus of linecooks???!!!! Don't let the big, bad literati here scare you.
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That web page unfortunately is way out of date. I think it is at least 2 years old and all the contact information is obsolete and the show dates long past. Jensen Rufe made the documentary "In Search of the Famous Hoosier Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich" back around 1998. It is a 16 minute documentary but Jensen Rufe does have a short excerpt posted on his website an JensenRufe.com. Here is the direct shortcut to the Quicktime movie.
In Search of the Famous Hoosier Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich
This short version captures the essence of the full documentary. Enjoy.
That's all well and good. However, I was just responding to your indication that the obsession was more prevalent now than 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago. And cited the fact that the video existed in support of that assertion. Merely that.
My friend Steve was at Humboldt State for many, many years and apparently knew Jensen Rufe and, consequently, of the film,which was part of his master's thesis.
As to the Quicktime, well, I'll leave others to enjoy that as my computer has never fancied Quicktime.
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Well, at least *somebody's interested.
Thanks! Oh, there's more. Lots more. Kinda surprised this post didn't generate more questions.I actually open The Ordinary in a future installment in The Daily Gullet.
I certainly am---I've just been POWER-less for a coupla days. Big windstorm and all.
You all had a look of timeless wisdom that NOBODY would want to learn, and you'd have been played in the movie by William Holden, a much YOUNGER William Holden, with a tiny morph into Robert Mitchum every now and then, when a sun-squint and cavern-deep pronouncement needed making.
And the pictures DID add a thousand words to this piece---the faces at that moment older than they'd ever be. I'm glad to see you're so much younger now.
Glad you are POWER-full again. Hell, I was clueless at that time in my life. Trying to figure out why in the hell I was where I was and doing what I was doing.
Thanks for the interest.
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More, please !
Okay, here's some more.
It's currently not in the cards to include the Memphis parts of my epic here in The Daily Gullet. So, I'll give you an anecdotal taste with the beginning of one evening in the restaurant.
The Saga of the Terrible Towel
This is another area where I found it handy to have one or two experienced line cooks in my classes. Kitchen towels are nothing to the inexperienced. They go through them like Sherman through Georgia or day traders through money. They are essential tools – manna, sustenance - to the restaurant line cook. The currency of the professional kitchen. White squares of terrycloth approximately 15 x 15 inches. We went through approximately 50 a day during classes. I told the students they would be issued two or three per shift in a restaurant. (Most of them just gloss over this ,yeah, yeah, now teach me something I really need to know - until they actually get in a restaurant environment. This despite my line cook student nodding vehemently when I say this.)
When I opened Café Meridien, my first restaurant in Memphis, I had what might have been the ultimate towel crisis. It was Friday evening, the restaurant was booked solid. I had a kitchen full of graduates of my ten-week class. All had been there a few weeks, there were no brand-newbies on the line. From my office upstairs I heard a ruckus in the kitchen below followed by my sous chef charging up and in and saying I had better get down to the kitchen pronto. Before I could get up from my desk I heard the sounds of footsteps clumping up the stairs. My lead cook and grill cook were in the office on either side of my desk, glaring at each other and breathing heavy. The sous chef wisely slunk out.
“What’s the problem?” I already knew they did not get along. Both started gesticulating and talking at once. Seemed we had a towel shortage. With a busy night ahead we found ourselves with only four clean towels in the building. The linen delivery was late - again. The grill cook, a fairly large woman of Armenian extraction - she looked like she could take care of herself, had a towel in each hand - with a white knuckle grip on each - and one tucked in her four-way apron string at either side. My lead cook, a young gay man from Kentucky, sported no towels.
“She has all the towels and won’t share,” he shrieked.
“I need them since I am working the grill,” she hissed back.
“Don’t you think you could part with a couple?” I foolishly asked. “It seems only fair.”
“No, they are not thick enough. I need to double them up.”
“See, Chef, she is completely unreasonable.”
“Faggot,” she spat at him.
“Rhinoceros,” he fired back.
"Civility, please," I attempted to interject to no avail.
“Fag,” she countered.
“Rhino,” was his riposte.
At least the vituperation was moving in the direction of brevity. This adroit thrust and parry continued for a few minutes until I couldn't take any more.
“Stop! Give him two towels and if you need to double them up grab some soiled ones – only keep them away from the food and the plates.”
Hesitatingly, reluctantly, she threw the two in her hands across the desk. While neither was entirely unrequited in their ongoing evident and voluble hatred of each other, neither was satisfied, either. They left, both grumbling.
Thus we began our Friday evening.
