Poor little grumpy bunny. The owner just took over the growing at De Kas because his old grower got hired by the city to garden for them, which is a great honor. It makes me think that as a cook I could learn to grow this kind of stuff. He gave me a copy of his crop rotations and what times of the year he grows what.

Kyle’s family gave us a Peugeot car (same as the pepper mill) and a GPS so we could go where ever we wanted. On my day off we decided to go to Belgium for the day so that I could drink my fill of cherry lambic. Back when I worked at Feenie’s I was introduced to Bellevue Kriek cherry lambic from Belgium. I drank it for years and then it got discontinued in bottles and then in kegs and then even Chambar didn’t have it anymore.

It was so hot out in Belgium that day, then the sky got dark and it down poured so hard, when it stopped the sun came out again and everything was cool and fresh. We saw a cool culinary mushroom shop but it was closed. We also saw a huge castle. The sunset was also beautiful on the drive home.

We went boating, and ate dutch cherries, the last of the season. They were the best cherries I ever had. The boat was so 70’s, it was fun. It was Kyle’s great aunt’s boat. She is 90, but she seems 60. She fell off the boat in all of her clothes, and pulled the dutch flag off the back of the boat on the way in. When her nephew tried to help her in she wouldn’t give him her hand until he saved the flag first. It was a super hot day and she enjoyed having a story to tell.

I took a pic of how empty the walk in always is, because I love that. All of the fresh farm products comes in every morning in those blue and black plastic crates, so no breaking down cardboard. I love the idea of getting your beautiful product from the farm, processing it all then being ready for service. I could do that day in and day out as a job. Standing in a greenhouse/kitchen working with amazing product, daydreaming about menus. Somedays I feel like I’m so close to doing what I want to do, and some days I feel so far away from my goals.

They also have colored cutting boards that they soak in disinfectant and then steam in the combi oven once a week. A very sanitary practice.

I cleaned duck breasts when I was there, they get them from France in plastic packages. They showed me how they wanted it done and they put it skin side down and cut off a couple of centimeters of meat and skin on all sides so the breast is square with a perfect square patch of skin. I had such a hard time bringing myself to cut off the meat with the skin. They freeze the meat and skin until they have enough and then they render the fat and pick out the meat for staff meal. I wonder if that is a Michelin star duck technique. I should ask. I saw in the Alinea cook book that a squab breast had been cut in the same square shape. Or maybe it’s my imagination.

I didn’t get a very good description of the cheeses. They have really nice organic lemons or biological as they say. The food is so simple, almost everything is seasoned or finished with lemon zest.

I knew about coffee shops from when I went to Amsterdam a few years ago, but I didn’t know about smart shops. In Coffee shops you can buy weed and hash and smoke it in there, they have vaporizers and bongs and shit if you want. Mushrooms are illegal to sell in Amsterdam because the law just changed. You buy mushrooms at smart shops. The people who own the smart shops have found this crazy loop hole where they sell magic truffles instead of mushrooms. The truffles are the underground mycelium of the mushroom, so technically not mushrooms. But some smart shops we went into the guy behind the counter would just pull mushrooms out of his pocket and sell them to us. One guy had some really good little thin ones from Hawaii. Kyle hates the taste of the truffles so he eats them with chocolate.

I don’t know if mushrooms are bad for you, I thought they were a natural poison. I know poison isn’t good for you but after it’s out of your system is there any lasting effects? Someone once told me that girl cooks are either bull dikes or head cases, I’m a head case. I thought that I could self medicate with mushrooms and use them as antidepressants. I thought that they can’t be much worse than real antidepressants that make me feel sick and not even happy. I’m not that bad in the head, I was just being lazy and thought that instead of working on myself I could just take pills from a brain doctor. None of the pills that I tried made me happy and I realized that I should just consciously try and improve my self everyday. I told a server once when we were out for a smoke that I give up, I think I’m just going to be sad forever. He told me to never stop trying to overcome it. I don’t know why but what he said meant a lot and I’ve never stopped trying since. It’s been slowly and steadily getting better ever since.

