01.30.07

Why I Hate Rachael Ray

Posted in Reviews, Greatest Hits, Rants and Raves at 2:32 pm by Chef Matt

Another series of questions that people often ask me are, “What do you think of TV Chefs?” or “Do you watch Top Chef/Hell’s Kitchen/Iron Chef?” or “What do you think of Emeril/Alton Brown/Bobby Flay/etc.?” In short, people seem to think I am an expert on what is happening on TV since I am now a professional chef. And you know what? To some degree, they are right.

Warning: what follows is a very long blog post that is full of unproductive criticism of TV shows and/or celebrities that you might like. If you don’t think you’ll like it, please don’t bother reading, and for God’s sake, don’t write me telling me how much you love them and their shows. I promise you that the only thing I care about less than who is going to win Top Chef, is what you think of the show. But seeing as how this is my blog, I will therefore proceed.

First things first. I do NOT watch Top Chef or Hell’s Kitchen, or any of that other garbage. I don’t want to see amateur chefs compete against each other in a reality show format where they spend more time bitching about each other than actually cooking. If I want to see a bunch of whiny losers who can barely cook complain about each other, I would go back to culinary school.

So please, friends, stop asking me about these shows. I don’t like them, I don’t watch them, and nothing is going to make me start.

Then there is Food Network. Food Network as a whole has a very serious problem, and that problem is that they have only 5 or 6 celebrity chefs who star in all of their shows, The result is an annoying mélange of exclusively Euro-centric cuisine presented by unfathomably irritating hosts. In short, there are three types of show on Food Network:

Oh yeah, that’s entertainment.

But before you think this rant is all sour grapes, first let me tell you about a few shows/chefs on there that I find tolerable.

Yes, he’s a dork, but so am I…

1. Alton Brown. It is hard not to like the guy. Sure, his show Good Eats can be a little corny (ok, a LOT corny) at times, but his presentation of food science is fascinating and really informative. I have also met him, and I have to admit that he really is a good guy. I don’t have much against him except to say that sometimes he covers a topic that just does not warrant 30 minutes of television. Please, an entire show on barley? Give me a break!

2. Road Tasted. This is the show hosted by Bobbie and Jamie, Paula Deen’s sons. I am sure they will not be happy to know what I think of their mom (more on her later), but I find them to be down to earth and relatively fun and interesting to watch. But I can see myself tiring of them once they get 15 more shows. It is only a matter of time…

Takeshi Kaga made “weird” into an art form.

3. Iron Chef - both of them. The old Japanese one was fantastic camp. The incredibly odd “chairman”, the dodgy translations of Japanese to English, the actress on every episode who was so completely ditzy it was not to be believed - this was so bad, it was great. Sure, maybe I had not heard of half the secret ingredients they were using, but it was fabulous to watch: both from the aspect of appreciating their tremendous culinary skills, and from my love of old Godzilla movies. The American version is good because Alton Brown is there hosting, and many of the challengers are people I have heard of and like to see in action. Again, I can really appreciate what they are doing, and admire the creations unfolding in front of me. I don’t watch it every time it is on, and I was REALLY tired of the 10,000 replays of the episode with Giada De Laurentiis and Rachael Ray on there, but at least I can actually watch it for the full hour, which is much more time than I am usually able to spend on that channel.

So with those niceties out of the way, allow me to go through the major disasters that Food Network otherwise sees fit to air:

I don’t get it Bobby, do you think you’re a baseball player, or a bad ass? I’ll give you a hint: “C: None of the Above.”

1. Bobby Flay. Wow, has there ever been such a dick on the face of the Earth? Yes, he can cook. He is a fabulous plate designer as well - perhaps one of the best in America. But have you ever heard of the concept of humility you prick? When he went on Iron Chef Japan and won, he stood up on his cutting board (an insult in Japan) and waved the American flag. What a cock. And his latest clusterfuck of a show - Throwdown - has this line in the intro:

Bobby: “…I may even lose…”

Oh God, say it ain’t so Bobby! Even you?! Lose?!? I thought that was impossible!

Of course you might, you arrogant douche bag. For the record, the only two times I have seen the end of this show: he lost. That made me swimmingly happy. The only thing that would have made me happier would be to see him lose, and then get run over by a bus.

He has a cooking show based exclusively around the premise of selling a spice rub he invented. Apparently he is also
re-inventing the word “shameless”.

2. Emeril. How did this guy ever become a celebrity? Yes, again, he can cook. I used to watch him back when he was a guest on Julia Child’s show. He was funny, interesting and very informative. But this live show that he hosts now? I mean can anybody out there say “phoning in a performance”? Jesus, I can cook better than this guy does in front of that crowd. I can also do it without saying “Kick it up a notch!” even once. If I had paid to be in that audience, I would ask for my money back - even if I got to sample the food. Seriously, that crowd of mouth-breathers who sit there and watch this idiot for an hour while clapping like wind-up chimpanzees whenever he says “Bam!” are the target demographic for Food Network: they wouldn’t know good cooking if it bit them on the ass. So Emeril is free to jerk off in front of them for an hour and pretend that he is actually preparing haute cuisine.

And for the record, his spice blend, “Essence of Emeril” is labeled with total accuracy. I can rub it onto any meat, and the result tastes just like Emeril has sweated all over it. Horrific.

I would have the same
deer-in-the-headlights expression too if I ever saw the T-crane that pulled off this face-lift.

