If I had Tattoos:
Maybe one day.
May 4, 2011
My Job is like Chopped in Real Life
I love my job. I really do. I get to cook and create in one of the best kitchens in Utah every day, which is glorious, and sometimes completely overwhelming and stressful.
Have you ever seen “Chopped” on Food Network? Well, the basic premise is there are 4 chefs competing for a $10,000 prize. The goal is to create a three-course meal (appetizer, entrée, dessert) in three separate rounds, with one chef being eliminated, or “chopped” each round. The tricky part? each chef has a basket of identical ingredients that are intentionally difficult to work with. An appetizer basket may contain things like, Kale, orange marmalade, black garlic and anchovies. The chefs have to use all the ingredients to compose their dish, the dishes are judged, and one is chopped, until only one remains the winner.
Yeah, my job on Monday is a lot like that.
You see, every Monday is “local’s night” – we don’t offer our standard menu, but create a 3 and 5 course tasting menu from the ground up. It’s new and different every Monday, and really showcases the talent of our chefs. We have access to a huge array of locally sourced produce, proteins and other ingredients from Snake River Farms, Beehive Cheese, Shepard’s Farm. Niman Ranch, etc. It’s local, fresh, in season, and fantastic.
So every Monday, as the salad chef, I’m responsible for creating 2 soups, 2 salads, and the amuse bouche – a single-bite preview of the evenings meal. It’s a little intimidating to say the least, especially when I have so many great ingredients to work with. Only thing is, all the other chefs are doing the same thing, and when an ingredient has been spoken for, it’s gone. So the trick is to be creative quickly.
So last night I spent about an hour thumbing through recipe books before my inspiration finally struck. There were a few adjustments to be made, because some ingredients had already been spoken for, but I’m very pleased with what I turned out.
Amuse-bouche
Creamy goat-cheese rice, done risottos style, with black caraway seed, in a roasted red pepper puree with green olive relish and cilantro
Salads
Artisanal greens with ginger citrus vinaigrette, candied almonds, and goat cheese
broccoli carrot salad with white balsamic honey vinaigrette, sunflower seeds, bacon and pomegranate seeds
Soups
Carrot Parsnip soup with ginger
Spicy tomato soup with dill creme fraiche
It was all pretty damn tasty, I’m not gonna lie. The spicy tomato soup had such a rich depth of flavor and the heat was very mellow, almost an afterthought. I’m pretty proud of myself.
So anyway, the point is, I love my job. It’s fun/stressful. I make good food. You should stop by on a Monday and say hello, and enjoy a fantastic meal.
The end.
Jan 18, 2011
Yeah, I’ve Been Gone for a While
Let’s play a little catch-up here, shall we?
I know, I know… I’ve missed you, too. I’ll work on being a little more regular in my updates, maybe start with a once-a-week commitment? I mean, it’s not like I’ve been just sitting around doing nothing the whole time. A lot has changed!
What’s changed?
Well, probably the biggest thing is my career, but that’s kind of a long story.
What? You’ve got time? You’ve missed me? OK, fine, get comfortable then, and I’ll tell you all about it…
For several years now, I’ve been working in corporate America… wait, perhaps I should start earlier than this, even…
The way-back machine, working at UPS
In 1996 I went to work for UPS in their Salt Lake City phone center. The skills I learned working for The Ritz-Carlton made me a natural for working the phones, and I excelled and advanced quickly, and I really loved the work. I had great benefits, made pretty good money, loved the people I worked with – life was good.
Well, looking back, I really think that I may have pursued a management position a little too aggressively. I got the position and the accompanying raise, but didn’t enjoy the work nearly as much. It really wasn’t a good fit for my skill set. BUT, I had a good gig with benefits and money and awesome people and stuff, so I just kind of worked through all the growing unhappiness and kept at it.
Then I read a book by Randy Gage from his Prosperity Series titled “101 Keys To Your Prosperity”. One of the “keys” said something to the effect of as long as we hold on so tightly to what we have in the moment, we can never be open to the abundance that is out there waiting for us. Now, that’s paraphrased, but it pretty much hit me like a truck – I was holding on to my job at UPS with a white-knuckle death grip!
I went into work the next day and gave my two weeks notice. My supervisor and manager really didn’t know how to handle it when I told them I had no other offers on the table and didn’t have a clue where I was going next or what I would be doing. My manager was very generous and offered to pay me out for the two weeks without me having to report to work, giving me “a little time to figure things out”. I really appreciated it, and I’m still very grateful for her, she was a good manager.
