Strang things I find in my room.

So today I went and had an enjoyable lunch with my little sister caroline. We ate at the LRG. I haven't eaten anything off the new lunch menu and I needed to pick up my pay check. The food was pretty good. The conversation was fun and interesting. After eating I went to Walkers to journal. I bought a macchiato and sat down to finish my first full journal. I'm pretty proud of myself for having filled up an entire notebook. Granted it is a small one, but still I'm not much of a writer. Journaling over the past few months has really helped me get to know myself better and has help me label my feelings. It has also helped me see why I do certain things. Anyway, once I had my fill of journaling, I went for a walk around downtown and looked in a variety of shops etc, etc. When I get home I find my roommates cat curled up on my bed asleep. Little bastard! You might say thats not such a strange thing to find in your room, and I'm inclined to agree. But what was weird/strange was the bobby pin I found on my mouse pad. Where the eff did that come from!?

Last Night at Work

Last night at work was unpleasant. There was only two preppers in the back and our list was rather long. Not only was our list long but my fellow prepper was not the fastest knife in the block. As soon as I walked in the door my boss asked me to wrap the chicken in parchment. He said it I could make it whatever I wanted but to run it by him when I had thought it up. I'm not too good at coming up with dishes out of the blue. If someone gives me an idea or a theme to go on I can usually come up with something ok. This however was different. He just asked me to come up with something without giving me anything to go by. After clocking in, I went to the walk-in to look for something that needed to be used up. I found a three cheese mix and potatoes left over from brunch. I was however, stumped as to what else I could put in the parchment. I was kinda stressed. I went out to look at the board, (the board is a dry erase board that we keep our prep list on and other notes of interest) written there was a note about using swish chard, that was ordered the day before, in the chicken in parchment. Now that I had my other vegetable I continued on to finishing the dish. I came up with this, three cheese stuffed chicken (cheddar, jack, and feta), with rosemary and garlic roasted potatoes, and swiss chard wrapped in parchment. Now I had to go run it by my boss, who just happened to be in a managers meeting. So I wrote it all out on a note card and walked out to the patio. I felt like a total turd standing out side the doors looking at all the managers in conversation. I really didn't want to interrupt them but I was just doing as I was instructed. So I knocked on the doors with mild hesitation. Aaron, my boss, saw me and told them he wold be right back. He took the card and read through it once and said it was perfect. I then set off to finish that project, which took me very near an hour to complete. I had to wrap fifteen. After I finished wrapping the chicken I tried to start the AM prep list. It was a medium list, but since all the items are new it is taking us much longer to prep then the old items. I decided to start on making a hotel pan of meatloaf. I first went to dice some onions, but before I had even halved and pealed them, Aaron was back from the meeting. He set off to figure out the solution to the pitfalls we were experiencing with peeling soft boiled eggs. He got as far as putting the eggs in a pan with water before he was called to the line. Guess who had to finish the eggs. The meatloaf was now on hold. I continued to dice until the eggs were ready to come off the heat. When they were ready I quickly poured off the water and added the hot eggs to an ice bath to get the white part of the egg to shrink from the shell. It took me about thirty minutes to peel fourteen eggs. They were not the prettiest, but they were all in one piece. Now I could get back to the meatloaf. Actually before I even did the eggs I had made twelve quarts of caesar dressing. I realize now that I am rambling about all the crap that I did at work last night and I'm neglecting the real reason I started writing this entry. I guess I didn't really see the real reason I started writing this entry till just a minute ago. But that reason should have been this, change is stressful. Last night someone mentioned something about change and I was like, "Change is always good." I'm starting to rethink that statement a bit. Now that I look back at my time at Trappeze, I realize the stress that I dealt with there was from the constant state of flux the restaurant was in. Nothing was ever the same. I know it will get better at LRG but right now it is kinda stressful. I really liked the fact that I had never really been stressed at the LRG till now. It is a cake job and I really couldn't complain. I feel like I've gotten better at managing stress, but if I had to choose between stress and no stress, I think I'd choose the latter. I realize that stress encourages growth, but I believe that only if it is dealt with in the right way.