3. Paula Deen. Everybody has that one old annoying relative they can’t wait to send to an old folk’s home. For some reason Food Network thinks that taking one and filming them cook fatty food makes good sense to add to their rotation. The food she makes is outrageously terrible. This is cooking for people that think suspending banana slices in Jell-O is a fancy dessert. And if she were any more annoying, she would have to run for Congress. Her latest show - Paula’s Party - is like Emeril’s live show, only without the charisma. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she will actually sit in the laps of some of the guests while feeding them her “food”. It is as embarrassing to watch as it is repulsive. This lady needs to be put into a nice, quiet home, where there are no kitchens and no cameras, and then forgotten about forever.

Pull Giada! Pull! I know those sweater cows are heavy, but you can straighten up!

4. Giada De Laurentiis. Cooking with cleavage. There are two great things about this cooking bobble-head doll, and she wears a low-cut neckline in every show to make sure we don’t forget what they are. She seems to be incapable of describing any food as something other than “crunchy”. Seriously, here is the Everyday Italian Drinking Game I made up:

“Crunch” or “Crunchy”
“Crisp” or “Crispy”
“Light”
“Fluffy”

I promise you, you will be hammered in just 30 minutes. And Giada’s freakishly large head will suddenly start lookin’ pretty good.

Isn’t this the same jackass who hosts “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”?

5. Shows about Americans gaining mass en masse. Bad puns aside, this series of shows includes all the road trip shows to see 10,000 Texans stuff themselves with chili, or 3,000 North Carolinians argue about the best barbeque recipe, or to watch 5,000 West Virginians scrape opossums off the road. They are all the same, and all unwatchable.

Or perhaps they think we want to know about the secret life of Tootsie Rolls? Here’s the secret: they are full of sugar and are good for removing loose teeth. No need for 30 minutes on the subject.

Or maybe we want to see a chef stick a microphone in the face of nitwits “on the street” and ask them what they think about cupcakes. “Oh I like them,” comes the reply. Wow. Thank God we had that crack roving reporter to bring us that late-breaking news. These shows are like the sawdust found in cheap hot dogs - pure filler.

I have seen the face of evil, and verily it is she…

But all of this I have mentioned above is pure programming gold compared to the dark-haired purveyor of all things evil in the culinary world: Rachael Ray.

Where do I begin? Ah yes, the NON-STOP YELLING! She yells ALL THE TIME when she is talking. Even when she is trying to host an interview on her horrific talk show, she can’t talk at anything below 120 decibels. (For comparison, a chainsaw is 110dB.) Add to this the fact that her voice is as gravelly as Lucille Ball’s was after smoking a carton of Lucky Strikes, and the result is a sound that I can not only hear from three rooms away in the house when my wife is flipping through channels, but also one that makes me hiss in fear and anger like my cats whenever I hear it.

-EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil. That’s what she actually calls it: “E-V-O-O, Extra Virgin Olive Oil”. Note, I did NOT say she calls it “E-V-O-O.” If she just stopped there, it would be merely stupid. But she goes all the way to the level of “taking the short bus to school” by using the acronym, and then spelling out what it means for us right after. WHY?!? What is the point of using an acronym if you are then going to say what it means right after it? Pick one or the other! I don’t go around saying, “Yeah, I need some money from the ATM - automatic teller machine, but I can’t remember my PIN - personal identification number, so I guess I can’t check on the balance of my CD - certificate of deposit.” I would sound like a retard, and thus, I guess be eligible for my own cooking show.

-The non-stop whoring. No, I am not implying she sells her body in a sexual way, but she sure as hell sells herself in every other way imaginable. Cheap knives, bad food, pathetically under-tested cookbooks, crappy place settings - there is NOTHING she won’t attach her ugly mug to. I can’t even eat a Nabisco cracker now without having to look at her. Her face is on EVERY SIDE of a box of Saltines! And she would be on every side of this box of Triscuits I am holding right now if it weren’t for those pesky “nutrition facts” on one of the sides… How inconsiderate of the government - don’t they know that they are depriving us of the opportunity to see even more images of Rachael’s face? And on the back is a recipe from Rachael. Just for me. Yes, it is a Tuna and White Bean Salad. No Triscuits in it - just something to spread on them. And what is one of the ingredients? “1 Tablespoon EVOO - extra virgin olive oil” No, I am not kidding, it REALLY says that on the box. Nabisco, I am gearing up for a boycott of your crackers…

And you probably thought I was kidding. Shame on you!

-Her shows. $40 a Day, 30 Minute Meals and so many more. Doesn’t Food Network realize there are many more talented people out there who could do these shows, and do them so much better? Alas, Rachael brings in the ratings for some reason, so she is everywhere. And now she has a talk show on Fox. Her shameless self-promotion makes Oprah (the one who set the original standard for personal whoring, and a producer of this train wreck) look introverted by comparison. The crowd appears to be the same crowd from Emeril’s show carted over to clap like circus seals for her. But for some reason, they only bring over the women. It’s just as well since any guy in that audience either has been (or must instantly be) castrated. We have to keep the gene pool clean people!

Not only is this not sexy, it looks like she could eat that whole turkey in one bite.