Letting go and trusting
So for the next three months I didn’t really do anything. I cashed out all of my UPS stock to pay bills since I didn’t have an income, and after three months, in December of 2002, we were on the verge of homelessness and completely destitute. Our cupboards were completely empty – not even ramen noodles. The heat had been shut off, and all the other utilities were on the verge as well, and our car loan company was threatening to repossess our car. Our finances were as bad as they’ve ever been.
I have no idea how we survived or what miracles carried us through, but in January, I started getting a somewhat steady flow of work designing logos, business cards and marketing material for some friends and family. I realized that there was a lot more that I could do for these clients that would make a huge difference in their respective businesses, and so I spent the next several weeks researching, reading, testing and learning about the psychology of commerce and marketing. I developed a process for creating a brand using the same tools that Fortune 500 companies use to portray and market themselves, but at a price that was accessible to small business owners.
Once again, I loved what I did. Okay, point of clarity – I loved the branding work, but I hated the business and sales part of it. Now, I KNOW that those other two are necessary, but I’m really not that good at either one, and it created all kinds of problems. The money came in sporadically at best, and it was always a dance of which bills to catch up on when the money came in, so there was never any extra to put away, save up, plan for the future or anything.
My sweetheart supported me and stuck with me through all of this, even though many times I’m sure it would have been easier to not. And after 5 rough years of struggling with it, it was time for me to go back to work for the man. I learned that I’m not good at being self-employed, and I’m not a good business owner. And thats ok!
Going back to work for The Man
So I went to work for a credit repair firm. The work was ok, I liked the people I worked with, but it felt VERY restrictive after having the freedom of being self employed. Although I did well there for awhile, ultimately it wasn’t a good fit, and I knew it. So I went to work for another credit repair firm – much smaller, more casual environment – it was a much better fit. I excelled there for a bit, and had some really good success in my first three months. Then something changed. I’m still not sure what it was, but my stats were very clearly on a slow and steady decline. Me and the boss met many times to discuss what adjustments and changes could be made and what needed to happen. I worked hard, but never could find the balance and success I had in my first three months.
Around March of 2010, a friend of mine approached me about a business he was developing, and asked if I was interested. I was, and after talking about the details, it looked like I could make about twice as much working for him. I wasn’t at all passionate or even intrigued by anything other than the money – the work itself had no draw for me. But that didn’t matter, the money did. I left the credit repair firm, took a few weeks off, and when it came time to start putting things together for the new gig, it all fell apart. There was no job, and probably wouldn’t be for quite some time, if at all.
I went back to the credit repair firm and talked to my old boss, who is actually a very old and dear friend. He had some ideas, and offered me a position, which I gladly accepted. Another 6 months of struggles, and we both agreed that my time there was done. We left on the best of terms, and I truly appreciate him.
Finding my Bliss
Well, a few weeks before we had this discussion and parted ways, I started working with a coach. Now, I’ve been friends with this man for many years, and we’ve actually had several discussions over the years about work and careers and finances and things. One recurring theme in all of our discussions has been that although I wasn’t unhappy in what I was doing, I wasn’t really passionate about it either. He questioned me many times on this, and I never could figure out what I was passionate about.
Well, once I started working with him as my coach, he invited me to one of his trainings. I went into that weekend not knowing what to expect, and I came away knowing what my passion was – food.
Now, I know that this seems painfully obvious to lots of you, but I didn’t realize it until then. So I decided to get back into food. I wasn’t at all sure what that meant, or where the journey would take me, but I knew I was going to be cooking and creating with food.
Fast forward to a month ago – a good friend of mine has many connections in the restaurant industry b y virtue of his work in POS retail systems. He was generous enough to give glowing recommendations to several high-end eateries here in Salt Lake, and I made contact with the owners and managers of these fine restaurants.
After making a few calls and meeting a few of them in person, I had an opportunity to do a pastiche interview at The Metropolitan, and I was totally excited.
Hell’s Kitchen in real life (only without so much yelling and angry British chef)
Now, pastiche basically means that I showed up (it was suggested that I bring my own knives) and was given a menu and a list of prep work, and then cut loose to see how I performed. A little daunting to say the least, considering it’s been 15 years or more since I set foot in a commercial kitchen.
