mskerr

Hi all- I have written here about my first boss at a waitressing + cooking job, and what a crazy neurotic joke that was. http://forums.egulle...od#entry1849969 A few months back, I had another foray into unbelievably incompetent chef-bosses. (I should mention, between those two jobs, I worked as a line cook at a great restaurant with an awesome boss, and I loved it, even though it kicked my a**.) I applied to one of those vague Craigslist ads for a cafe in town (for reference, a SMALL town, with no really good cafes or restaurants in my experience). Supposed to be a cooking job, experience preferred. I googled the reviews on the place. It turned out to be more or less a deli/motel, featuring sandwiches, with fresh-baked muffins and the like in the morning, and some hot meals at night (like burgers cooked ahead of time and microwaved to order - is this usual?). The reviews for their sandwiches were great - "Best sandwich ever!" The reviews for the motel/boss - not so flash. Apparently a couple visiting CA from Europe arrived late at the motel to check into their reserved room, and found no one about. They did find an envelope with a European name on it, and while it was neither of their names, they figured it was probably meant for them and used the key inside to unlock their room... only to find an older woman sleeping in their bed, with her big old shaggy St. Bernard on the floor. She awoke and promptly started yelling at them for waking her up. She eventually clicked on, and realized they were her guests... and straightened up the sheets without changing them, and left them to the room. Nice, huh? (For reference, the room was $80 in the low season, $110 in the high season for a tiny double.) Other reviews complained about the lack of doors on the bathrooms - but when they asked the owner if there were rooms with doors, she would berate them (in her amazingly grating voice, as I later found out) for wanting privacy, asking for all in the vicinity to hear, why they needed a door on the bathroom if they were a couple. Again, $80-110 a night. But, I focused more on the food reviews and applied. I got an interview, and then a week trial. I thought I was applying for a cooking job, but my first task the first morning (when she was surprised to see me, not having made note of what day I started) was to clean the motel rooms, which partly meant checking for bed-bugs since they'd had some official complaints lately, and one more complaint would lead to a shut-down by the Dept. of Health. I did make it into the kitchen on subsequent shifts, to be trained by a young guy who had worked there for years and basically appointed himself the intelligent person on permises over the boss, to her delight - less responsibility for her. Now, I was the only person at the cafe with ANY professional line-cooking experience. I also am a perfectionist, so I really gave a damn about things like "finesse," which as Thomas Keller points out, applies just as much to making a deli sandwich as to a foie gras dish. Even at $8 an hour. I consider myself a humble amateur, but desperate to learn. Things I was reprimanded for during my short tenure there: (1) Daring to leave the boss half of the tips in the tip jar when I worked with her, as per usual working M.O., (2) Not knowing the menu, because I didn't put spinach on the mushroom sandwich. When I later pointed out to her (at staff meeting, in front of everyone) that the menu said nothing about spinach, she admitted to not knowing what was on the menu, though she was drunk on wine by then, so no remorse. She was already busy wanking on quoting Leonard Cohen, insinuating that her flaws were wonderful things for us all to behold. I also got in trouble for asking someone if they wanted a piece of lettuce on the sandwich, since according to Boss-Lady, "they don't deserve spinach AND lettuce!" (3) Turning off the incredibly loud timer as a favor to her while she was reaching to pull out baked goods from the oven - because apparently you never turn off the timer before you pull something out of the oven. (4) Not wearing short skirts, but (5) Wearing short shorts, and (6) Not "cuting it up" for the job - this from a middle-aged overweight woman whose granny panties showed about 3" above her jeans. I don't care about fashion or make-up, but I think I'm hardly a brown-bagger... and anyway, I thought I was applying for a cooking job. (7) Using recipes or formulas while baking. Her idea of baking was "throw a bunch of nutella and sugar and flour and maybe some other