- Her giant freaking mouth. It is unreal. It literally stretches from one ear to the other. She looks like she could eat a banana sideways and still have room for pint of strawberries. Throw some yogurt in there, and she could make herself a smoothie without a mixer. If she ever wanted to dress up as a clown, it would take two tubes of lipstick to ring that giant wall of teeth she has. This is a not attractive woman, but for some reason she apparently thinks she is, and the people at FHM Magazine thought so too - enough so to have her pose for some photos. If I could sandblast any images from my brain, it would be these. They are truly nasty, and if any of them ever went on a box of Triscuits, I think I would forever be incapable of eating anything that had an even remotely crunchy texture (which would be a real blow to what I could eat from Giada’s show…)

For more quality loathing of Ms. Ray, be sure to check out the Rachael Ray Sucks Community. There are usually 3 or 4 posts A DAY with new reasons to hate her. I have it bookmarked, and couldn’t agree with them more. Hell, I just learned there that Colavita Olive Oil is next in line for her whoring. Looks like I know what brand I won’t be buying…

So there you have it - my personal vendetta against food shows, Food Network and all the celebrity “chefs” they have on there. There is a real need for some quality TV in this country, and I will address that issue as soon as I am done watching the latest “shocking paternity test results” on Maury.

Send hate mail to: Chef Matt

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01.27.07

So Long to the Beet Salad…

Posted in The Story, Recipes at 2:34 pm by Chef Matt

Yesterday was one of the best days I have had yet at Vero. It is sometimes hard to tell a good day from a regular one - though the bad ones really stick out - since so many days are exactly the same. Restaurant work is about repetition. You have to create the same meals day after day, and that means doing all the same prep work before every shift, and getting into a rhythm so as to be able to do the same work quickly and efficiently. I think I touched on this sometime back, referring to the whole rhythm in a kitchen being like a carefully choreographed dance. With all this repetition and performing tasks in out of the sheer force of non-focused habit, the days can tend to bleed together in your mind. Ask me when the last time I worked on an 8-top was, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was last Wednesday, or last month. Those kinds of things - while hard at the time - are all blended together in my head as part of the whole “Vero experience”.

“All work and no play… All work and no play… Hmmm… must have been a chef who wrote this…”

Mind you, this fact makes coming up with new and exciting material for the blog a little challenging at times. I hope you all appreciate the effort!

But yesterday had some elements that really stood out to make them better than other days.

First of all, there was the foie gras which I mentioned in my previous post. It held its illustrious place on the specials menu, mainly because we need to sell all that we have, but also because our customers really seemed to enjoy it. So much so that one of our servers came back to tell me that one of the gentlemen who had ordered it was simply raving about how good it was! When she came back the third time to tell me how much he enjoyed it, I simply had to go out and meet him to tell him how much I appreciated his kind words about my recipe.

I dusted myself off, took off my Philadelphia Eagles chef’s hat, and switched my jacket front around to head out front. (For those of you who don’t know, chef’s jackets are double-breasted in the front. This is for two reasons: 1. It makes a double-thick layer in your front to protect you from burning hot things coming off the stove at you. 2. If you keep a clean side underneath, all you need to do is switch it around, and you are suddenly clean enough to go outside and greet guests.) My eyes were still adjusting to the relative darkness of the dining room when I arrived at the table, but indeed this kind gentleman had a lot of very nice things to say about my foie gras preparation. In return, I told him how I came up with the flavor combinations, and how thrilled I was that he had enjoyed such a fine meal. He had come before, and he was definitely set on coming again.

Surely this was the reason I became a chef, and so it was good to actually meet one of my ever-growing legion of fans. Currently the count stands at 4. (My parents, my wife, and this guy.) Only a few thousand left to go…

The next great development came in the form of a menu change. I mentioned before how we were planning on making some changes to our regular menu, and yesterday several of them took effect. The one that effected me directly was the replacement of a beet salad with a spinach salad. Most people would look at this as zero-sum game: one salad gone, one added, little change. But to me, this was truly addition by subtraction.

Leave them underground I say…

For the record (I believe I have mentioned this as well but I am too lazy to look it up to provide you with a link) I think beets are nasty. They are one of the two things I just can’t eat, the other being broccoli. But I know that many people like beets, and I had no problem in theory making a salad with beets on them for those people who do enjoy them. But the beet salad that we made was one that also had creamy goat cheese (which made my hands dirty) followed by gold and red beets carefully positioned on the bed of arugula in such a way that they were almost always destined to fall over (and make my hands dirty again from the red beet juice…) In short, this was a salad that was a pain to build, and forced me to clean my hands twice during its construction. I do not miss any element of this salad, and I am much more excited about the replacement salad anyway.

Pancetta - for all practical purposes, it is Italian bacon, which means it is delicious any way you slice it!
Image from pancetta.org

A bed of fresh baby spinach leaves is tossed with my own sherry-champagne vinaigrette and accompanied by marinated grapes, toasted pumpkin seeds and crispy brown sugar-coated pancetta. This is all topped off with a few thin shavings of Manchego cheese, and I must say, the result is downright heavenly. I made a sample salad for the staff to see/taste, and after a few bites, I found myself eating the whole thing before anyone else could have any.

Replacing a salad topped with beets for one topped with bacon. Hmmm… I wonder why this was a move in the right direction?

A better menu item, and a new fan of my work. All in one day! Surely last night will be a Friday that will stand out in my mind for many months to come. Oh wait, or was yesterday a Thursday?… What day is this?…

Matt

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01.26.07

Foie Gras, My Way

Posted in The Story, Recipes at 2:18 am by Chef Matt

“So wait, what are you doing with the foie gras?…”

Foie Gras - another dish that I have to ask: “Who is the first person who thought eating THIS would be a good idea?…”

I must have heard this a dozen times while making this dish, but I held by what I was thinking from the start. Word came in that we were getting some foie gras, and we wanted to run it as an appetizer. Our pasty chef, Amy, had just poached some pears, and she suggested I use the liquid to make a sauce for the foie gras with it.

Using my bible of the kitchen - Culinary Artistry - I figured I should accompany the foie gras with toast and grapes, which would go well with the pear sauce. But while this book is helpful in giving some sense of the flavor ideas that will make the final product taste great, it is a whole different game trying to put the actual dish together.

