The Obsession with Food

Food is more popular than ever. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm caught in my own little "blogosphere" (I've been wanting to use that word for like a week), but all of a sudden everybody seems to know what molecular gastronomy is and who Grant Achatz is, wants to open a fine dining restaurant and are thinking of going to culinary school. Millions of people tune in to watch Top Chef, the Food Network is quickly becoming a cable powerhouse. More and more food and haute cuisine is becoming publicly accessible. Though you can't eat through the tube, you can certainly learn quite a bit (if you watch the right programs) about modern cuisine.

You disagree with me? I see you there. One of you obnoxious "foodies" who think that Food Network is trash in the same way that hipsters don't think the Arcade Fire is obscure enough anymore. Well whereas I would tell the hipsters to shove it, I do somewhat agree that Food Network is largely garbage. A muted palette of pastels and bright colors to lure in "housewives" with promises of convenient and delicious meals. Friendly, accessible faces who play both mother and teacher as they slowly guide you through their contrived meals of "a classic! BUUUT .. with a twist!" Okay that was very much a Bourdain sentence, but my point is there are good food shows out there on TV. Good Eats, though quirky and often over-the top is really educational. I'm surprised how much stuff I know in the kitchen because I learned it watching that program. Tyler's Ultimate is probably the most legitimate cooking show there is, followed by Jacque Pepin's Fast Food My Way (that's on PBS kids). And you could pretty much learn most of what's up and hot in the food world by watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations episodes in America. He almost certainly goes to visit some of the best chefs in each city he goes to.

So there, you can sift through the muck and find gems here and there. If it ever gets to the point where someone actually cares how I became a chef I will proudly say that I was part of a generation of people who was influenced and could learn quite a bit from food television. And that I learned oh-so-much from the internet. The wide expanse that is the webernets has been the scariest deep end I've looked in to for a while. The sheer number of food blogs, food news sites, and my discovery of just how many people LOVE food is nuts. I mean just look to your right on this site, that' just a grain of sand of that exists in the veritable desert of food-related sites, blogs and news out there. I've learned so much about my fellow cooks in the past few months just because I set up a Google Reader page, and it's kinda scary.

Scary? Why? I had this same realization with ultimate. When I went to College Nationals (still probably the most fun weekend of my life) and saw 20 college teams play their hearts out there, I realized how many great players there were. I mean there were your superstars like Will Neff, Stephen Presley, Mac Taylor, but for every star player there was a supporting cast of 25 players who were essential to the machine, and very skilled players in their own rights. I've been playing for 3 years, and I've practiced and trained really, really hard this year. But what do I have to show for that work? Ultimate is growing at an incredible rate, there are probably more than a 100,000 players in the USA. It is attracting great athletes from other sports, and really talented players. Where do I fit in?

Well regardless of my future with ultimate, I think I fit in just fine. I have limitations, mainly athletic ones, but I consider myself to be a smart and effective player. I think the fact I recognize my weaknesses makes me stronger. This was further confirmed in my mind as the club season came around. I didn't try out very seriously for any Open teams, but I played well against both Machine and Beachfront and have no regrets. I went to tournaments with various teams and played very well. So how does this super-awesome tangent tie back to food?

Well naturally everything in life worth having is incredibly difficult to attain. So many people love ultimate, so many more people love food and cooking. It's going to be damn competitive out there. I'm suddenly not the only guy who dropped his fancy education to pursue a life in the kitchen, not by a long shot. There are plenty of smart guys, so many talented cooks who are just so damn creative, and many of them started as kids, when I still considered McDonald's haute cuisine. I am scared, a little nervous right now. But I was the same way with ultimate. I thought, how am I ever going to compete with these guys? Well I kept my head down, focused on my team and worked my ass off for a year, and now I'm definitely in the same part of the atmosphere. I think it will be much the same with cooking, but a long path that will stretch over my lifetime.

Right now I'm at the bottom. There are millions on top of me. They are more skilled, more knowledgeable, many of them more talented. I have no idea what kind of talent I have towards food. Like so many other Asians, I was good at music, but unlike so many others Asians (at least the Juilliard ones) I fucking hated it. It will take a lot of things on my part to reach the top, to open a restaurant that is worthy of acclaim. I'm going to have to sacrifice a lot. Spending hours in the kitchen, oftentimes working for nothing, halving cherry tomatoes for hours (oh that actually happened this weekend). A lot of hard work, studying food trends, keeping what chefs are hot on my radar, learning from them. And creativity. The most elusive quality of all.

