Tartar sauce is good, it’s old school and you forget about it, unitl you make it and then remember how compelled you are to eat it. We made it and it didn’t seem quite right, so we added some sweet pickles. I only like it when it is made fresh daily, otherwise I won’t eat it.
I made butter a couple of days ago as a test at work. It was super easy and turned out exactly like the butter we order. I think that there is no point to making your own butter unless you have really beautiful, fresh, organic cream. I want rich golden butter. They made all their own butter at Coi and it was really beautiful. I’ve also heard things about cultured butter but I’m not sure what it is.
I want to use the buttermilk to make creme fraiche but I’m not sure if it will work the same as the store bought buttermilk. It is really thin, sweet and mild.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few weeks about what’s important to me. I’ve had a lot of time to think at work because the three main guys talk in French all day. I can’t understand so it’s like I’m alone with my thoughts all day, and I have so many thoughts. It’s a shame because one of the biggest parts of being in the kitchen for me is listening to the other cooks talk about food, food ideas and inspirations, new places and techniques. Cooking is long hours, at least 12 hours a day. I walk home or go for a beer after work to talk with friends and the next thing you know its 2am. I barely have time to shower and eat. I sleep and leave my house by 11:30am to be at work by 12:30pm. It goes on until my beloved day off when I try and do all the things that I’ve always wanted to do, plus laundry and cleaning. I’ve been hearing about regular girls my age who are serving 3 or 4 days a week doing 6 hour shifts and making more than enough to live comfortably. They have such balanced lives and time to do the things they love. I love cooking but I’ve had so many inspirations and ideas and tests I’ve wanted to do, but I’m too busy at work to do my own side tests. The guys aren’t open to my ideas, and it makes me feel further away from the team when I’m doing stuff they don’t approve of. Part of them not being open to my ideas is because of my inexperience which is understandable. But I still want to be free to do my tests.
I wish I had time to write, garden, volunteer at the UBC farm, do some secret dinners, go to the markets, eat what I want, forage, go to yoga and dance, read books and magazines, and write menus. These things are important to me. I’m going to design my own place so that I get what I need out of life. Until then I can’t help but thinking life is short and this summer is going to be beautiful and I want to play with the other girls. I want to be around people I can relate to socially.
On my day off I went to volunteer at the UBC Farm it was good to be there. I know I’m late to the game but I’ve just started to appreciate Hepburn’s inner beauty and this quote has been keeping me in check through hard times.
“For Attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry, For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day, For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.”
— Audrey Hepburn
I hope by the time my little plants get to big for their cups I will have somewhere to plant them. I have no balcony or garden plot. Where there is a will there is a way.
I went to the 1st trout lake farmers market on Saturday before work. I wanted to talk to the guy who has the best greens, but when I got to his booth his greens weren’t what I remembered and having the best greens had seemed to go to his head. I got a beautiful bag of greens from some other farmer and was satisfied. I’m always searching for beautful greens. We also bought some carnivorous plants.
Carnivorous plants are super cool man. I’m going to raise them up for the next couple of years and then keep them in my restaurant or behind my bar to keep away flies.
We fed it an ant and it snapped shut super fast. It was so cool. I thought it would close slowly.
“Neo-naturalism: earthy ingredients presented with a deceptive simplicity that belies the scientific reasearch underneath.”
I read this in Food and Wine. I like it because I’ve always thought that natural, earthy food that comes directly from nature and the earth is the most beautiful. The element of surprise is also paramount to the eating experience. The example they used was a simple bowl of crabmeat, but only some of it was crab and the rest was sunchokes that had been treated to resemble crab meat. Simple, clean presentation with the element of surprise. I think my chef at Coi was really into this. I feel like I wasn’t ready to see the food at Coi when I did but now I can’t stop thinking about it.
Boneta is doing dine out so I’m working 6 days for 2 weeks and on Sunday I’m doing a stage at a bar to learn some cocktail techniques. I don’t have internet at my house right now, so I’m sitting in the back of the truck in a parking lot to get a signal.
