I went from Van to the Sunshine Coast to get Kyle and the truck. We packed and drove to Portland. We got there late and Le Pigeon was closed for Christmas holidays. We at at another cool place called Navarre. The wine was really good, we got two different glasses and shared them, Kyle nailed the apricot smell of the lighter red. We like to smell and taste them and then ask the server for help on identifying what the wine is like, or just make it up ourselves. We stayed at the cheapest motel we could find.

We hit a blizzard by the northern California border and decided to sleep in the car overnight. We bought some wine and parked in a dark residential area, there was wild life everywhere like deer and raccoons. The next day we drove on and arrived in San Francisco.

Ducks are magical animals and all their parts can be used to make delicious things. We get the whole ducks and the gizzards and livers come inside. We confit the gizzards in duck fat. Make the best parfait I’ve ever had out of the livers, and the most delicious stocks and sauces out of the bones. The ducks we get also have sweetbreads on them that are tiny and we keep them as well. There is a beautiful use for everything. Absolutely no waste.

I’m in Saskatoon for Christmas. I love to have tea in the afternoons with my Grandma. She has a beautiful home that backs onto the South Saskatchewan river. I love her Royal Albert tea set and her Christmas Cake that she soaks in liqueur. She let me borrow one of her furs and she gave me some silver serving trays for if I want to put on some dinners or somthing. I went for a walk in her fur along the river bank and almost frose to death. The cold here is for real. I forgot about that.

Lately I’ve been thinking alot about design. Like someday I’m going to design the “room” of my restaurant and the kitchen and everything. So I should start thinking about that stuff now. I love to think that part of my career as a cook can also involve design…or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and sounding like an asshole. Head down, mouth shut Crust, don’t run before you can walk.

This is the place I’ve been subletting while at Boneta, walking distance from work which is all I ask. Tomorrow Saskatoon, next week San Fran. It sure is hard to have nice clothes living out of a suitcase for months, with no money. Kyle and I are driving down to San Fran through Portland. We have arranged a sublet there that we have not seen. We do not have work visas. We like work, we hope to find work. We will see how she goes. We might be horribly under prepared, or we might be doing what we need to do to succeed in this crazy world. Any advice on San Fran and Portland?

1. Always work onto a tray or into an insert when peeling or cleaning something, so your board doesn’t get covered in mess. It seems like a lot of set up for just peeling a few cipolini onions but it keeps you clean, and makes you look organized and professional. Even if you don’t have it together.

2. Taste everything, check everything before service, trust no one.

3.NEVER be careless with salt. It will come back to bite you in the ass. Over salting and under salting are both really bad, under salting is less bad.

4. If it’s time to plate a big pick up and you’re not ready, yelling out “30 seconds!” isn’t going to save you.

5. If you make a bunch of little mistakes, don’t go around the kitchen and tell everyone what you did and what you learned from it. It helps everyone but you, and it’s not worth it.

This is just stuff I’m trying to remind myself…

This is a picture of what I see everyday on my walk to work, it’s not the most beautiful, but the mountains are still amazing to me every time I look up.
On Saturday at work every time someone would start to get frustrated someone else would say, “don’t worry, only one more day, then one more week.”
Then someone else would say, “yeah, and then only 40 more years, ahahahaha!”

Boneta is closed on Sundays and then will be closed for a week for Christmas. They are so smart to do this, they have a big heart and a good sense of decency. December hasn’t been as bad for me at Boneta. It is very organized and simple, the big parties that come with December have been smooth. December just about killed me last year. Last year at the restaurant I was at it was so unorganized, there we special party lunch menus and 3 different dinner menus. The communication was shit between front and back of house and amongst the back, and it was stressful for me everyday. We had to work Christmas Eve and be back on boxing day.

My mom is flying me home for Christmas, because I can’t afford to fly myself home, because I just flew to Van last month. I am so grateful for this because everyone is going home for Christmas. We all just need to keep it together this last week.

The other day during prep somehow we started talking about how sweet it would be to be a house wife (Scotty decided it’s still called a house wife even if you’re a man). You would wake up, get the kids to school, go to the market, smoke a joint, do a little gardening, do some yoga to keep that ass tight for the one bringing home the bacon, and cook dinner for only 5 people, ha! After we talked about it there was silence for about 10 minutes and then we all looked up and laughed because we realized we were all still dreaming about how good that would be right now. But instead we’re grinding it out 12 hours a day, cooking for hundreds, making the most perfect food that we can. Only 40 more years to go.

I have Sundays off because the restaurant is closed. I watched a movie in bed, finished one of my books, ate a huge burrito and then slept for 16 hours. I feel better today. Only one more week until Christmas holidays in S’toon. Then I’m off to San Francisco for a stage with just my knives, my laptop and a bag of clothes. And my Fear.

They are just so beautiful and the smell of them when they hit the hot pan is so amazing. It’s crazy that they are apricot colored and they smell faintly of apricot. I just love to hold them in my hand.