Creativity and inspiration are nothing you can achieve by sweat and tears alone. They either grace you or they don't. It helps to surround yourself with creative people, brilliant people in your field whom you can collect ideas from. But if you can't take all that compiled information, all the artistic touches and combine them into something your own, something original, than it's really not worth anything. You're just a copy cat then, do something original damn you! A lot of people are making their careers on doing simple food, just doing something common, uncommonly well. But the shooting stars of this period are the ones doing new things. Look how many molecular gastronomy restaurants top the World's 50 Best Restaurants. Look at this guy, Daniel Humm, an early 30s chef who just got 4 stars from the NY Times. Toes the line between traditional and groundbreaking, flirts with molecular gastronomy. In his early 30s, four stars! How can I compete with that?


The only answer I can give, and it's a unsubstantial one, is passion. Some say passion fades as it does with lovers, but I think me and cooking are in it for the long haul. I legitimately like working in the kitchen, even when it's for free and I am slaving at something terrible (halving cherry tomatoes). When I get paid for it? When I know what I'm doing? When I get to work the hot line, when I get to be in charge? Oh man, this gig only gets better as I go along. So there it is, that's all I can hope for. I believe the passion will never fade, so I will almost always have the fuel to sacrifice to put in hard work .. but as for that creative spark? That originality, that wall-shattering, ground-breaking quality that can garner everyone's attention, that only a few people truly have? Well ... I guess we'll just have to see about that.

EP #6

These Are Dark Times..

When I discovered I wanted to be a cook and eventually a chef, I told myself I probably wouldn't do catering. It seemed too hard to produce quality food on such a massive scale or not in your own kitchen. I get too easily annoyed by the little things you have to chalk up to "catering mishaps." You just have to accept that things will not go exactly according to plan and you're going to be in foreign territory. You have to accept that perfection will be even more impossible than usual. I don't like that. Being a cook I think is all about the pursuit of perfection; the pursuit of making a dish consistently perfect, or creating a perfect dish that is delicately balanced and perfectly executed. You just can't really hope for that when you've moved your operation to say, a multi-million dollar house in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago.

Yeah ... this house was damn nice. I've been in some very nice houses catering with my mom's restaurant, but this was definitely up there. I'm not even sure why these silly white people wanted an Italian restaurant to cater the damn thing. A big part of the menu was fancied up American food; grilled chicken sliders, BBQ brisket, bratwurst. The only remotely Italian things we made were grilled pesto shrimp with Sardinian couscous and heirloom tomato caprese salad. The food was dumbed down in my opinion, but they seemed to love it. Which brings me to my next point that this was my first time on the cooking side of the catering operation. In the past I usually served and came along with my mom to be paraded around to her customers. They liked seeing it was a family operation. Now that I was cooking for catering it has become even less charming, though not without its benefits.

If you have a restaurant, catering can be a lucrative prospect. You're paying for staff you'd already have to pay for, maybe an extra server or two, and it's a complete bonus on top of your dining room. So you're looking at food costs, which as you can see is often very cheap. Our Chef is turning a big profit on it. But boy is it a pain in the ass. I go in early on Friday to start prepping, cutting and pre-cooking a lot of things, wrapping 'em up and loading them in to bus tubs. It's pretty fast paced because we have to be out of there, locked and loaded by 4 PM. And we have to pretty much bring everything. Serving plates, tongs, towels, some pans, food, seasoning, serving utensils, etc. To further my kitchen/battlefield analogy, catering kind of feels like some kind of raiding party. The Chef runs through the check list, double checking we have everything, everything is GO-GO-GO! and we assembly line out the back door, ammo check and guns blazing. And then we get there and start familiarizing to the domestic kitchen, making amends and cooking. But then once service starts, it's quite boring. It's all hurry-hurry and then a lot of waiting. Generally, I don't like it.

But it is relaxed once it's all over with. You're sittin' around looking pretty once the cooking is done, enjoying a nice house kitchen and full-blast AC. You can get too relaxed. In a moment of questionable judgment, the Chef brings out the pineapple tarte tatin. I ask what the pastry is and he goes "tarte tatin" and I'm like "oh okay" and he's all like "Do you know what a tarte tatin is?" and I'm all like "Bitch please, don't be testin' my Food Network watching skeelz .. it's an upside down pie essentially, invented in France by the Tatin sisters who claim they ran out of time to make an actual pie." At which point I cross my hands and give him the international sign to "SUCK IT!" Anyway, the pie is in upside down form with the crust on top on a sheet tray. He wants to get the filling side up. He looks at the cutting board, he looks at the pie, he looks at me, and it's almost in that moment we connect as bros (read: lazy, stupid guys) and know what we must do. He flips the sheet tray in to the air, it rotates 180 degrees and lands perfectly on the cutting board with the crust now down. I can't resist, I immediately put my hand up in the air and go "Fuck yeah!" He lets out a sigh and goes "That was fucking retarded. I am awesome."