random stuff in a pan and bake." When asked roughly what proportions to use, she proceeded to pull them out of her... you get the idea. Whenever I asked her specific questions about cooking or baking, she would look at me like I was mentally retarded before telling me "it doesn't matter." Hmm, everything I have ever read about professional baking reckons that EVERYTHING MATTERS. (8) Referring to customers with whom she appeared to be friendly as her "mates" - how was I to know someone had unfriended her on facebook that day and apparently "no one is my mate!" Other funny quirks about the boss... -She often wouldn't make note of any reservations for the motel, so people would show up from foreign countries to find out they had nowhere to stay. -OR, if she did make note, she would write, say, "Krauts" for Germans, so when they showed up, we employees would say something like "Oh, you must be the Krauts!" - It turned out that the previous season, she had a couple of very competent people working for her. They basically sat her down and told her that she was holding the business back, and made a deal with her where they would run the business for the summer on the condition that she stayed away. She moved a few hours away and got a job at a cafe. The cafe was thriving in her absence. Meanwhile she was withdrawing money from the cafe's account to sustain herself... and then got fired from the cafe for being a bad employee, proceeded to accuse the managers of stealing from her, and reinstated herself at the cafe... and business promptly fell off. -Also, whenever she worked, the drawer would be off by some multiple of $20. When she went out of town, the drawer would be bang on at the end of the night. (I should mention apparently her father bought her the business, and she has it up for sale, but has nowhere to go in the meantime, apparently, where she herself won't get fired, so she basically doesn't care. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people like this, who are over their businesses, but are stubborn about selling them at pre-recession prices, to no avail. ) Now, my restaurant experience is pretty limited and extremely unconventional. But from everything I have ever read, I thought that chefs were people to look up to, to learn from, and to tuck your head in and say "Yes, Chef" towhen you mess up. Instead, this woman's basic modus operandi is to consistently and consciously fudge things up all day every day and then await being growled at later (preferably when she's drunk) for everything she already knows she's done wrong, then have a sentimental, boozy make-up session. She apparently respects people who "stand up for themselves" - which means, people who will tell her she's knowingly being a - (insert worst word you can think of her). I think I'd prefer a chef who actually acts professional instead of taking out their personal misery and lack of - um, relations - on their employees. She told me once that if I had a problem with her I should tell her, instead of the other employees, to which I replied something like "Umm, when you're in a bad mood, I'm not going anywhere near you." And when I told her the job was not going to work out for me and wasn't what I expected she got all solemn and quiet and asked "Is it me?" To which I replied, "Well, actually, yes," and proceeded to cordially tell her that she was like a black cloud to be around, but wished her well on her business. She said "I agree with everything you say"... and on a daily basis, she is the first person to admit that she is the #1 problem with the business... yet everyday she comes in personally miserable (I should also add she lives in the motel, so she never gets away from the business), proceeds to take it out on anyone around her, especially anyone who might actually be happy in their personal life, and then waits for those people to come in and discipline her, and then have a faux-make-up.... WTF??? Granted, I quit that job a few months ago, but it still leaves me reeling, wondering what the hell happened there, how someone like that can actually run a business, especially with an "it doesn't matter" attitude while consciously messing things up every day... Good fun! I'm sure there's many more little anecdotes, but I have been trying to put it out of my mind. Nonetheless- what is up?? *Edited to add: To give another example of incompetence, this was a deli where I would occasionally show up to find out that there wasn't bread to make sandwiches that day. Hmm, that makes it a bit difficult, eh?