So first the sauce. I was reducing the pear liquid, and I wanted to give it a nice herb flavor. But at the same time, I didn’t want to put all kinds of “specks” in the sauce. I wanted to keep it clear and smooth. Well, the easy way to do this is to wrap the herbs you want to use in a cheese cloth, and steep them in the sauce as it boils. I decided I wanted to use tarragon and black peppercorns.

“Hey Jay, where’s the cheesecloth?”

“We don’t have cheesecloth, Jackass.”

OK, so now it was time to improvise. I could boil the tarragon and peppercorns in the sauce and then strain it, but I personally hate straining. I don’t know why, I just do. So I went over to the coffee station, got a coffee filter, put in the herbs, tied it up, and we were in business. The sauce reduced beautifully, and with a little cornstarch to thicken things up, the sauce was nothing short of fabulous.

The next element I wanted to add was some cherries. Cherries and foie gras go together amazingly well, so I asked Jay if he could order me some. The price quote came back at $35 a case, so that was a no go. Time to improvise again. We had some dried cherries in house, so I figured I could reconstitute them. Using warm water, a touch of brandy, a splash of vanilla syrup and some mint leaves from my dessert station, I plumped them back up to “fighting weight”. And to tell you the truth, I was amazed how well they turned out. Hell, the main reason I am writing this down here is so I don’t forget this combination. These turned out mush better than expected, and really added a nice, full bodied touch to the dish.

Sure, turning them into wine is nice as well, but these were destined for another purpose.

Now it was time to work on the grapes. I halved some red and green grapes, and was planning to sauté them in butter with some rosemary. But as I was slicing the grapes in half, something occurred to me about this dish. Here I had all these soft, flavorful fruity elements, but nothing with any sort of crunch, and nothing with a “different” flavor. Sure, the toast points (Amy ordered brioche to give the dish a little class) would offer a little bit of these characteristics, but nothing else on the plate would offer any sort of resistance to the teeth. I remembered that I once had foie gras with walnuts in France, and I double-checked good old Culinary Artistry - yup, walnuts go well with both foie gras and with grapes. So a quick sauté of the nuts in butter and then the grapes and rosemary joined the pan. I finished them off with honey and bourbon. A little “fire in the hole” flambé, and the grapes were ready as well.

Now came the tricky part. I had to configure the layout of the dish on a plate for service. While I am good with flavor combinations for a superior overall taste to a dish, I am severely lacking in the plating department. I just don’t have a good artistic eye. I was blessed with a great flavor sense, but quality plating is just not my strong point. So I began to test some layout concepts on a sample plate - using some oval-shaped pieces of toast as my “mock foie gras” for placement purposes. I must have gone through 8 or 9 different configurations, cutting the toast in different ways, arranging the plate with mixed greens, stacking elements for height… I just couldn’t come up with anything I was very happy with.

Finally Joy came over and suggested that the brioche should be in the form of points - since that was a classical presentation style - and the three main elements - toast, foie gras and berries (I was combining the grapes and cherries together) be centered in the plate simply so as to focus on the quality of the dish itself. If I overworked the presentation, that may take away from the total experience of the dish. Then when Dave came in (he is a fantastic plate designer) I asked how to best work those three elements, and he came up with a design in about 20 seconds that was just perfect. Foie gras at 9 o’clock, grapes and cherries in the center, and toast points out to the side at three o’clock just barely sticking out over the edge of the plate. The pear glaze was then simply drizzled on the top, and we were a go for dinnertime.

All this work for one dish on the appetizer menu. And this is to say nothing of the calculations I made to help determine the right price to charge for the plate, or how I had to weigh out every portion (since foie grasis very expensive, we couldn’t just “eyeball” or “guesstimate” it…), or how we cooked up some samples to make sure the whole dish tasted OK. It really blows my mind how much effort can be put into one dish, all for the sake of making sure it is perfect for the customers. But as it turned out, it is really worth the effort.

Sure, Chicago may have outlawed foie gras, but that’s only because they saw cute pictures of geese, and didn’t try what we came up with…

The first customers who ordered this plate: my parents. Yes, they came in this evening, and since they knew the foie gras was my creation, they were both kind enough to order it. They of course were also kind enough to say it was fantastic, but hey, what were they going to say? “Hey, we ordered ‘foie gras‘, not ’shit on a plate’!” Not likely. While I appreciated the praise, I needed an independent, third-party judgment.

Three other people ended up ordering the foie gras this evening, and when one of our servers came back into the kitchen and said, “Hey, rave reviews on the foie gras!” I knew I had really come up with something great.

Or had I?…

See, at every point in the generation of this dish, there were other people in the kitchen who were asking me what the heck I was doing, and they were doing this to help to give me ideas, pointers and feedback into my foie gras creation. If I had truly been able to do whatever the hell I wanted in my own encapsulated little world, I am sure what I would have come up with would have been much different - and nowhere near as great.

So maybe this really wasn’t foie gras MY way after all… but it was good to know that people enjoyed the final result, no matter whose idea it was.

Matt

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01.23.07

Our Wine Dinner

Posted in The Story at 2:13 am by Chef Matt

Tonight I actually had to work. I know what you are thinking - “Matt, you already work so hard for so many days of the week, how can you possibly stand to go in on what would otherwise be your day off to work some more?”

Well, simply put, because I want to keep my job.

Wine and food - some call it dinner, I call it heaven.