Of course, as their experience increased they learned, like all good line cooks, to hide towels in a rice bin or their lockers, up their butts – no, I take that back, not a good idea! - or behind something in the dry goods storeroom and, if asked by a fellow traveler if they had any extra towels, sin, prevaricate, lie through their teeth. This is the kind of in-the-trenches arcanum of which a beginning culinary student is blithely ignorant.
Anybody been there?
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Thank you Chef.
I have done enough experimenting now to know the buttermilk does make a difference. The pork tenderloin is indeed tender as its name implies but the buttermilk marinade makes it a melt in your mouth experience. Few restaurants achieve this. Nick's Kitchen in Huntington, IN does and that is where I picked up that technique. I have had a few chewy over fried tenderloins. The Gnaw Bone tenderloin is "broasted". It is good but is not the best I have had.
We must be about the same age. I attempted to explain how this "obsession" came about in the blog portion of my web site in "What Can You Say?". It really is just kind of a fun hobby to experience the online interaction. It also gets me out and about in the road food adventure in always being on the lookout wherever I travel rather than falling back on the tried, true and safe. No way would I have ventured to the tiny town of St. Olaf, Iowa nestled in a valley way off even state highways if it were not for this. And absolutely no way would I sought out and gone to the Heights Camphouse BBQ in Houston were it not for this and turn in a reimbursable invoice of $8.85 for dinner at my company.
What is really interesting about the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich is how many restaurants, mostly small independent places, are obsessed themselves about trying to make the best one. It is going on in both Indiana and Iowa that way right now. I think more so than 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
I am certainly going to have to agree with you on your last point. Today I received an email from one of my oldest friends (from Indiana) Steve Newman. He read our discussion here. It contained a link to this site:
Who would have ever thought?
(Still reserving judgment on the buttermilk.
)By the way, I think your obsession is great!
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Outrageous. Is there nothing with which man cannot become obsessed?
Looked at your photos - the one closest to what I like is the one from Gnaw Bone (I've actually had that one.)
Your technique is quite sound and you mention all the relevant frying classic tips for successful deep-frying. I do, however, think it worth the extra money for the peanut oil as opposed to canola. And I use the Panko.
Also, the marinade - including the buttermilk (which I do use for frying chicken) - is not necessary as the meat is already as tender as it could possibly be.
I mention this sandwhich is my recent book (in the Wiener Schnitzel recipe) and indicate it's origins in Indiana.
Good job, with the site, Davydd!
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I remember Indiana and Indiana University at Bloomington. In
Bloomington, I taught calculus and got started on violin. On
a map at Google, I see Richmond: It is just south of I-70
between Dayton and Indianapolis. I remember Dayton for the
air show, the B-70, the first F-15, the Enola Gay -- lots of
really warm fuzzy memories (Maggie: This is an example of
being facetious!). I remember much more about Indiana further
north at Fort Wayne, about 30 miles west at Warsaw, and about
15 miles south at Claypool. On the south side of Claypool is
a cemetery, and in the north-west corner is a tombstone facing
north for a graduate of Indiana University at Bloomington, Phi
Beta Kappa, 'Summa Cum Laude', Woodrow Wilson, and
Valedictorian of the high school that was there in Claypool.
I met her in Bloomington; she was my wife.
<br>
<br>
There is a lot of potential in Indiana. E.g., Charlie Trotter
was correct in going to Indiana for some special produce,
e.g., small potatoes. There is no end of the special beef,
pork, lamb, poultry, vegetables, that could be grown in
Indiana and supplied to cities near and far.
<br>
<br>
Generally restaurant food in Indiana has a lot of room for
improvement. Good food is easy enough to like; plenty of
people in Indiana can like it. E.g., much like Indiana is
Cincinnati, and at one time it had the restaurant in the US
with the longest record of five stars from Mobil Travel Guide.
I do hope that potential is realized. There was certainly not a hell of a lot of food going on in and around Richmond, Indiana when I was there.
I used to escape to Dayton or Cincinnati whenever possible.
Later I discovered the limestone lettuce and the Culver Duck Company in Middlebury.
I have better food memories of southern Indiana. There was a sandwich to which I was addicted.
Evansville, Indiana, my mother's home, had a large German population and the food tended to the heavy and basic, but there was one truly wonderful "dish."
Deep-fried pork tenderloin on a bun with chopped lettuce and tomatoes and mustard. This was nothing more or less than a large, thin pork schnitzel, breaded and fried. There was a joint that looked like it had been a Dairy Queen in some previous incarnation right across the street from Benjamin Bosse High School. I would sneak away during the lunch hour two or three days per week to get one of these. The meat extended out of the bun at least an inch all the way round. You ate that part first as the starter and then proceeded to the complex interior where the real lettuce, yellow mustard and the real tomato resided. Damn!
