Good Days Ahead

Today was a good day. It has been a while since I could say that without wanting to immediately follow it with "but.." and then complain about 12 things that are going wrong. 

Reading this blog has probably been much like reading angsty teen Eyore's blog after his girlfriend dumped him a week before prom. 

Sorry about that.

Today started out as any day in Ohio might. Snow storm. Cloudy. Rainy. Never ending train of semi trucks spraying sludge all over my windshield. 

Then we started playing with food at work. THIS IS WHAT I WAS MISSING. I have done almost zero of this. I have been mostly talking about playing with food. And fixing food that I don't give two shits about. Today I PLAYED WITH FOOD. And I made this, which I need a cool name for. It is a deconstructed Wellington, but the word deconstructed makes me stabby, so it can't be named that. Suggestions? It was delicious. 

Pretty food. It will have a micro green salad when it is for realsies. I would expect more pictures in the future. And yes that is the wall in the current restaurant; reason number 7568 I want the new restaurant to open.

Then this happened. I call it the hillbilly sous vide.

In other words  a bunch of plates and mugs holding down meat in a make shift sous vide that I built out of a steam well and immersion circulator. Because, DAMMIT, I was sous vide (ing?) some shit today.

And then this happened.

And it was the best march madness bracket in history. Yes, I did take Brat Pack and The Rachel to the end. And yes it was awesome.

Maybe today was a fluke, but I hope not. I am going to see it as a sign of things heading in the right direction. 

RW Day 1: A survivors story

Does it seem like it is ALWAYS restaurant week to anyone else? Because it seems that way to me.

Also, I realized today that I have been at my job for 7 months! What the what? That is nuts.

We are including lunch in the fray this time, running a daily feature, dessert, and drink for $10. That is a deal let me tell you. And a local online blog reviewed it! And liked it! And posted it on their very famous, very well read blog. Which means the rest of my week is going to be a living hell. And I am OK with it.

On to the fun stuff...pictures of the items I have on the menu. Two I conceptualized and executed. Two I just executed. 

 Margherita Salad with fried pita croutons.

 Steamed Mussels in Spicy Lemongrass Broth with Cilantro, Mint, and Basil.

 Warm Brussells Sprout Salad with bacon vinaigrette. Oh, wait. My fingers. (did not realize this happened until I went to upload these pictures. I left it in because, well, why not?)

Roasted Pork Belly with sherry vinegar gastrique. 

That time I actually listened, and shut the fuck up. Sort of.

The dinner party was amazing. Please commence yelling at me. I will stop now. It clearly is not a fluke, I may actually be good at this. MOTHER FUCKER WHY DO I NOT REALIZE THIS? 

I'm sorry. To all of you. For being such an insecure douche. I know you all love me anyway.

Moving on...

Here are the pictures you have all been waiting for. Or not waiting for. Either way.

 I opened with a play on green eggs and ham. Butter poached asparagus, salt pork lardons, white balsamic and fig reduction, and a breaded and deep fried soft cooked egg. (The idea being you cut into the egg, the yolk mixes with the vinegar and makes the dressing for the asparagus.)

The next course was sort of the vegetable course (I was going classic French courses, but just picking and choosing.) A mushroom and polenta terrine with homemade blue cheese, brocco sprouts, enoki mushrooms, and fresh thyme.

The main course was pork belly brined with fresh herbs, then slow roasted and topped with a maple gastrique and shaved Brussels sprout slaw.

The dessert was my least favorite dish. Homemade doughnuts with pistachio honey ice cream and cardamon scented caramel. The caramel seized, hence the glob sitting on top of the ice cream. Stupid caramel.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and I got lots of texts the next day saying how good it was. So, all in all, a success.

I will now shut the fuck up.

Restaurant Week Day 6

Mock Ruben. Housemade corned beef with braised red cabbage.

Restaurant Week Day 5

Lamb Bacon Fritters with Spinach Salad and Pumpkin Vinaigrette (only the fritters on this dish are mine)

Restaurant Week Day 4

Asian Meatloaf with Hoison Gravy and Sweet Potato Mash

Restaurant Week Day 3

Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich.

Restaurant Week Day 2

Bacon and Blue Mac and Cheese.

Disclaimer

The restaurant week posts are menu items I have created, but not specifically for restaurant week. Except the first one, the beet salad is on our restaurant week menu. Just a little showcase of me while I am too busy to post here. 

Restaurant Week Day 1

Beet and daikon salad with yellow pepper vinaigrette.

Indian Feast

My dad doesn't like "things." He likes events, quality time. Last summer for his birthday we took him on a Taco Truck Tour. This year for Christmas I made him a 6 course Indian tasting menu. Indian is his favorite. It went so smoothly I thought it was a trap. Tini, who helped me do the prep Friday night, made the comment that I was going to wake up to a missing stove because he couldn't believe it. 