This is an extra dinner that we host about once a month, maybe every six weeks, where we have a special all-inclusive dinner for about 50 people and there is wine pairing for each course. It is a prix fixe menu that fits a theme matched by the wines. For example, tonight was Spanish wines (lots of Riojas) and therefore we had a Spanish menu to match.

While I know nothing about the wines we featured tonight (since I was not out in the dining room to hear the presentations of them) all I can comment on is the food we served. The menu was as follows:

Crostini with white bean puree and a vinegar-cured anchovy
A Salsa Verde “Shot” with Shrimp, Microgreen Salad and Avocado
Grilled Venison on a bed of Sautéed Fennel and Fava Beans
Smoky Chorizo Stew
Seafood Paella with a Grilled Scallop Skewer
Tea-Infused Chocolate “Shot” with Fresh Berries

It was a great dinner, and the creation of this meal was completely different from a normal night in the kitchen. See, on a “normal” night, orders come in for what have you at all different times as the customers come in to place their orders. But tonight, there were no orders, but all the customers had to have their food at the same time.

So on the one hand, there is the difficulty of plating over 50 orders at once to go out simultaneously, but on the other hand, there is the simplicity of knowing that they are all the same - no need for special orders or remembering what they requested. All the plates are the same, so putting them together en masse makes things a bit more simple.

Peel them from the pod, then peel each individual bean. Enjoy with a nice Chianti.

The night worked quite simply actually - everyone was responsible for their own course. I was responsible for the venison. Of course that meant I had to peel the fava beans, which is an unbelievably arduous task (thanks Edwin for your help with that!) and clean and cut and marinate the venison. I made a thyme, parsley, paprika and coriander marinade for the venison since these are flavors that go well with deer, and are typical to Spanish cuisine. The fennel was cut on a mandolin, sautéed with garlic, lemon and coriander - again, typically Spanish, and good with fennel. I even had the opportunity to grill the venison myself, which was the first time I found myself on the line in quite some time. Felt good to be back on the “hot” side of things - and I didn’t even burn myself.

But of course, I was able to help in other ways along the way. For the crostini, I came up with the plating design, and plated all of them myself (including a last-second orange-zest garnish). For the salsa verde shot, I made a lemon vinaigrette for the microgreen salad. (They wanted to just do a simple olive oil for the greens, but I thought we could do a little more there…). And for all the other courses I was knee-deep in the plating process. In short, each of us had our own creative moment in the form of our own dishes, but everyone else helped out to make these visions a reality in time for the guests to all enjoy their next course.

The thing that really impressed me about the whole dinner was how well we worked together as a team. There were a surprising number of last-minute ideas (as is always the case when you have a lot of creative people each trying to show off their finest work to some of our best customers) and I am really impressed by how everyone there worked together to turn these ideas into realities.

At the end of the night, we all walked out into the dining room and received our accolades for a job well done. It was truly fitting that we went out as a group. Perhaps the people on shows like Top Chef should take note - really great work in the kitchen is done only when the people you are working with, are actually working with you…

Matt

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01.18.07

Bacon, Cheese, Chocolate or Olive Oil

Posted in Greatest Hits, Other Fun at 1:09 pm by Chef Matt

This is my 100th post, so let me get it out of the way and say thank you to all my readers and fans. I appreciate the feedback and encouragement and ad clicks you have provided for me in the past, and I am as eager as you are to see where this adventure goes in the next 100 posts!

So to “celebrate” this occasion, rather than write about my latest kitchen development (and there is a good one I have to write about - I will cover it tomorrow I guess…) I figured I would share a neat game with you all that was presented to me with some friends of mine when I was in Bedford, PA over the holiday weekend. This is a fun game for all people who love food, and love to think up their own food combinations. For me, this game is just a blast, and I find myself playing it all the time.

Simple enough, all you have to do is think up a food (no beverages) that can’t be improved with any of the following:

Bacon…	…Cheese (any kind of cheese)…
…Chocolate (again, any kind)…	…or Olive Oil

It’s a lot harder than it sounds at first - but makes for great debate at dinner parties. It is not impossible - I have a few that I have thought up, or that people have suggested - but I don’t want to share them with you, I want to see what you all come up with.

Better with cheese?… Better with chocolate?… Surely it’s better with bacon!

The best part of playing this game in a group is the different tastes people have. For example, someone suggested “Apple Pie” once, and some people said that Cheddar Cheese makes it better. I personally disagree, though I think that chocolate and apple is a great combination, so I say that apple pie fails to win from that angle.

If you want to play the super-hard version of this game, change “cheese” to “dairy”. Suddenly ice cream, whipped cream, butter and sour cream are all thrown into the mix as well, and the game becomes pretty much impossible.

I hope you all have fun with this - feel free to comment with your suggestions (I will provide feedback with how I feel about the picks of course) and thanks again for all the support over the past 100 posts! I promise the next 100 will be even better. And by “promise”, of course I mean “hope”.

Matt

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01.17.07

Changing the Menu

Posted in The Story at 2:22 pm by Chef Matt

A new year has dawned on us, and now is as good a time as any to make some changes to the menu. We aren’t going to overhaul it, but why not try out some new things that we know would work?

Usually the specials menu is where we have our ability to do new and creative things. Like the duck with apples I mentioned in the last post. Yeah, we don’t use many recipes for our daily specials. We just use our creativity and our desire to do new things and let that guide our choices on the direction we take the menu. And the results are always great. (If they weren’t, we wouldn’t sell them to the public…)

Lean back, let go, trust us. We’ll catch you, and serve you a fabulous consommé as well.