I still make this sandwich today - my sons love it.
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Consider me young enough to miss out on the Vietnam War but old enough to be a vet from the first Gulf War. I thoroughly enjoyed your writing and I look forward to hearing some more! My two years I spent overseas were an eyeopener to say the least. I wish all "kids" could have an opportunity like I was allowed. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and please keep 'em up!
Thanks, John, it's always nice to be appreciated and to hear from folks who like my writing - encourages me to keep on keeping on. And from a fellow chef to boot!
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Well, at least *somebody's interested.
Thanks! Oh, there's more. Lots more. Kinda surprised this post didn't generate more questions.I actually open The Ordinary in a future installment in The Daily Gullet.
I certainly am---I've just been POWER-less for a coupla days. Big windstorm and all.
You all had a look of timeless wisdom that NOBODY would want to learn, and you'd have been played in the movie by William Holden, a much YOUNGER William Holden, with a tiny morph into Robert Mitchum every now and then, when a sun-squint and cavern-deep pronouncement needed making.
And the pictures DID add a thousand words to this piece---the faces at that moment older than they'd ever be. I'm glad to see you're so much younger now.
Damn, I liked both of those guys a lot. Thanks, again, Rachel. (I had a few dates with the daughter of Willam Holden's business partner in The Mt. Kenya Safari Club, Ray Ryan. Took her to see Buddy Hackett once.
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Well, maybe if enough people here are blown away, the book proposal on which I am working will fly.
Basically, what you see here is just an outline, my experiences severly truncated, and - hope this doesn't scare anyone - about as G-rated as my life gets.
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Okay, I'll just toss in a little New York tidbit here.
It was the summer of 1963 when I worked for Samuel Bronston Productions:
They were just wrapping up Circus World
(Timely seasonal movie trivia: The original director on the film was Frank Capra, probably best known for It's a Wonderful Life. He left unhappy with the script and budget. )
Guess I wasn't very good luck for them as they folded after this film. I suspected problems as one of my flunky jobs involved a more or less constant daily scurry around Manhattan taking *very large* checks from one bank to another. And once a week I mailed a large box, of what I strongly suspected was cash, to Spain. When I wasn't doing that I was humping score paper up to Dimitri Tiomkin in his suite at the Essex House.
I also xeroxed contracts for Rita Hayworth, Claudia Cardinale, and John Wayne and obtained all the data and photo details from the New Hampshire State Historical Society for the exact specifications for the replica of the Deadwood Stage featured in the film. Packed all this up and it to Spain for the craftsmen to build over there.
My girlfriend, Nancy, was in the same sorority with Samuel Bronston's daughter, Irene, and this led to a small taste of the high life, staying for a couple of weeks at the Bronston apartment in Sutton Place South - just me and the maid drinking Pimm's Cup No 1 and eating steaks. Bronston was in Spain. Nancy took me to dinner at the French restaurant for my 21st birthday.
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Joseph,
Quite enjoyed the piece.
Now, I'm going to have to go digging for the previous one.
I grew up near Madison, WI, another hotbed of anti-war activity. I'm a bit younger than you; but, worked with quite a few folks who had been politically active in the 70s. In fact, for part of the year, the produce delivery man was one of the Sterling Hall bombers. Really nice guy.
Look forward to reading more of your further larger than life adventures <cue scary voice>INTO THE PAST</end scary voice>.
I had never heard of Sterling Hall, so I Googled it and got this result.
Excerpt:
[...]most powerful and the most damaging domestic terrorist bombing in the U.S. up until 1995.[...]ChefCarey, I enjoyed reading your latest installment and will look forward to however many installments are left. I'm a bit younger than you. I was a little kid through most of the 70s and came of age in the AIDS-terrified 80s, not the permissive early 70s. Though my parents participated in the anti-war movement, I was a youngster at the time. When as a 5-year-old, my mother marched down 5th Av. with me on her shoulders, all I knew was that it was pretty with all the candles. I knew when I saw things exploding and body bags coming back on TV news that something bad was happening and people were dying, but not much else. And I thought that Watergate was the thing the good guys on the Senate committee were doing. Those kinds of political things were complicated for a 5/6-year-old. But Washington Square Park was a lot of fun in those days, with the friendly, already gently aging hippies (or so they seemed to a boy of my age -- maybe a product of their long beards). I used to hang out there around 1972 as a 7-year-old, with my older brother, who was already in high school. Some other things, like "open corridor" schools, as implemented in my local public elementary school, weren't good at all. And lots of families in my neighborhood were breaking up as a result of men not being able to deal with Women's Liberation and trying to tell their wives not to pursue a career or go to college -- a rather different situation from yours. My mother took part in the Women's Liberation Movement, went back to college at my father's suggestion and ultimately fashioned a second professional career for herself as an anthropologist (her first, to support my father through grad school, was as a legal secretary), and my parents stayed together. But none of what I'm talking about is really about food. Let's hear more about the food!