The New Menu

I work at a restaurant in Athens, Ga. It is called The Last Resort Grille (LRG for short). A clever name, I think. Anywho, when I started working there as a lowly prep cook the menu of that time had been in service for about a decade. The LRG has been open for twenty years! I know you might be saying right now, "What?! Twenty years?! That is a crazy long time for an Athens restaurant!" Yes, 20 Years! The owners of LRG decided it was time for an update. So over the "Winter Holidays" the restaurant closed for a few days to come up with the new menu. And as of the 2nd of January 2012, LRG has been serving up a new menu for lunch, brunch and dinner. So far I have only tried a few of the new items, of those they all have been quite tasty. The most exciting part about getting a new menu for me is the fact that now everyone is on the same page. When you start out in a new restaurant as a cook you feel behind from the very beginning. This feeling is due largely in part to how one compares themselves to the other cooks around them. I felt significantly behind at LRG because many of the cooks there have been employed by the LRG for up to 12 years! So they have been making this items for sooooo long that it is rather hard to compete with their speed and memorization of the recipes and techniques used to prep and cook the menu items. But now that there is a new menu that nobody really knows much about, we have all been placed on the same page to progress together. So no more ketchup for me! o.0

On different note, here are a few things that I'm likin' right now:
The fact that I don't have to go back to school on monday! whoa whooo!
Wild Cat by Ratatat
Counter Culture Coffee

BA in Religion… finally. (BA means "bad ass" btw)

Well, as you can see it has been awhile. Things have come and things have gone. Here I sit as a collage graduate waiting to receive my diploma for a six year degree in the field I would have expected least, religion. If someone had told me after graduating high school that I would graduate from UGA with a BA in religion I would have laughed till my sides were sore. And then continued to laugh; and then some more laughing. Finally, I would find some composure and inform them that they were, indeed, crazy. But low and behold, I have done just the thing. However, I did not seek religion out of spirit but out of necessity. (and maybe a little interest.) After finding myself at Uga seeking a degree in Japanese language and literature I found out to my horror that in order to fulfill the requirements of said degree I would have to spend another three years at university. Yuck. So, what is one, such as I to do? Isn't it obvious, find the degree with the least amount of major credit hours and throw myself ferociously toward the light at the end of the arch. In my case, I slowly and grudgingly force myself to take the required classes and skirt by in whatever manner necessary for the completion of this marginally useful accomplishment. One day I'll see the true usefulness of this yet to be acquired piece of paper. Till then I'll continue on with the usual exploits of a lowly prep cook. 


to be continued... 

Finals

Due to the approaching finals I will be suspending all posting until after the 10th of may. :(
I didn't finish the limoncello. It is very strong and too sweet for my taste, but will make a great mixer.

Till next month

Urthel Beer Dinner

Here are a few of the photos I took at the Urthel beer dinner. These images are just scans of the prints so they are really bad quality. And there is lots of dust and stuff from the scanner. When I get a hold of sara's negative scanner I'll post some better quality images.

The first course was prosciutto with a mellon chutney and and a balsamic vinegar reduction topped with micro greens. Very tasty.

The second course consisted of half a fried green tomato filled with shrimp ceveché sided with pickled onion. This was also very nice. It paired well with the Hop-it beer.

The third course was a whole quail grilled, stuffed with a tart cherry stuffing over sticky rice and some kind of reduction and grilled zucchini. (cant remember what the reduction was, I think it was cherry also.

By the time the last two courses came out it had become to dark to shoot. So I didn't get any pictures of the last two. So here are a few more from that roll.

Sooo pretty!

Tomorrow I will be finishing the limoncello! So I'll take a bunch of pictures. Tonight me and Jamie made a killer lasagnas! I'll have some pictures of that too!

Till next time

Limoncello

When I was in Italy a few years ago on a study aboard trip, I was introduced to an Italian drink called limoncello. At the time I was only 19 or so and had never tasted any kind of liquor before. It was very strong! And very lemony! But I remember liking it. Someone recently posted a recipe for this lemony libation on Taste Spotting, so I've decided to try making it myself. I did a little perusing of the world wide web and came up with a mixture of a many different recipes. The pictures above is after just one night of the lemon infusion. (I just realized that the bench I am sitting on is a home for many carpenter bees! They aren't too happy with my sitting on there home.) That picture was taken with my handy phone. The whole film thing is rather hard to manage when you have to wait to post them after you get them developed and by then you forgot all that you were going to say about whatever it was you were doing so I took some with my phone and film. The latter will come later.

Here is the recipe I used.

Limoncello

• 750 ml bottle of mid grade vodka

• 8 Organic lemons - peeled, pith scrapped off

• 2 Mason jars

That is all I have done so far. I have to work out the sweetening part after the vodka and lemons are well acquainted, in like 4 or 5 days.

Till then!