jeniac42

Zilla, how odd - I'm in almost the same position as you, but so far you're a lot luckier, I think. I got hired into the kitchen as pantry bitch, which is what I still do during service. The desserts frustrate the heck out of me because they're so... eh. Non-thrilling? Anyway, our exec chef ended up leaving about a month ago and a new guy came in; I have his permission to play with desserts and get some good stuff on the menu. I'd love to do some type of shortcake but going into winter I don't know that it would be appropriate. Oh, the other weird thing is that I work at a Southern restaurant, too (fried catfish with greens and mac is our #1 seller, I think). I've been pondering a sweet potato jelly roll type cake with a hazelnut mousse filling and some kind of sauce - I'm still new enough to the pastry world that exciting concepts are hard to fully come up with, and I work so many hours I don't have time to look at books! At any rate your dessert menu looks a lot more exciting than mine, but hopefully that will change as I get more time to play with things (odd circumstances at the restaurant have prevented it thus far).

Man, I'm starving and tuna salad is one of my favorite things. I like it with just a little bit of mayo - if I have real mayonnaise in the house, all the better. Other than that, it depends on what's around. My friend made me tuna melts the other day with mayo, coarsely chopped sour pickles, egg (that had been boiled with potato sausage), and mustard. I don't really like onion in tuna salad because it makes it taste tinny to me. Scallions, chives, or shallots are OK though. Right now my tuna is the 29c/can variety from Giant Eagle - StarKist water packed light tuna. Mmm. When I was younger I'd just eat oil-packed tuna on squishy white bread. Now I like bagels the best for tuna. Also like tuna with cilantro, lime juice, garlic, habanero sauce, olive oil.

I second the theory that tip percentage has gone up because waitstaff hourly wages haven't. As far as I can tell it's been $2.13/hr in Ohio since the 70s, and obviously the cost of living is now higher. I'm not sure how that's been relayed to customers, but I think that explains why servers now expect more. At least where I work, it's not really greed so much as needing to pay the bills. (My restaurant is a bit strange; on a busy night a server might end up with six tables total, because the meal takes so long compared to the average Columbus restaurant, and we spend a lot of time tableside; 20% is the average tip there.)

Information technology, so basically what you're thinking of.

Well, in my experience, after a year you could train just about anybody to do the kind of programming I did when I was in the IT field (5 years), but the pay is much higher there, not even including benefits in the equation. Anyway, restaurant profit margins at independent places are, from what I understand, fairly low - so what can be done about the wages at any rate? Personally I wish I could make what I was earning before, but I'm willing at this point to take five times less and do something I like, having decided money isn't the most important thing in life. Health insurance would surely be nice, though. And it wouldn't (la de da political debate possible here but I just wanted to bring it up in response to other points that have been made) necessarily mean an increase in taxes, particularly not equal to what is paid for private health insurance.

OK, nevermind! I just checked my answering machine at home (previously he's called my cell phone) and the chef called to say orientation starts on July 7, and can I be there. Of course, I called back, but he's gone by this time, so I will call again tomorrow to find out the details. Well! Now I can just start working on my nerves, right?

I find in the summer that I crave only foods with a high water content, so I end up eating a lot of salads and fruit and that kind of thing. Personally, I think ice cream is way too... ugh, rich for summer so I tend not to eat that. Sorbets are good, though. Every now and again I get a craving for protein, which I will usually consume in the form of a grilled steak or piece of fish. When I first moved to Columbus proper, it took three days and it was over 100F every one of those days. The place I moved into had no air conditioning and, really, very little insulation, so it was like living in a brick oven. I spent a lot of time sitting under the tree out back and I ate nothing but Popsicles and cold plums for a couple of weeks. Not such a bad thing, really. I think it's too bad A/C takes away some of the enjoyability of seasonal eating. (And this from someone who, aside from the produce, loathes summer.) This Is Just To Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold.

And again the same question. I went in last Thursday, spoke with the chef briefly, and filled out background check paperwork. He said all the applicants were either people he'd love to hire or people he wouldn't even want to talk to again, and I assumed the fact that I went back in put me in category A. We also discussed that it'll be a great kitchen to work in, etc. At the end of the interview, he said he'd be calling early this week to discuss start dates and pay information. As of now (Wednesday evening) I haven't heard back. Should I call again next Monday and ask? Or should I just let this one go? I'd really kind of pinned my hopes on it. Thanks for all the advice, eGulleteers.