Report: My braised lamb ended up turning into a curry, over basmati rice with green onions. I'm finding flatbread quite a bit trickier than expected, so it's probably just as well I didn't go for the full-on lahmacun yet. I'm gonna stick at it though!

Our de facto A/C is booze, so I have gotten around to a few boozy projects this summer - cherry brandy, ginger liqueur, mango liqueur, jalapeño & Serrano vodka (for bloody mary's, but oddly good straight as well), spiced rum (tasted like a cinnamon stick, not too flash), pineapple rum... Good fun, especially since guests are always keen to try out random jars of boozy projects. I might give the Umeboshi a go, since I have a bottle of sake here getting dusty. Cheers!

Cheers, I will check out that book. I have read the perfect burger thread, and other articles and book chapters on ultimate burger making, and I think I have a rough idea of how it all goes down. Right now, my biggest problem is trying to find a decent bun. Also, I try to keep my food costs down, so I have not yet put out the bucks for a blend of grass-fed chuck, brisket, and short ribs, which I hear is the optimum blend (aside from getting into dry-aged/wagyu/ etc territory). And, of course, there are always going to be disagreements on the best way to make burgers (or anything else), so in the end I suppose it involves trying out a lot of different methods and your personal preferences. My cooking ambitions are not necessarily complicated in themselves, they just involve lots and lots of repetition, proper equipment or clever stand-ins, and a few tricks to get just right (ex: artisan bread, the dough for meat pies and pasties, fermented foods, beginner charcuterie). Unfortunately, it's hard to motivate myself to practice my baking when it's been 90-100 degrees for the last three months, so I haven't made much headway. Otherwise, like Keller says, it's all about finesse, isn't it? And that's an ongoing pursuit. I am still learning basic cooking technique, which in the end is what everything boils down to, right? I think I make a pretty decent pasta e fagioli, but I'd like to make a great one. Ditto with tacos, and bread, and risotto, and a lot of things. This is where I wish I'd had an Italian grandma... and a Mexican grandma, to boot! Maybe I just need to hang out with more grandmas. In the meantime, thank god for eGullet! I'm sure many members here hang out with/work with food professionals and foodies all the time, but I only know a few people who cook seriously, so these forums are a life-saver. I think my summer cooking slump is nearing its end, in large part bc of these forums.

I think the best communal meals I've been to were spontaneous BBQs in the antipodes, where everyone brings one of those bargain meat packs with a few pounds of chicken wings or beef or lamb, and/or some cheap beers, and the host puts out a loaf of white bread, margarine, and steak and tomato sauces. Maybe a pavlova too if you're lucky! Nice and simple. And people love hosting them because they usually end up with a few pound of leftovers to eat the next day.

Nice! I haven't been to a BevMo in years, and yep it was in LA, but surely one can't be far away. Cheers.

Good on ya! I'm not stressed out about potlucks, and they've never caused a single problem in life, as far as I know. I'm just wondering if they might not be the best way to go about having a party as I get older, knowing the sort of dishes I used to throw together as a college student... I would like to up the ante for myself a little bit. I should point out, this was at Hippie Central College, and I didn't know how to boil an egg back then, so use your imagination freely as to what I cooked. And my housemate that made the dumpster-dived kimchi? If you shared a house with him and 3 or 5 other people, with very thin walls and little privacy... You wouldn't want his dumpster- dived kimchi anyway. Cat food on a triscuit sounds great, cheers! Or, obviously, anything made by my friends. Edited bc Autocomplete is too assertive.

Totally agreed. I am a strong believer that the amount a meal costs has no direct correlation to how tasty it is, and all my favorite meals are humble. BUT, there is quite a difference between a budget meal I make nowadays, vs. one of my budget meals in college.

That sounds like a good idea, guests bringing sides and desserts... as well as the quality of the guests. I remember in college, one of my housemates brought his homemade kimchi to a potluck. When he was complimented on it, he said "Thanks! I dumpster-dived the cabbage for it myself!" As you can imagine, the forks pretty much dropped there. Edited for spelling.

Hey all- I remember reading Gabrielle Hamilton's "Blood, Bones, and Butter" and being a wee bit shocked when she took aim at potlucks... but it also made lots of sense. I lent the book to a friend, whose sister immediately claimed it, so I don't have the exact quote on me, but I found this through Google: "The author, Gabrielle Hamilton, humorously expresses her distaste for a "potluck" by calling them "soul-deadening" and she says you often end up with seven variations of the same dish. She further says, "And even the one guest who was thoughtful enough to prepare something expensive, complex, and warm - like curried shrimp- even that person has no idea how to cook for a potluck, and so eighteen people stand around the little quart container of the only dish that has any protein and any flavor and try to get a tablespoon before it is all gone."" What do you all think? Potlucks were all the rage at my college a few years ago - both professors and students would hold them regularly - and while I harbor some nostalgia for them, Ms. Hamilton did make me wonder if maybe they are a bit over-rated and haphazard in actual execution? Or is there a slightly more organized way to throw a potluck? Perhaps it helps when the potluck participants are not on bare-bones students' budgets, nor overwhelmingly on alternative diets, as was the case at my school?