Mushrooms make me laugh, and feel generally lighter. It helps me see things from a different perspective, like through the eyes of a child. This is important to me because when I was a kid I was to busy worrying. Once mushrooms exposed me to being in the moment and everything being magical I could carry that with me into my everyday life. I never forgot how to feel that lightness.

I don’t see crazy visuals. I’ve only ate them a few times, but I’ve noticed that they don’t effect me as much as other people. Kyle sees crazy visuals. I want to break down the wall that I’ve built up that makes me fight different perceptions and perspectives. I feel like it will help me be open in many aspects of my life.

Some people say that mushrooms are really bad for you but I haven’t seen any scientific proof. Everything is bad for you in excess, but I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist! Kyle says that mushrooms bend connections in your brain and if you bend them to much they can break and you can go crazy.

The owner of De Kas was the chef at a 3 michelin star restaurant and then he opened De Kas. He took me to the farm for a day and taught me about how he has taken over being the grower and where he gets his seeds from.

Part of fear and loathing in Amsterdam is tattoos. I’ve always thought that cooks are pirates, I love the cooks that are grinders, covered in tattoos. If cooks weren’t pirates I don’t think I would have stayed in this business, I love the idea of doing whatever it takes to make it happen during prep and service, it’s just so fun.
“Where’d you get all that Valrhona for the catering?”
“Bud I need some large vac pac bags stat!!”
” I’ll be right back, don’t ask, don’t tell.”
So we went down to Hanky Panky’s in the red light district, a famous tattoo parlor owned by the angels. Kyle has begun to realize the full extent of his dutch heritage. When his mom was in Holland with family she went to Hanky Panky’s and got a tattoo of a tulip, the dutch flower. It struck Kyle that with every generation his dutch blood and heritage is fading, and unless he does somthing to change that it will wither and disappear. For his tattoo he decided to get a tulip, but one that is just beginning to turn black, wilt and drop it’s petals.

Don’t worry mommy, no tattoos for Crust. I want to stay pretty and pure like a baby.

At my stage I they ask me what I want to do everyday. I’ve worked with everyone once and it is good, but no one is ever in the shit. We would do jobs together or once in a while they would give me jobs to do by myself. I would gratefully pound it out and ask for another job, but they didn’t really know what to do with me.

The menu is to simple and the guys can mechanically pump it out. They have so much time. They start at 10, they set up. They do prep, they have morning lunch for the staff. One guy puts out warm bread, charcuterie, cheese, peanut butter, chocolate sprinkles, herring, jam, mustard, tomato, lettuce and juice, milk, and ice water. Every staff member, wanders over and makes them self a sandwich and has a juice. They have the best apple juice there. Then they do lunch, it hasn’t been very busy at lunch. A couple of days there have been 70 or 90 in the book for lunch. Then they scrub down and have a break with drinks served in the garden. Then they prep, then they have staff meal, then set up for service. They pre-plate the base of the 1st coarse, then put it on a rack and roll, the main course side pre-cooks some meat and fish, which I don’t think is good. No stress during service, no stress ever. I need a little rush. It’s a bit like a hotel. I’d rather start later and push harder, or if I’m going to be there all day make it harder by cooking everything to order. I think the first coarse thing makes sense, but not the fish. They said that it isn’t a busy time for them, but when it is busy it is necessary. Everything is very consistent.

It also made me think that if I ever have a stage in my kitchen for a few days or longer, their first day I will give them a job that needs to be done everyday. Something simple like herbs for the day, that they can come in set up a spot for themselves and know what there first job is, while everyone else gets organized. Sometimes I come in the morning and feel lost for about 30 min, because everyone is busy setting up. They just tell me to wait. It’s the longest, most uncomfortable 30 minuites of the day. As a stage being busy, and feeling like you know what you have to do is so important. They don’t want me to do anything without them, but they want me to feel free to do what ever I want. I’m still trying to figure it out.

All of the dutch food Kyle and I have eating has been very light. They use barely any salt or oil, at De Kas they usually only use butter in the winter. Everything is really rustic too, like the cherry clafoutis cherries still have the stones in them.