So, without further ado, here are the pictures.

Since we don't have a kitchen table, the boy brought a card table from work. I think the table turned out quite pretty. Except for the candle that is clearly falling over. Thankfully we got that in the picture.

Deep Fried Chickpeas with homemade garam masala. That is my dad waiting ever so patiently to refill his bowl.

Cauliflower Pakora with Cilantro-Mint Chutney. This is not he prettiest plate of the day. I was pretty unhappy with it.

Carrot Ginger Soup. And a close up of the menu.

Spinach Salad with toasted cumin seeds.

Chicken Tikka Masala over Pea and Cilantro Basmati Rice.

I don't know how to describe this. It is called a ricotta cheese cake, but it was more like a cookie. It was spiced with cardamom pods, pistachios, and almonds. Delicious.

I hope all of you have a holiday filled with delicious food and even more delicious memories.

Dinner Follow-Up

I know that almost zero of you care about this, but I have to gush. And I almost did it on Facebook, except I tagged the restaurant in the post and I felt like a total food dweeb.

My dinner this evening was absolutely balls to the wall, epic, fucking awesome. 

We started with Oysters on the half shell that had an AMAZING cocktail sauce that tasted nothing like generic shrimp cocktail sauce. Imagine that with the sweetness of pomegranate. It was just unreal. I can take or leave oysters...this was probably the single greatest bite of food that I have had in a year. I am not even kidding.

Then we moved on to escargot cassoulet. Now...if you have never had escargot, I am judging you. It is delicious. Not in an acquired taste way either. I only excuse you if you do not like the texture of mushrooms because they are very similar. In place of the normal garlic, butter sauce that accompanies escargot, it was a creamy butter sauce with sauteed greens. It was very very different and something I would order again.

Then we had their signature salad that was a blue cheese cream dressing with candied walnuts. It was divine.

Here is where I am going to get you all on board, or at least the bacon lovers.

Pork three ways.

First was the ham and beans. Meh. It was OK. I don't particularly like baked beans. And they are one of those dishes that I think in order to stay true to, have a very typical flavor I don't love.

Then came the country pork rib with an ancho chili sauce. It was smoky and moist and I ate every bite of it.

THEN. The smoked pork belly. It quite literally melted in my mouth. I wanted to coat my entire body in it and die. It was decadent in the absolute best of ways.

I got to-go dessert for the boy, a dolce de leche panna cotta with homemade doughnut holes. He was equally impressed.

I am so full I am questioning if I am going to throw up all over my living room, while also having that delicious light-headedness that a great meal brings. If you have never gotten "food drunk," well, I feel sorry for you. Symptoms may also include the meat sweats.

I absolutely adore my culinary life.

Beer and Food

This week has turned into craziness. Tonight we did a beer dinner at the restaurant for 20 people. Pictured above is the root vegetable salad with charred shrimp and trapist ale vinaigrette. Note: this is not my food. I just took a picture for the sake of bragging that I helped plate it.

Tomorrow we have a lunch for 45. Tomorrow night we have a benefit for the Columbus Public Library for 500 and I get to go and prep and serve the food. 

Today was a 12 hour day.

Tomorrow will easily be 15 hours.

You know what the difference is? I LOVE IT. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT. 

AND! AND! I got my very own mead pairing dinner in January. Fuckity Fuck! 

They made me march out in front of all 20 people as they applauded. It was humiliating. And kind of awesome.

Sorry to be all Braggity McBraggerson, but today was a long, good day. And I wanted to share with all of you. 

Also, NCH is high as balls right now on cat nip. 

Also, also I got to drink the beer. It was delicious.

Brilliant

If you are friends with me on Facebook, I posted this there too. But, holy shit this looks amazing. Molecular gastronomy is not my thing...elevated comfort food is more my thing. But, I would love to spend a day in the mind of this man. I would love to learn how to do this shit. I would love to be brilliant enough to even THINK of doing this shit.

Random Food Pictures

Every time we sat down to eat a meal, we were halfway done before we remembered to take pictures of it! I was pissed because, well, I want to remember the food too! We mostly ate at the condo, grilling out. Here are some cilantro-lime chicken things with herb marinated grilled potatoes. An awesome way to cook potatoes, by the way. They get crispy like potato chips with that charred, grilled flavor.

We also stumbled upon this amazing little restaurant called Tijuana Flats that was cafe style food, but delicious. They had a hot sauce bar with like 30 different hot sauces you could try, most of which they made in house. Awesome place. It is a chain that I hope makes it's way to Ohio.