While ideally, in fantasy land, I would love to cook all sorts of cuisines and dishes wonderfully, and milk my own cow, ferment my own vinegar, and grow all my own produce, etc, etc, in reality, I like to prioritize my cooking goals, at least while I'm still a humble young amateur. In no particular order this translates to: I would love to: (1) Make a great New Zealand-style meat pie (mince; mince and cheese; and steak, onion, and cheese in particular), (2) Make really tasty Mexican and New Mexican food from scratch, especially when I'm living in Mexican-food-wastelands like New Zealand, (3) Make a handful of good, more-or-less authentic Italian dishes, like pasta e fagioli and really good pasta sauces, (4) Master pasty-making, (5) Make a lot of things myself, like pickles (all sorts), Mozzarella and Ricotta, kimchi, liqueurs, infusions, salt pork, sausage...just whatever I'm into enough to make myself, without being too ambitious, (6) Make a really great loaf of hearty, crusty bread... If anyone's familiar with Hungry Ghost Bakery in Northampton, MA, they are my idols. (7) Make great pretzels! + (8) fondue (9) Make a damn-good weeknight stir-fry, without worrying too much about being 100% authentic or firing up a restaurant-strength wok, (10) Make a killer cheeseburger. For me, the current standard- bearer is either In-n-Out, or a New Zealand food truck or fish-and-chips shop burger (I'm sure the $26 burger is heavenly, but budget matters a lot to me at this point...) There's probably a lot more, but these are the priorities for now. What about you?

I've been wanting to try a Pimm's cup (a la Hugh Acheson), but don't know where to find Pimm's. I live in small-town Sierra foothills, but travel quite a bit around California. Anyone know where I can buy a couple bottles? Cheers!

I've been craving Israeli couscous lately, but need some ideas for a balanced meal. I used to eat a lot of couscous, but usually plain - the good old carb-on-carb-on-carb college days! I really enjoy pan-roasted chicken with shallot-vermouth sauce (from Cooks Illustrated) so that would probably work, with some veg added. And if a recipe involves some sort of creamy tahini-parsley sauce - all the better. Cheers!

Janeer - I've got your pasta e fagioli simmering away right now. The broth is delicious! Probably gonna let it sit overnight and serve it tomorrow. I've only made the Cooks Illustrated recipe until now, but I think using salt pork instead of pancetta adds a lot of flavor, as well as cutting some expense out. I did add a Parmesan rind though, a la Cooks Illustrated. Next up: Scootin' Long the Shore. Cheers for your recipes!

Sounds delicious! Thank you.

Going to attempt to make lahmacun/lahmajoun again today: lamb cooked with onions, paprika, cumin, coriander, and tomato, baked on homemade flatbread, topped with chopped onions, tomatoes, parsley, and a squeeze of lemon. I haven't had a proper one yet, but it's basically all my favorite things in one meal. I'm basing mine on the recipe in "Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day", but instead of using the usual ground lamb, I'm using the "lamb stew mix" from my supermarket, which isn't cubes, but a motley mix of steaks, meaty bones, and other random meaty chunks. Going to braise the lamb, then pull it. Anyone have experience making this?

Wow, that grilled corn and chorizo soup sounds great, and pasta e fagioli is one of my absolute favorite dishes. And thanks for the background on salt pork.

I couldn't tell you. Not to start a civil war amongst the Italians here, but I do not know the difference between northern or southern. I have some Marcella Hazan here to read though, where she describes the different regional cuisines. From what you say though, sounds like I'm talking about southern as well.

I'm probably gonna buy my first fondue pot soon, and I love finding alternate uses for kitchen gadgets. I hear fondue pots work great for hot pots and shabu-shabu, and some people apparently manage to live for months or years without a kitchen, doing everything in a fondue pot. What do you use yours for?

I've recently started discovering the joys of salt pork. I was introduced to it from reading old novels, where they describe cooking beans with salt pork, or (in the Little House books) laying strips of salt pork over a rabbit roast. So far I have thrown some in while cooking beans or soup, and occasionally I fry up some small pieces to top a salad (or, yes, even snack on -bring on the pucker). I really like old-school ingredients like this, so I would like to learn more ways to use it. Any ideas?