We break down the party, clean everything up and load up the van to return to Va P. We are greeted warmly as the boys at home are finishing up a pretty busy night (100 covers), poking fun at each other for them having to do some real work and us enjoying a big ole' house. Then the reason for my post title shows up through the door.

The knife guy comes in. He picks up our knives and gets them sharpened for the restaurant and he does this for just about every restaurant in the North Shore area. He knows all the gossip, how other restaurants are doing and Chef is curious. Turns out, things are bad. The rumors may not all be true but Wildfire Steakhouse is seeing some dark times, which Chef finds to be unbelievable because they are owned by Lettuce Entertain You, a massive restaurant company based in Chicago. It's one of those places that just has mass appeal and does tons of covers, almost like a higher scale Olive Garden. Michael's in Winnetka and Campagnola of Evanston are floundering, and the place where it all began for me, Oceanique, is also not doing so hot. They've all cut down to 5 days of service as opposed to 6, which Chef thinks is a questionable strategy. It's like in Harry Potter 7 where they hear about people getting offed by Death Eaters in the news, or people getting locked up in Azakban. Yeah, exactly like that. You're like curious yet kind of horrified to hear the news of people going under.

I don't know a damned thing about economics and I am woefully uninformed of our current crisis, but I guess it's really hitting us food industry people hard. My mom thankfully is doing quite well, Va P is holding up, I guess I was unaware of how bad it really is for people out there. It's scary. Hopefully the industry will rebound, but when you come back from a multi-million dollar house to go back to a kitchen with a gloomy future, it can be kind of depressing. As Chewie was saying, "We keep our heads down and are just thankful for having work for 5 days a week." Sometimes work can be harsh, but what do you do when it's gone all of a sudden? Be thankful to be busy, hopefully we'll clear this mess soon enough.

So I am thankful for getting a job at Blu as a server (Thanks, Lauren!), and finally making some money. Hopefully once I smooth out the schedule between there and Va P I'll get a real solid rhythm going. Maybe I'll learn some more about sushi (even though I know quite a bit, taste it, Tee). Then I just gotta move to Chicago. I hate moving.

EP #6

The Windy City Effect

Playing ultimate in the Great Lakes Region, especially Chicago on the Lakeside has always been something of a problem for me. It is arguably one of the worst places to play ultimate outdoors. It gets bitterly cold quickly, the wind is relentless, and the summers are hot and humid. When you're playing a long tournament, heat and humidity can cripple the unprepared ultimate player. Ideal conditions are what I imagine California to be like a lot of the time; 70ish weather, calm and clear.

One would think that the winds on the Northwestern Lakefill have forged our team in to elements-conquering badasses. This is somewhat true, we are very competent when the weather is nasty because our zone defense and offense is pretty solid (at least compared to our man-defense/offense). But is it really all that fun?

What is fun about ultimate? I've thought about this a lot. I haven't played a ton of different sports, especially not to any seriously organized extent, but ultimate certainly has an incredible and growing appeal. I think a lot of it is the players' potential to do so much. There aren't very rigidly defined positions in ultimate (as compared to other sports), and the best players can do everything. And everyone on the field is running, throwing, catching, diving, jumping, etc. You get to do it all! I've played as a center in basketball and a lineman in football, but neither can compare to the diversity that ultimate offers (though nothing was worse than playing DH in softball). Anyone on the field can make a huge impact, can make a game-changing play, but at the heart of the sport is teamwork. No one person can do it alone, so success depends on everyone doing everything well together.

And then there's the physics and mechanics of the game itself. The first layout D I ever got was one of the best feelings I've ever had. You're running your ass off trying to put pressure on your man, then the offense makes one small error, a barely underthrown pass and you POUNCE. You don't know for sure if you're going to get it and then there it is - you just get a finger or two on the disc as you're flinging your body through the air, one last desperate attempt to change the possession - a dull and unceremonious *thunk* is heard, and the disc veers off course, harmlessly hitting the ground. The pain of hitting the ground in a barely controlled crash is non-existent, you are JACKED UP on adrenaline because your sideline is cheering so loud. Now I'm on offense, I'm going to make you pay for that mistake.