And let me just take this moment to throw in a little aside. Last night we had an order where the people made their orders, but made TONS of changes to the menu so they could get the food with all the things they wanted. While I can appreciate the importance of getting just what you want, and we are happy to customize the orders to their tastes, where is the trust? There is a team of chefs in the back who really have put some thought into the menu and pairing the foods with flavors and sides to make a good plate. Sure, you have to make changes if you have allergies, and if you are eating at Burger King, go ahead and customize your Whopper. But if you are eating at a fine restaurant, put your trust in the chefs - trust me, they usually know more about this than you do, and will give you something great. Our jobs depend on it, so just have a little trust OK?

But changing the standing menu is a whole other ordeal. The plates we come up with have to work with the other dishes on the menu (to provide a good variety), and we have to see if they are able to be replicated on a large scale, and that we have time to do them daily. We don’t want to run out of things on the standing menu, so we have to make sure the dish can be fit into our daily routine. This may sound troubling at first, since we are already working so hard - but remember, putting in one new dish means taking one out, so it is just trading places.

So now we have to think of what we want to replace, what we want to replace it with, and can we actually pull it off on a daily basis?

Sounds simple, huh? Well I’m not sure. I’ve never done this before, so it should be interesting either way. Maybe I should start reading my cookbooks to start getting some ideas.

Matt

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01.14.07

Cover Pool

Posted in The Story at 3:35 am by Chef Matt

Tonight was Saturday night, and that means one thing - time to get shakin’. We usually have a full house on Saturday nights, and this was no exception. For a gauge of how busy it was, the record number of covers (customers) we’ve ever had is 127 (give or take). Tonight, we had 96 covers just in reservations! We knew it was going to be a madhouse, and so we spent our time before opening in frantic preparation for just such an onslaught.

Place your bets people - lots of good numbers left!

While preparing for the sure-to-be-hectic night ahead of us, we were batting around guesses of how many covers we would actually have when all was said and done tonight. Being no stranger to gambling myself, I decided we should create a pool out of these guesses. Everyone was game to throw in a buck, so we had the following predictions as to how many people would actually walk in and be served:

So with a whopping $5 at stake, we buckled down, double-checked our prep stations and waited for the clock to strike 5:30, which is when all hell begins to break loose.

But to our surprise, the hostess suddenly came back into the kitchen. She looked at all of us and asked to the room in general: “So, you all have a pool going on how many covers we’ll have?”

We were shocked that word had gotten out, but still nodded to the affirmative.

“Let me in for 140 - how much is it?”

“Gary sent me… and put me in for 138 covers…”

While we were glad to get another dollar into the mix, it was a bad sign that the hostess (the person who arguably most has her finger on the pulse of how many people come through the door) was predicting tonight to be a major record for us. We triple-checked our prep stations.

Then the two owners - Joy and Veronica - walked back into the kitchen. Joy asked to the crowd again, “So, you have a pool going for how many covers we’ll have?” At this point, I have to admit I was a tad nervous. Sure, Joy and Veronica are cool, but at the same time, what we were doing is in fact technically gambling, and therefore technically illegal. While this was hardly the kind of activity that would warrant a police raid, all the same, maybe this was something that they didn’t want going on in their kitchen.

“Put me in for 126,” said Joy.

“I’m thinking 128,” said Veronica.

Crisis averted. And now the pool stood at a cool $8.

Then dinner rush began. And it was indeed the madhouse we thought it was going to be. The highlight for me was when an order came in for two Caesar salads, and the server came back to tell me that this was a VIP table (yes, that happens) and I was not allowed to know the identity of the people I was serving. This had never happened to me, and so I assumed perhaps there really might be an A-list celebrity out there who wanted to keep things hush-hush. I made the salads and sent them on their way.

The server then came back when the main course had gone out and said “OK, the person at this table is a ‘Chef Sinopoli’, and he now says it is OK for you to know he is here now that he has his food.” Chef Sinopoli was one of my instructors at Stratford, and was actually the one who inspired this post about kitchen humor. He is a good friend, and the whole hiding his identity is just his sense of humor. I was thrilled to know he had finally come to my restaurant, so of course I to a moment (it was still early) to go out to see him. It was really great to talk to him for a few minutes, so I could let him know how much I was enjoying myself here at Vero. Also, one of his dining companions had ordered the duck tonight, which was a dish I had helped to put together.

More chef’s math.
There’ll be a quiz on this later.

Earlier, while putting the menu together, all the chefs had discussed how we would prepare duck as a special. I came up with the idea that we should serve it over wild rice with sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts and then top the sliced breast with an apple compote. I made the compote myself, and added dried cherries and bourbon to give it a kick. The final product was fabulous, and in fact we sold out of it in just over an hour.

But the dinner rush is four hours, so we were only just getting started when we had to send out the call to 86 the duck. All the same, I really think my compote kicked ass, and I was thrilled that not only was it good, but my idea had resonated so well with customers as to sell out so fast.

The orders were pouring into the kitchen at breakneck speed. The servers were pushed to their limits, the line cooks actually asked for a temporary slow down in the ordering so as to catch their wits as to what was going on. We actually 86′d the calamari preemptively because we had so many orders come in for it at once, we weren’t sure if we had enough to fill all the orders. (We came up one short…) In the midst of all this, one of the servers needed a hand carrying out her order since she had four plates, and I volunteered to help since I had just (somehow) cleared my line of all tickets.

Yeah, it looked something like this - only there seemed to be a lot less room for me to move around when carrying I was carrying two hot bowls of soup.