I too frequented Washington Square Park. First, as an undergraduate. My girlfriend at the time was from Forest Hills and she and I went to a bunch of off-Broadway plays. I have left the couple of times I lived in New York out of my essays here. Spent my 21st birthday in a small French restaurant in Manhattan. That summer I was living in a seedy hotel near Madison Square Garden. Hung out in The Village when not working at Samuel Bronston Productions as a flunky. Saw Dylan at Gerde's Folk City right before his first album came out. Barbara Dane, Dave Van Ronk.
Hey, it ain't my fault! You people are bringing back many non-food memories!
I am penitient and will try to be more foodie-oriented. Promise.
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I wasn't smart enough myself to appreciate what was happening all around me at the time. I was just groping my way through life. It was only later upon reflection that I realized important stuff was going on.
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I moved to Chicago as a child bride in the early 70s -- my bridegroom had all kinds of teacher deferments and dodged Nam-- and I remember that Diana's was a hot place, like Louis Szatmary's (sp?) Bakery or the ineffable green and gold splendor of the Empire Room at the Palmer House hotel. Where were you as a cook during these years? What made you believe that you could open a restaurant?
Or would this be a peek into Part III?
Well, I suppose a little peek would be all right, don't you?
I didn't cook at all professionally in Chicago. Like many here at eGullet I was a "serious" home cook. But a professional eater. My evening's entertainment had been restaurants for years. I don't plan anything else when I am going to a restaurant where I anticipate enjoyment. I like to linger.
I *loved* Diana's! I remember portly Papa sitting behind the counter in the grocery section. And getting complimentary ouzo. When I was curious about anything on the menu the waiter would rush off and return shortly with a small sample - gratis. I remember more ouzo. I remember Papa giving Suzan some bakalava and me a cigar when we left. And I remember more ouzo.
Some of the places I cooked in California besides The Ordinary (these are not in my next piece for eGullet): I was consultant and opening executive chef at Mudd's in San Ramon:
(Scroll about halfway down the page and you'll see my recollections of opening Mudd's.)
(While at Mudd's I was fortunate enough to meet and spend time with Masa at Auberge du Soleil - had not yet opened Masa's in San Francisco and I spent most of a day in the kitchen at Green's with Deborah Madison. *Many* years later she was kind enough to read the proofs of my Creole book and give it a very nice endorsement.)
I was night chef at the original Scott's Seafood Grill & Bar at Scott and Lombard in San Fancisco. I ws executive chef at The Tides in Sausalito.
And I opened, again, as executive chef, two restaurants called Crogan's Bar & Grill in the East Bay, one in Walnut Creek and one in the Montclair section of Oakland. Basically, except for Mudd's, mostly seafood places. I would like to say at this point that the two Crogan's are nothing like what they were when I was there. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
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Joseph,
Quite enjoyed the piece.
Now, I'm going to have to go digging for the previous one.
I grew up near Madison, WI, another hotbed of anti-war activity. I'm a bit younger than you; but, worked with quite a few folks who had been politically active in the 70s. In fact, for part of the year, the produce delivery man was one of the Sterling Hall bombers. Really nice guy.
Look forward to reading more of your further larger than life adventures <cue scary voice>INTO THE PAST</end scary voice>.
Interestingly enough, I inadvertently brushed a broken shoulder entirely too close to the violence taking place in this country during this era.
Wisely, and for space reasons, a little aside was edited from my recent piece here.
Don't know how many of you are old enough to remember the Patty Hearst kidnapping, but here goes...
In 1974 I was plugging away cooking my Creole dishes at The Ordinary in North Oakland. Minding my own business. A scant few miles away on February 1, Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment by members of something calling itself The Symbionese Liberation Army.
Well, it turned out three of the founding members of this group, Bill and Emily Harris and Angela Atwood, had been at Indiana University at the same time Suzan and I were there. We didn't know them as they were staunch fraternity and sorority types and we were anything but. I take that back, Suzan was in a sorority when I met her.
The coincidences cascaded at this point. About a year later the feds nearly nabbed Bill and Emily Harris at an apartment in North Oakland, just a few blocks from my restaurant. There was still hot coffee on the stove when they burst in.
