During my first six weeks of culinary school, I spent many afternoons trolling the campus storeroom, trying to learn the differences between things like ginger and galangal or radicchio and red cabbage. The sheer inventory of the storeroom was impressive: a veritable dungeon, this area was stocked with foodstuffs ranging from the exotic to the mundane, all of which would become the raw food materials for 18 different kitchen-classrooms. As new culinary students, we were expected to visit the storeroom as part of a class called Product Knowledge — the class final would be culled from the [... read more ...]
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The Culinary Timeline is a side-project that I've been working on since October. I'm hoping to have most of it complete by the end of January, with any luck. Until then, updates around here will be weekly, rather than twice weekly. Do stay tuned. • • •
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I took a little road trip up to Calistoga this afternoon: a barbecued tri-tip sandwich from Buster’s was my original objective. Along the way, I decided that I should probably stop by to taste the new wines at Vincent Arroyo, since they had just released their newest vintages on Labor Day (an annual tradition at the winery). I had last tasted at Vincent Arroyo at the end of May. Although I couldn’t recall my specific impressions, I do remember tasting three 2006 barrel samples of their single-vineyard Petite Sirahs, and I remember being duly impressed [... read more ...] Upon first glance, the Sonoma Town Square offers exactly what one might expect to find within California wine country: quaint little clothing boutiques and artisanal jewelry shops line the streets, while restaurants like Cafe La Haye and The Girl and the Fig provide visitors with an über-Californian menu. But beyond these tourist-friendly facades, the Sonoma Town Square is not entirely predictable in its scope. Case in point: Taste of the Himalayas, a cozy little gem dedicated to curries and tandoori. Located directly across the way from Murphy’s Irish Pub, along the northern edge of the [... read more ...] If I was ever granted the opportunity to teach a food-writing class, I would certainly assign Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” and Bill Buford’s “Heat” as required texts. These are two books that simply beg to be compared and contrasted. On the surface, both books rely upon engaging narratives, and they both do an outstanding job describing the chaos that can often take place within a professional kitchen. Yet, at the same time, each book offers its own unique perspective of the restaurant industry. At their very core, the two books reveal divergent views regarding professional cooking.
Every now and then, I get dragged along to restaurants that I would never consider visiting on my own. Usually, it’s some sort of large group function — perhaps a birthday dinner or a work-related event — where there’s just too much critical mass to influence the plans for the evening. For the most part, I can recognize when my complaints and protests would just become annoying chatter, and so I strive to keep my mouth shut in these circumstances. When it comes to restaurants, I just don’t suffer mediocrity gladly, and there is nothing [... read more ...] The last book I read before attending chef school was “Kitchen Confidential,” Anthony Bourdain’s quasi-autobiography about (as he puts it) life in the culinary underbelly. To say that this book was inspiring would be an understatement. It was, in fact, a call to arms, a rally cry. Bourdain’s memoir made cooking professionally seem like rock and roll, and in many ways, that’s exactly what it turned out to be: closing down bars, staying up after hours, sleeping all day, battling through a dinner shift. To anyone who has ever asked me why I no longer cook, I [... read more ...] I’ve poached a painting by Alexandre Hogue — titled “Mother Earth Laid Bare” (1938) — for one of my headers. I admire the painting’s symbolic, agrarian themes and its Art Deco influences. Hogue was an American Regionalist who painted images of the Southwest, including many Dust Bowl-era landscapes.
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