A bit late here, but I have one of the Peugeot peppermills (this one) as well as a Zassenhaus (the kind you can buy at Penzey's). I paid $4 for the Peugeot when it was on the clearance table at Williams-Sonoma. I use the Peugeot heavily every day at work and it has been truly excellent; it produces a very reliable grind. The only problem I have with it is that the screw that holds the top on and adjusts the grind has a tendency to get bumped loose in my apron, and then the top falls off and I've got an apron full of peppercorns. The Zassenhaus is impractical for work because of the crank mechanism, but it also produces a nice, even grind. It hasn't seen the heavy use of the Peugeot so I can't speak directly to its reliability. Alas, the Peugeot has a ding in it now (unfortunate encounter with my wine key in the apron pocket, I imagine), but it's still one of the prettiest peppermills I know.

Cheesy popcorn. Chewy red licorice! Pickles. Chocolate cheesecake! Tomato juice. Seared scallops with sweet, sweet butter. Lather, rinse, repeat. ...redacted...

I still hadn't heard back, so I called around 5:30pm today (well, they're not open, so it's not like that was mid-service or anything). Didn't get a hold of the chef, but I left a message with a live person. The chef called me back about an hour later and asked me to come by on Thursday afternoon and bring my personal information with me so I can fill out some paperwork (they're running background checks on everyone, which is cool with me). I'm not sure this means I have the job, but I'm thinking it seems likely, no?

Well, the, uh, Kroger brand of Fruity Pebbles ("Crisp 'n' Fruity Rice") is superior to the original.

When he was making baked beans on toast at the very beginning, I was chewing my nails and shouting "They're going to throw this poor guy into Gordon Ramsay's KITCHEN?!"

Well, I have called. I got an answering machine (which is unsurprising, since the place isn't even open yet) and left a voicemail for the chef. Now I just wait to (hopefully) hear back. I think tonight at work I'll also chat with our wine rep, who knows people in probably 80% of the restaurants in Columbus. Perhaps he knows this guy, too.

I watched this last night when I got home from work and thought it was great. They aired another (ballet dancer to wrestler) but I thought after the chef episode it'd just be a letdown to watch another. What was funny was that, the previous night, they'd aired the episode of Graham Norton that had Gordon Ramsay on it. I, too, would love to know what's happened to Ed.

Alrighty-o, eGulleteers. Here's a question for you. Last Friday, I applied for a kitchen job at a place that'll be opening soon. The exec. chef there was formerly the sous at a really good place in town, and it seems like it'd be good experience. So, I wrote on my application that I'd like to work in the kitchen, and would be willing to do prep. The chef, when I spoke with him, said they'd not received a single other application for a prep cook, and he'd definitely be calling me this week. Well, Friday is rolling around again, and of course I've had no word. Keeping in mind that I have to pay a whole hell of a lot of bills and am therefore going to be reduced to nuking food at Friday's if I don't find a job in a decent place SOON: Should I call the restaurant? Or should I just assume they didn't want to hire me, after all?

Mushroom sandwiches: It's been seven years since I ate one, so I may not get all the details right, but the filling seemed to be essentially roughly chopped button mushrooms and something like sour cream, mayonnaise, or reduced cream. There may or may not have been herbs or cheese or something else in them. This was then placed between two slices of sandwich bread and grilled a la grilled cheese. In retrospect I could make a better version at home, I'm sure, but there's something about food you can only get once a year, isn't there? Of course, if anyone's familiar with the concept and has a recipe, that would be great. Otherwise, I'll be figuring it out by trial and error.