I've heard that a fondue pot will double for hot pot. Any experience with this? Yeah, I think a visit to a hot pot restaurant is called for, as well as a visit to the nearby Chinese market. On the dessert note - I agree with keeping it simple, and the fruit suggestions. I think grilled pineapple is the perfect dessert, maybe with some rum caramel sauce or something (which I haven't tried yet) if it needs a bit of jazzing up. I don't have much of a sweet tooth myself, so I'm way more fussed about the savory food, but my go-to dessert now is Chocolate Whiskey Cake (Paula Disbrowe's recipe) which is a definite crowd-pleaser and easy to make. When we just have a couple friends over, I'm amazed at how quickly a bunch of thirty something dudes will devour a bag of tootsie roll pops. Too easy! Edited because I forgot the dessert bit.

Yes, great point. I agree as well! I shouldn't have generalized so much. I don't mean that we don't have good raw ingredients, but I definitely doubt that they are as readily available and affordable for as much as the population, compared to Italy. When I lived in Maine, lobster was relatively affordable but now that I live in California, it's $30 a pound in my town, with infrequent turnover. And yes, the tomatoes in my garden are pretty damn tasty, but the supermarket ones are crap, and cans of San Marzano tomatoes can easily get pricey, especially when some recipes call for 4 cans. A lot of farmed seafood runs $10 a pound in my town, and wild- caught fish can be $20 a pound. So, I suppose it depends quite a bit where you live. I'm sure there are still plenty of towns in the US where San Marzano tomatoes and high-quality fresh seafood are unknown. And I think it's pretty accepted that high-quality ingredients, while available, are generally more expensive here than in Italy (and many other countries). But - maybe Italian-American cooking will evolve to reflect the quality ingredients that are more widespread, though often far from ubiquitous or affordable, now?

Cheers, Mjx, for your very thorough reply! I agree about restraint vs. excess. I think restraint is more difficult in Italian-American cooking because our raw ingredients (tomatoes, olive oil, seafood...) are not as high-quality or flavorful in themselves as their Italian counterparts (from what I've heard), so it is more tempting to keep adding more ingredients to a dish to try to boost flavor rather than coaxing the maximum amount of flavor out of a few simple ingredients. And on the cheese note - yes! Bang on. The ubiquitous massive pile of cheese on top of just about everything in the US is starting to really drive me nuts. Americanized-Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants are particularly guilty of this, as well as down-home American restaurants. In a lot of the country, a salad still consists of a bowl of iceberg with a heap of shredded cheese on top. Yeah, I get it, we Americans love cheese and the bland stuff is pretty inexpensive here, but it's just gotten to be total overkill, in my opinion. I think I might start a different thread about this. It is really starting to bother me!

Cheers for the tips! Funny, I just posted on another thread about how one of my favorite meals ever was a simple crock-pot chicken made by a friend when I was backpacking. Have been craving it lately.

Just today I was thinking about getting a Fondue pot. This is extra motivation. Having been a bit too young to really remember the fondue craze, and only having had it twice, I would love some tips for fondue! Is it coming back in a retro-cool sort of way? And I am totally curious about hot pots! Have only seen them on Bourdain. Again, any tips would be very appreciated! Yes, definitely. Soups and braises are my favorite things to make for this very reason. Especially for the leftovers the next day. Sounds complicated. For myself, if it helps at all, I try to buy quality ingredients, but inexpensively. Haven't had foie gras or caviar or wine that costs more than $15 a bottle yet. I'm not up on modernist cuisine or anything avant- garde. I like making colorful meals that are nice to look at, but I don't care to get too involved with presentation and aesthetics, like making little precious stacks of food on dainty little plates with one little baby carrot placed just so. Substance over style, always. I don't care very much about the plates or the table- setting. I'm happy to drink out of a mason jar. Generally by the time we're eating, when there's guests over, everyone's got a bit of lowbrow beer under the belt. Not a lot of mixology going on around this house - not even limes in the Corona. When I think about the most satisfying and welcome meals in my life, they're all very simple. Most of them come from my backpacking days - a simple crockpot roast chicken made by a friend, or a plate of loaded nachos made by my bachelor housemate, or a simple greasy lamb steak with salt and pepper at a BBQ. So, when I cook for others, my only focus is trying to make a more-or-less simple, satisfying meal. Does that help at all?