(Damn, I forgot the thing that probably tipped the scales for the FBI. Bill Harris had known my friend Jeff Sharlet at IU and was also on the masthead of Vietnam GI.)
Knowing nothing of this, Suzan moved into that very apartment. I took baths there.
The FBI was intrigued by all these coincidences apparently. They were already familiar with me because of my antiwar work. They asked a few of my friends (who all called me) if they thought I would cooperate with them. Guess my friends were candid with them as they never contacted me.
Okay, I really am trying to talk about food here!
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Well, at least *somebody's interested. Thanks! Oh, there's more. Lots more. Kinda surprised this post didn't generate more questions.
I was in college 66-70 and then medical school 70-74. How many memories your two installments brought back -- thank you for remembering, for being literate enough to write about it and being visual enough to photograph it.
I was in engineering in college, and several of my friends either volunteered for Nam or dropped out of school and were snarfed up by their draft boards ... there were lots of letters coming back ... and then they were coming back ... some intact and some not ... some physically disrupted and some mentally dislocated.
Forty years later, we seem not to have learned very much from our time in SE Asia ... we're still shipping back boys who will never be the same ... and leaving a country thinking they were far better off before we showed up to liberate them.
As Peter, Paul, and Mary said, "When will they ever learn? ...".
I can hardly wait for Part 3 ... and 4 ... and more ... keep 'em coming, Chef!
Thanks, Jason.
Peter, Paul and Mary may have said it, but Pete Seeger wrote it. I was a big fan of the Weavers. As was my wife, Suzan, the *real* singer in the family.
And, sadly, I agree with you. We don't seem to learn as much as we forget.
The name of the piece about me in France Nouvelle was: "Joseph Carey: A GI Who Doesn't Want to Forget."
There was a *huge* disclaimer box at the head of the article indicating that I was *not* a communist and that many of the things I said would not be in line with communist political theory. I said I loved my country and the GI's I had been with in Vietnam and just wanted to get us the hell out of there.
Perhaps if more people had seen this film by David Zeiger - it's dedicated to my friend Jeff Sharlet, who died of cancer at a tragically young age - we would not have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam. For me it's deja vu. Here's a link for those of you who don't know about this stuff:
(Disclaimer: I have absolutely no ties to this film although they do use a few photos of mine on the web site.)
Okay, I'll try to get back to food-related stuff now.
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More, please !
Well, at least *somebody's interested.
Thanks! Oh, there's more. Lots more. Kinda surprised this post didn't generate more questions.I actually open The Ordinary in a future installment in The Daily Gullet.
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Thanks, DG! Oh, just to fill out the picture, so to speak, here's what I looked like during that era. And a couple of the more innocuous photos I took. (I am the one at the top - although, truth be told I am closing in on the look right below me.)
And, in the next installment I do actually get to The Ordinary. Really.
Another wonderful reading. Thanks ChefC! I really enjoyed that. -
This is the one...
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Thanks for your thanks.
Late arrivals always welcome.I've come to the party late but eager nonetheless... will stay tuned as instructed.You're a fabulous storyteller, and thanks for spinning your yarns for us here at eG!
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The rumors of my demise are premature and somewhat (not a *lot*, though) exaggerated. I am told the next episode in my lifelong culinary angst, birthed with the assistance of an auto-inflicted cranial episiotomy, will more than satisfy all the culinary schadenfreudians out there.
Next week. If anybody cares.
[but you're dissembling ... we still haven't heard the rest of the story!
Tell! Tell!
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Would you have questioned the novice critic's credentials if the review had been a rave?
I did not articulate that well. The San Francisco review actually was a rave.
My ineptly put point about novice critics is the fact that they take the word "critic" entirely too seriously. They are not satisfied if they don't find *something* to criticize.
But there always is "something" to criticize.
Spoken like a serial former spouse.
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Would you have questioned the novice critic's credentials if the review had been a rave?
I did not articulate that well. The San Francisco review actually was a rave.
My ineptly put point about novice critics is the fact that they take the word "critic" entirely too seriously. They are not satisfied if they don't find *something* to criticize.
Ouch.
Why I Cook
in The Daily Gullet
Posted
Thanks, Doc, I have to plans to cease my scribblings. As to the line cook thing, I am surprised there are none responding as the terrible towel crisis is ongoing in every professional kitchen I've ever seen. Could it be there are no line cooks here? No ex-line cooks? I find that really difficult to believe.
Yes, I am sure every profession has its little turf/equipment squabbles - tiffs that aren't so small when one is trying to perform well.
Thanks again!