Yes, I had already started eating when I remembered to take the picture. The next three are from my birthday dinner at Emeril's. We actually had our camera with us for this one, but the lighting was shitty and it was hard to get photos that weren't washed out. So, I apologize for the quality, but the food had to be remembered. It was some good stuff.

Roasted asparagus salad with seared tuna. The white spot is frisee. It was absolutely amazing. The perfect combination of warm and cold and bitter and sweet. I would have married this salad and tiny little tuna-asparagus babies with it.

Andouille crusted red fish with shoe string potatoes and roasted patty pan squash. You guys. This, just, no. It was so freaking good. The sauce was smoky and the fish was delicate. 

This was the boy's dish, a BOA flatbread. Bacon, onion, and arugula. The bacon was smoked boar bacon and it was phenomenal. Out of this world, best bacon I have ever had, would also have little tiny boar shaped bacon with it. I need to stop procreating with food...

Burger Off!

This week is my last week of cooking in culinary school. It is very bittersweet. I want those 30 hours back and there are definitely people I never want to talk to again. But, I will miss the chefs and a handful of my classmates. I will miss the creativity and the total lack of structure when it comes to preparing food. Measuring annoys me.

This week we are doing American food and were challenged to pick two states and come up with a burger from each state and to prepare a mystery basket item, which turned out to be a hot dog. We had to do everything from scratch, from the bread to the sauces. Nothing could be store bought. I am so grateful to my classmate for making a huge batch of mayonnaise, because I break that shit every time. 

I know that I have been doing little else but posting pictures of food lately and I apologize. I promise to do something stupid and crazy and tell you about it soon.

 St Louis Burger. St Louis style (tangier and thinner) BBQ sauce with coleslaw, beer battered onion rings, and cayenne aioli. The burger is a combination of beef and pork.

 I hate hot dogs. I think they are gross. So, I figured why not wrap them in bacon and deep fry them. Turns out I like hot dogs cooked like this! They are served with the same cayenne aoili as the onion rings and carmelized onion.

California Burger. Ciabatta bread with avocado cream cheese, seasoned tomato, and micro greens, hand cut french fries and roasted garlic aoili. This burger is straight beefy goodness.

I was really proud of my burgers! I was the only one in the class to get 10's on all three and had people lined up to try the hot dog. The plates looked really good too. Yay for finals!

A day of "that's what she said" jokes

Today we smoked some meat. There was a lot of "is your meat ready?" "I can't wait to taste your meat" and "I have been playing with my meat all day" jokes, but over all it was a damn good meal. I thought you all would like to see.

 Out of the marinades and into the smoker. Starting at the front and going clockwise...brisket, half brisket (for the boy's mom), rack of ribs, pork butt.

 Mopping has begun and meat is starting to get bark.

 Brisket sliced. It was a really fatty brisket, which we just cut off as we ate it. So juicy! And check out that smoke ring. 

 Pulled Pork.

 The buffet, including my first ever attempt at cornbread. It was delicious.

 More of the buffet

 The boy's plate of food.

 

 Close up of the corn bread.

Ribs! These were done at 2:00 for our afternoon snack.

Food Porn VI

This week was Asia, specifically China and Japan.

 King Pao Chicken.

 Dan Dan Noodles that are the bane of my existence. I made them twice this week and they were subpar both times. New life goal: perfect the Dan Dan Noodle.

 Chinese Barbeque Pork.

 Bring on the Sushi! This is eel, obviously. Or Unagi as all the recipes said. It took me 15 minutes to figure out what the fuck Unagi was

 My first roll of sushi! This is a Dragon Roll. Tempura Shrimp in the middle, Unagi and Avocado on the outside.

 Dragon roll cut with pickled ginger and wasabi balls. I said balls.

 California rolls.

 Vegetable sushi of some kind. I didn't roll this, but my dragon rolls were on the plate, so I took a picture.

 Spicy Tuna rolls. This shit was good. We had some issues with rolling it and making it look good, as you can see. Too much rice, not enough spicy tuna.

 More of the vegetable rolls.

 Oshikashi. It is a wilted spinach salad with soy and mirin dressing. Surprisingly good.

 Seared Salmon with wasabi mayo.

 On the left are california rolls. On the right are a bunch of variety rolls...we just put a bunch of stuff in the them and rolled them. Not sure what some of them are. 

 These are the vegetable rolls done correctly. 

 Green tea rice. Surprisingly good...but the green tea that I used to make it costs $50 a pound. Probably not something I can realistically make at home.

 Up close of the Dragon Roll. You are not supposed to have that spiral affect in good quality sushi, but considering it was my first time, I think I still did a pretty good job.

Salmon Sashimi.