I met the chef, and his sous chef, who were both real nice and helpful. I let them both know that I was probably a little rusty, but I was a hard worker and a fast learner. I got set up at the far end of the line where the salads are prepared. The chef showed me the four salads I’d be responsible for for the evening, gave me a quick tour, and then let me go to work.
The first thing I did once I had made a prep list was grab a cutting board. Well, I just grabbed the one that looked about the size I wanted. It was light blue. No sooner did I have it set up than the sous came down and said, very nicely, “you’ll probably want to use one of the other boards, this one’s a fish board (meaning it’s only used for fish). I felt dumb for a minute, but got back to work.
I started dicing some apples, and while still on my first apple, managed to put my finger in the wrong place and cut myself pretty deeply. I managed to keep all the blood off the prep surface, but I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. The sous came down and asked me if I needed to leave. Oh HELL no! Yeah, I needed stitches, but I DAMN sure wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away! After several minutes under cold water, I got the bleeding to slow down enough to put on a bandage and a glove, and I went back to work. I had to change the bandage four or five more times over the next few hours until the bleeding had completely stopped, but I was able to finish without much difficulty.
So once I was bandaged and back to work, the sous let me know that I would also be responsible for the amuse bouche for the evening. As if I wasn’t under enough pressure! This certainly was a trial by fire! With a little guidance from the sous on what I had available to me, I got some red onions pickling and began slicing paper-thin pieces of a pistachios-crusted beef carpaccio that was available, and made a quick arugula salad toped with the onions and a slice of the beef, finished with cracked black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. The chef tasted it and approved, so I prepared a tray of 30 to start the evening.
Once all the prep was finished (the chef at the station next to mine showed me a few tricks for preparing the apples and pomegranates), I cleaned my station and got set up for service. There was a party of 20 being seated at 6:00, which was technically the end of my pastiche, but the chef asked if I’d be willing to stick around a bit longer, as he wanted to see how I performed under pressure plating 20 salads and getting them out. Of course, I had no problem with this. The party took a little longer than expected to be ready, but once the word came in, I went to work. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the dance of working the line – opening drawers, grabbing containers, putting it together, back and forth from the walk-in to the line, plates down, food plated, plates up – I was in heaven!
After the rush of getting the 20 salads for the party out, the chef told me to go get changed and hang out because he wanted to talk to me. I packed up my knives, took off my chef coat and apron, and had a seat at the bar. When the chef came out a few minutes later, he told me that he was impressed with my skills, that he’d noticed a few things I could improve, but overall, was impressed at how I’d performed after being out of the kitchen for so long. Then he offered me the job. Now, it was a serious pay cut, but I took the offer. We’ll see what happens next. Hopefully I can advance quickly.
So now you’re pretty much up to speed on what’s going on. I work Tuesday through Friday this week, so feel free to stop in and see me!
December 12, 2010
Leaving a Mark
Just a week ago I was sitting alone, on a rock, in the middle of nowhere (literally), gazing out at the rising sun, and contemplating the mark I am leaving on this world. It wasn’t in arrogance, and I have no grandiose plans to be memorialized and remembered for great accomplishments after I’m gone. But we all leave a mark, one way or another. I’m still working on figuring out what mark I leave, but while I’ve been thinking and pondering, my friend Roslyn has been doing.
About a week ago she decided that she wanted to make a difference here in our community. She found out that Saturdays and Sundays are the hungry days for Salt Lake’s homeless, as most of the traditional resources and soup kitchens are closed for the weekend.
So she decided to feed some hungry people. She reached out to her friends via phone and Facebook, and even up until the night before was unsure of what the turnout would be. She needn’t have worried.
I arrived at Pioneer park on Saturday morning a little after 9, and six griddles were already fired up in a neat line and pancakes were coming off rapidly. There were two tables set up just a little ways away with plates, napkins, utensils, juice, butter and syrup. I was only somewhat surprised at the number of volunteers that had showed up to be a part of this vision thought up by Rosalyn. There were around 30 volunteers, and probably 200 hungry people in line already.
In just a few short days, Roslyn had made a mark on not just the hungry people that were fed, but those of us who volunteered and contributed as well. She gathered 30 lbs of pancake mix, 6 gallons of syrup, utensils and everything necessary to serve them, griddles and cooks willing to contribute – she made it all happen, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it for the hour or so we were there.
So, Roslyn, I’m grateful to you. Thank you for being my teacher, and giving me an opportunity to be in service.
October 24, 2010
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