There is nothing I could have done to adequately prepare myself for the scene that accosted me upon walking out into the dining room. Sometimes as a chef, when you spend all your time in the back never once looking out into the dining room, you lose touch with what it really means for the dining room to be “busy”. This certainly qualified. Every table was full. The wine bar, which seats five people, was three people deep, all waiting for their tables. The noise created by all the customers crammed into this space and all carrying on conversations in varying stages of sobriety was unimaginable. Looking around, I could see people eating food that I had prepared for them only just a few minutes before, but somehow, in this setting, it was all different. Now, somehow, it was their meal - the food they were enjoying and sharing with each other. The food that would either encourage them to come again, or for them to think was no good, such that they vowed never to return. (Of course, nobody thought that…) Basically, entering the dining room meant that I was seeing the result of the journey where a “plate” becomes a “meal”.

I came back to the kitchen after making the run, and reported to the other chefs that it was in fact a zoo out there. And so it continued until 9:30 that night. We made it through, yet again, but not before we had to 86 a grand total of five dishes on the menu:

The Pan-Seared Duck (yes, it was fabulous)
The Fried Calamari (which one patron the night before declared the best she had ever had)
The Apple Crisp
The Double-Chocolate Cheesecake with Mixed Berries
The Beet Salad (I thought I had enough beets at the beginning of my shift - I was wrong.)

All in all, a tremendous night, and one that I figured had surely broken all our records in the covers department. (Remember the pool we had going?)

So as the hostess called it a night - she always leaves shortly after the last table is sat at 9:30 - she came back to give us the official count for the night.

“One hundred and twenty.”

“We didn’t break a record?!?” said everyone else in the kitchen.

“Holy shit, I won!” said I.

Yes, I quickly pocketed the $8, and felt like the luckiest bastard on earth. I was sure Edwin’s pick of 130 was closer, but who am I to argue? So maybe we didn’t break a record, but yet another great night had been well-executed by everyone on staff. And I was now seven dollars richer - and it was time to start mopping.

Matt

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01.10.07

My First Place - Almost…

Posted in Reviews, Other Fun at 2:52 am by Chef Matt

Everyone always asks me what my ultimate goal of all this cooking is. This question always comes in the form of, “So, do you want to have your own place someday?” Really, it is that question almost verbatim from everyone. Please, somebody mix it up once in a while! Ask me, “So, you want to be a line cook the rest of your life you worthless sack?” The answer would still be roughly the same:

For fun, I did a Google Image Search for “Matt’s Place” and this came up. Not quite what I had in mind for my first restaurant.
Image from greenhomebuilding.com

“Of course my goal is to someday have my own place.”

I mean, really, there has to be a goal to all this, and having my own place - where I can call the shots, and make up them menu and pretend I know what I am doing - seems to be the best resolution to all this effort. But as I learn how much there is to running a place, I can’t help but think about the time I almost bought my very first bar - before I knew anything about how to run one.

I am sure we have all considered - and right after college is when this consideration happens most often I am assuming - owning our own bar. You know, the really great one that does everything right, unlike all those other ones you are forced to go to while in college?

Sure, we have all deluded ourselves like this, and fortunately, few of us act on this impulse. But I almost did, and I wanted to share this near mistake with you.

I had a friend in college, and he is still a good friend, who is from Idaho. He had moved back to Boise after college. Mind you, this was the late 90’s, so the tech revolution was in full swing, and Boise was doing very well from this new found source of ridiculous amounts of cash. In short, there was a heck of a lot of newly found disposable income floating around - which is the perfect situation for coming in and opening an establishment that deals in addictive substances.

Beautiful downtown Boise

My friend was the impetus behind this move on my part, as he was considering purchasing a bar in downtown Boise, and my wife and I actually flew out there to take a look at the town of Boise to see if we wanted to move out there. Neither my wife nor I had much of a career doing anything at the time, so it would have been easy enough for us to move out there. And the cost of Boise homes was much cheaper than anything we were looking at in DC - so that was a plus for living out there (and still is might I add…). We also liked the beautiful views, the fact that there was a river - with trout - running through the middle of town, and the friendly slower pace of life out there.

However, we had the problem given our love of world cuisine. Boise - at the time - was not exactly a culinary Mecca. And it didn’t show signs of heading in that direction. And then there was the building itself. The bar would have needed major work - serious overhaul of the layout - and in retrospect, I have no idea where we would have gotten the money to do that.

But our fate was sealed the day the owner of the building upped his price to double what he had been asking before. Looks like he was also looking to get a piece of all that extra cash floating around.

A photo of Caroline and me on our trip to Boise, sitting in a chair we just found out in the mountains. How cool is that?

As much as it would have been cool to live in Boise, I am glad this did not go through. Simply put, I didn’t have a freaking clue what I was doing, or what I would have been getting into. It is a rough life owning a food (and beverage) service establishment, and I am glad I know so much more now, and am learning so much more all the time. When the time eventually comes, for me to open my own mud hut…err, restaurant…I will be ready.

If we are lucky, there will still be a place ready for us in Boise. Or Hawaii. Either way…

Matt

PS Note, even though this is all true, and I think an important and funny story, this post is also being sponsored through PayPerPost.

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01.07.07

The Family Business

Posted in The Story at 8:19 pm by Chef Matt

We had a new employee at Vero last night. My lovely wife Caroline stepped up to the plate, and helped out with food running and some table bussing. Seeing as how she had never waited a table in her life, I was really shocked to see her jump into the game like this. Here’s how it went down:

Friday night in the kitchen, and we are all cleaning up. My cell phone begins to ring, and I recognize the tune as that of my wife calling me. She informs me that she is in the neighborhood, and wants to stop by. Of course I say she is welcome to - it is always good to see her given how little we get to see each other nowadays.