Oh, man. I love the Ohio State Fair. Generally I walk around the entirety of the fair first, paying special attention to livestock (it's interesting to talk to some of the folks who raise them for different purposes; wool vs. milk vs. meat, see what they look for and what the animals are judged on). After that it's FOOD TIME. We have several good BBQ places in Columbus, the best of which is City BBQ (I think Holly's been there); many of them are at the fair. Then there are the "booths" where they grill crazy amounts of meat - ten guys just flipping birds, and the smell is amazing. Funnel cakes, sweet potato fries, corn dogs, elephant ears, cream puffs from Schmidt's, lemon ice, grilled sweet corn, and don't forget the deep-fried Snickers bars. Also cotton candy (fresh) and saltwater taffy. I generally spend most of my time at the fair watching the horse shows and eating whatever looks good. Our fair also has daily demonstrations by local chefs, which is always fascinating. The only fair food I avoid is the stuff in the vendors' hall, which is basically mall food court food, and why would you eat that at the fair when so much deep-fried goodness surrounds you? Three other "fair foods" I remember are from the May Market in Pittsburgh. The first is strawberries dipped in fondant; the second, lemon halves with peppermint sticks in them (try it sometime - get the sticks that aren't hard candy, just kind of crunchy and dissolving; suck lemon juice through the stick). The most important: mushroom sandwiches. Getting one involved waiting in line for half an hour to get a ticket, and then another ten minutes to get the sandwich. The arts festival is this weekend, which means I should be able to get a slight fair-food fix in.

Eggs, scrambled in the brusque and peremptory fashion (about a minute and a half over medium-high heat), with Colby cheese, plenty of black pepper (the major exception to my general dislike of perceptible pepper flavor is when it's with eggs). Roasted garlic bread. (Water.)

I just thought I'd speak up for the cat-food bags of tuna. I think they're great (although the flavored varieties are a little... um... well, they're OK if there's nothing else in the house). They made it much easier for me to have a tuna sandwich for lunch - I don't like the way bread gets soggy when you refrigerate it with tuna on it all morning, and the pouches meant I could take the bread separately, keep everything on my desk, and assemble a la minute, as it were. Now that I don't work in an office, this is not such an advantage. Also, I find the texture of the pouch tuna to be vastly better. As far as this lemon flavored tuna in a can goes, well... it doesn't sound great to me, and I imagine the lemon would pick up the tinny flavor from the tin, no?

Our kitchen is about 12.5x10ft, about the same as our previous kitchen. The layout is atrocious, though, and most of that space is wasted. All the countertops have cupboards above, which I find very claustrophobic. So to whoever said bigger isn't necessarily better (not that our kitchen is huge, but the floor looks very blank to me), I agree.

Steak, rare, with some good bread to sop up stray juices. Maybe some garlic butter or something on the steak, maybe not. Oooh. Steak. What? Me? Iron-deficient? What makes you say that?

If I had the resources, I'd collect knives. As it is, I seem only to have a collection of tongs and whisks. My husband makes fun of the number, anyway. Oh, and menus, but those are for a project.

If cockroaches taste anything like lobster, sign me up for a batch. Hell, they'd probably be really cheap, right? I cannot STAND the combination of oregano and tomato paste. In fact, I'm pretty put off by oregano in general, though I have had it in preparations that don't taste and smell like vomit to me (which, sorry, is how I perceive pizza sauce). Fennel/anise/licorice is also gross. I try to like it, and I can eat it, but I don't enjoy it. In the same category is rye bread, with or without caraway seeds, which I also dislike strongly. I don't like coffee, but small amounts of it are pretty good in certain applications (like tiramisu). Offal puts me off, though I really want to try it as prepared by someone who knows what they're doing. I hear there's a really good place in town to get sweetbreads so I plan to go there sometime. I don't know that I could eat an eyeball unless I was absolutely starving. If I didn't know what it was... sure. I do not like raw squid. It tastes and feels like plastic to me. I am really sensitive to food textures so sometimes I gag on things I like the flavor of, but I try not to. I will eat anything, even stuff I hate, in the hopes that someday I will like everything. I mean, how could I possibly not like oregano? Edited to add that I also think black pepper is muchly overdone in many dishes. I do think it goes well with a lot of things, and pepper on strawberries is really nice. But I think the nastiest thing in the world (and this, of course, is in addition to the inherent nastiness of such things) is the precooked chicken you can buy in the supermarket. They also use it at Toxic Hell and any restaurant too cheap to grill their own chicken. It inevitably tastes like black pepper in the worst possible way. I can't imagine how anyone could eat that.

Just finished eating a small sirloin steak, sprinkled with salt and broiled (medium), on a bun with horseradish and sour cream. Newcastle on the side.