Burnwatch 2009

I realized it's been a while since I posted photos of my current burns. As of today:





As you can see, I've definitely welcomed some good ones to the family. I get a lot of "Oh, Ingrid... poor girl!" kind of reactions when my friends see my burns, but they really only hurt for the first few hours. The only one in which I actually feel any pain currently (and only when I touch it) is the pinkish one on my inner right arm, which is a recovering blister from stray fat that came from searing off a lamb rack. I wasn't even shaking the pan or anything; I was turning the rack with my tongs and a pocket of fat in the lamb popped out.

Note the ones on and near my knuckles on my right hand--that's a first.

Also a first: My face! WTF?!



Yes, it's tiny (the dark spot on my cheek near my earlobe), but I never thought my face would be part of the action. Lesson learned: Do not lean too close to an active pan on the stove when pulling things out of the oven.

Speaking of things I've learned...

1. See above.

2. Clean clean clean clean clean. Work clean!

3. Try not to get roped into kitchen work while wearing 3-inch heels. It's doable, but precarious, to say the least.

4. Due to a series of recent occurrences, I've been reflecting on my time at OCI quite a bit, and still have no regrets or qualms about attending culinary school, even though a majority of cooks have not gone to culinary school. I definitely get my fair share of shit from cooks for having spent the money on "food college", but I made the right decision for me, and it was the platform I needed to head down this path. A more in depth post about culinary school is in the works.

5. Confidence in the kitchen and in your abilities is essential. ESSENTIAL. I did my first solo Saturday night on grill station last weekend, and after a rough couple of days last week, I came into work Saturday with the mindset that I know I can do this right, not letting that itchy doubt linger in the back of my head. Not that you have time to linger on any particular thought during a busy service; you just do it. I went into service feeling prepared and confident, and we knocked out some pretty fine lookin' plates. It wasn't hitch-less, per se, but pretty smooth for my first solo Saturday.

Bonus Thing I Learned: The chorus from "Electric Feel" by MGMT is a great song to have in your head during service. Other songs I've had stuck in my head during service recently: "The World is Yours" by NaS and "Get Money" by Junior M.A.F.I.A. (featuring Notorious B.I.G., of course). I've been on a crazy Biggie kick for the past few months.

Five things I learned this week

A little late posting this week's Things I've Learned, but it's been an incredibly busy week. I have some exciting changes coming up that I'm dying to share, but I'll discuss them once things are finalized. Until then, enjoy this week's installment:

1. When storing fresh truffles, store them in a closed container with one or two raw eggs. The porousness of the shells will absorb any moisture and keep the truffles from going bad. The eggs that are stored with the truffles will also absorb the truffle scent, and are quite delicious sunny side up. Just a perfect hint of truffle in the egg.

2. I will throw down for my coworkers without any hesitation. The narrowly-avoided barfight on Friday night with a douchebag vs. myself is evidence of this. It definitely helped that 10 of my coworkers were with me. I really love those people; I feel like no matter how much we bicker or disagree at work, they got my back, ya know?

3. Patience, a good side towel and a decent shucker are the keys to shucking six dozen oysters in a night.

4. Although neither is ideal, better slow but correct than fast but fucked up.

5. Abre los sus ojos. Very, very necessary. (Thanks, Chepe!)

Learn something new every day

Beef Wellingtons before going in the oven at my sister's house for Christmas dinner. Thanks, Mister Ramsay!

How do you quantify what you've learned? Recently I've been asking myself this question in regard to my work, in an effort to get better and figure out how best to improve my skills, technique, work habits and efficiency. I can be a bit of an overthinker sometimes, and consequently I'll find myself in an existential state of mind where I'm overly conscious of exactly what I'm doing and exactly how it's helping me. It's as if I'm mentally filing away a thought or an experience in the proper file cabinet.

This is, of course, pretty silly. It occurred to me today that over the course of the past ten months or so, the most important things I've learned can't really be boiled down to bullet points. I've garnered so much over my time at school and especially at my restaurant that the things I've learned have much more to do with who I am as a person rather than what I can recite off the top of my head.

Still, there are quantifiable lessons learned on a daily basis in this line of work, as things change so quickly and there's so much that happens in a single day--a single hour, or single minute even. That said, it then occurred to me that it might be fun to keep a running tab of things I've learned in the kitchen. I'm going to try and do this every week.

So without further ado, here are five things I learned this week at work:

1. I can never know enough about my station. Or rather, I can always know better what I have and what I need.

2. "Spoon" in Spanish is "cuchara". My Spanish is truly, embarrassingly pathetic, but hey, I'm trying.

3. I was having difficulty keeping the firm-peak Chantilly from melting on the ice cream scoop until I started putting a deli cup of ice water on the pastry station. Dipping the scoop in the water, tapping it dry and then scooping the cream works like a charm.

4. Filling fresh ravioli with bread pudding and deep frying it sounds way more awesome than it tastes.

5. Do not ask servers to pull fryer baskets. Things will inevitably end up on the floor and fire times will double. (Totally my fault, should have never asked in the first place. Love ya, E!)

Wow, coming up with five things was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm thinking this weekly list might be a good practice.

P.s. - Richie, aka Line Cook 415 hits the nail on the head again with his post, You're Missing Out. God, he's a killer writer, and sometimes I swear it's like he's reading my mind...