Back in the kitchen, she is hanging out with us, having some leftover dessert (the benefits of being a chef’s wife never cease), and listening to our manager - Anne - bemoan the fact that we are one server short for the next day’s (Saturday’s) service. In jest, and partially in desperation, she asks Caroline if she wants to come on as a server for tomorrow. I laughed, thinking that it was a funny symbol of Anne’s desperation, and I figured Caroline would politely, but quickly, decline.

“Sure,” was her reply.

“Guhwahhhhhh??” was mine.

“If you’re going to be in the family business, you’re gonna have to bring me bread. Lots of bread. Lots and lots of bread.”

Fast forward to last night, Caroline showed up a half hour before we opened, she got a crash course in how to give people bread, water, clear tables and run plates out to people. Sure, it is not the world’s hardest job to learn, especially for someone as smart as Caroline, but I was still concerned that she may be a bit overwhelmed since this was her first time ever, and it was a busy Saturday night.

Well, I will cut to the chase now - she was awesome. Every server came back at some point saying how much they loved Caroline, and how she was saving them big time. I was truly impressed as she seemed to be all over the orders all the time. She kicked butt and took names, and at the end of it all, there was one truly great measure of how much she helped out:

Not one dish was sent back to the kitchen with the complaint that it had gotten cold. I’m not saying that this is a common complaint we receive, but it does happen on busy nights. And when food comes back, that means we have to re-cook items, and that makes a busy kitchen even busier. Nothing came back to us - it almost made the night seem easy as pie. And sure, I may be biased here, but I really think Caroline had a hell of a lot to do with this.

We have one server who especially liked to run her own food, despite the fact that she is pathetically slow. I gave lots of her dishes to Caroline to run out, so for once, all of her food arrived on time. The benefits of having Caroline on staff never ended! (It was also that server’s final night, so it was good for her to end with a night with everything delivered on time…)

Oh hell no…

And finally, as the night was wrapping up, many of the servers were asking Caroline if she would be back next Saturday as well. I of course would have no complaints with that, but then she might start a rival blog to mine, and I just can’t have that.

Matt

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01.05.07

Kitchen Ink

Posted in The Story, Greatest Hits, Other Fun at 12:54 pm by Chef Matt

Things are picking up again at the restaurant. We are not slammed yet, but the phone calls are coming in, and reservations are being made. Looks like you all took me up on my advice, and are ready to eat well once again! Thank you - I need to pay the bills.

I was planning on doing a story about how I had to buy a microwave for the restaurant. I overheard Jay and Amy talking one day about how they were going to go out and buy a new one, and they were kind of upset about how it would cost like $70 or $80. (Every penny is precious in a kitchen.) I offered up the suggestion that they should try craigslist - which I am sure you all know about, but for some reason they had never heard of. Anyway, as usually happens when one opens their big mouth, I was tasked with getting the microwave and was given a budget of $50.

Quick and easy - no drama, no story.

Well, I was expecting the whole thing to end up as a great fiasco, but the first guy I contacted was really nice, only wanted $25 for it, and he even DELIVERED the microwave to the restraurant last night. Half budget, with delivery, no problems.

Man, where’s the good drama when you need it? Didn’t this guy know my blog was suffering?

(In all seriousness, Pat, if you are out there, thanks for the microwave and for dropping it off. It works great and that was really cool of you!)

But I do have a story anyway! Jay was sitting outside in the alley having a cigarette as I walked up yesterday, and he went over with me what we had to do to set up for dinner. I went inside, and got to work, Jay went off to run some errands I assumed. I was busy marinating a venison loin and making a raspberry/rosemary sauce for it, so I didn’t notice the time passing.

When he came back after about an hour, someone pointed out the large bandage he had on his forearm that I had not noticed earlier. He told everyone how he had burned himself earlier in the day. I was thinking of my own forearm burn, and I truly felt for him. Though I was wondering how I missed such a huge bandage earlier…

Yes, I’m sure you all know where this is going, but that’s because you read the title of my post already… cheaters.

A fresh tattoo in just 25 minutes - amazing.

To cut to the chase, he got a tattoo on his forearm during the break. It was really amazing that he did this so fast, and I was shocked that it just came out of nowhere. I mean I have heard of making a “Taco Bell run” during a break, but a “tattoo run”? The photo here is not his tattoo, because I didn’t have a camera on me, but it is somewhat similar (though Jay’s is cooler).

But this got me to thinking. I have always wanted a tattoo of some kind, but I have the problem of being very quixotic, so one would think I would have several tattoos of all sorts of things that strike my fancy at any given moment. However, I also have the benefit of having people in my life who keep me from being stupid all the time. It is why I am still alive and have not taken up a career as a hyena wrestler.

So I have no tattoos. But when I read this article in the New York Times about chef tattoos, I knew I had to get one. The tattoo of “Duckfat” was a particular favorite of mine. And I think it is pretty set that I enjoy being a chef, so to get a tattoo related to that is not completely crazy.

Looks like this pig got tattooed, so why shouldn’t I get one too?…
(Click to enlarge).

The question now I guess is what to get? No, I am not doing one on the inside of my lip like the last photo in the article, but something pork-related seems to make some sense given my love of all things that are made from pig meat. Maybe a chart of the cuts of pork - like this image here?

Then comes where to put it. I don’t even have a clue where to begin there…

If you have any ideas, I am all open to suggestions. Can’t promise I will go through on them, but now that I know how fast it can be, maybe I have something to do during lunch tomorrow…

Matt