I understand the dramatization of an athletic play in prose could make any sport sound like some kind of epic event, but I think there is nothing more glorious or representative of the sport of ultimate than laying out. And after you get your first couple layout D's you start learning how to create the situation for yourself. Standing a few steps behind your guy on the breakside, luring him in to a false sense of security, the defensive pressure is up, he makes an in-cut, the handler anxious to get rid of the disc throws it, he doesn't want to get stalled, you follow him in and your angle of attack is open. You won't always get it, but when you do the feeling of a simultaneously calculated, reckless and somewhat desperate plan working is exhilarating.

And then of course there's the art of skying someone. For those who don't play ultimate, the word "sky" becomes a verb in the sport to mean jumping up and claiming the disc as yours before your opponent can. Some would say simply knocking the disc away or preventing your opponent from catching it on offense is "skying" someone, but I think the verb should be reserved for catching and dominating. This is an aspect of the game that is truly unique to ultimate. A disc floats unlike any other object and once it is launched, it becomes a race. Usually the offense has a slight advantage, but the players involved are running their asses off to establish position at the spot where they can get the disc at their highest point. Speed and vertical jump are both crucial. Even someone who has a huge reach and vertical jump can be beat by someone smaller who has established position (see Alex Nord vs. Buzz Bullets, ECC '07). A lot of the time someone can simply reach the disc at a point that you cannot. Spectacular things can happen during this contest. There's physical jockeying for position, and once the moment of attack comes it is gone in almost that same instant. One person has skyed the pants off the other, and often the victim is briefly unaware that he has just been dominated. The feeling of successfully skying someone is both predatory and fulfilling. Getting a lay out D a lot of the time requires an offensive error. Skying someone is much more about a contest of wills, bodies and precision between two (sometimes more) people. It is the pure establishment of dominance.

Now back to my issue with wind. Wind changes everything about ultimate, because the unique object of play is so susceptible to it. Frisbee novices may find it nearly impossible to throw accurately in wind. Zone defense becomes the strategy of choice, and the game becomes less about athleticism and endurance, and more about mental poise and patience. A defense will try to force an offense to throw as many throws as possible by eliminating open space as opposed to open players. I could go on and on about zone defense/offense, but bottom line is I think it's boring and frustrating. I consider myself pretty good at zone offense, perhaps one of my strongest games, but I still don't find it that enjoyable. Errors become common and expected which is always a problem with someone who stresses consistency. Very often a team will patiently work a disc all the way against the wind only to turn it over on the scoring throw. It's heartbreaking and infuriating. I don't feel good after beating or losing to a team with zone. It's an honest strategy, but it feels like a dishonest win.

So is ultimate in extreme wind really proper ultimate? Ultimate is definitely meant to be played outdoors, as most sports are. And the weather and the elements can be a challenge that must be overcome in any sport also. But is ultimate the exception, just because of the unique object of play? Even if the conclusion is made that wind/zone is kind of bogus, an unfortunate factor of the game, is there really anything to be done about it? Probably not. So I guess on Saturday morning, if you see the weather is going to be hell, bitch and moan all you want, but man up and do what you can for your team. But trust me, I'm going to bitch and moan plenty.

EP #6

A Harsh Kitchen Lesson...

So Friday, July 31st, I was on the receiving end of one of the universe's flawlessly executed lessons in humility and patience.

I borrowed Paul's bike to go to work, which marked my very first bike ride in traffic with a destination in mind. I kind of imagined someone yelling excitedly, "You're doing it! You're doing it!" as I rode down the streets of Evanston, oblivious to traffic. Since almost no one except man-childs like myself get to experience their first bike ride as an adult, this was pretty sweet.

And I mention the bike ride because I was feeling pretty good about myself (I know, I'm easy to please) and I had another first accomplishment in the kitchen. I was slicing onions, and after months of practicing I finally started cutting them with proper technique and speed. I tried practicing with whole celery plants at home, and much like my cello practice, I got impatient and tried to rush and tried to be all fancy. This hampered my technique, but finally in a professional kitchen it came out right. Once again the words "You're doing it! You're doing it!" rang through my head, and I mowed through a dozen yellow onions in like 5 minutes.

And then karma, or God, or someone who wanted to remind me that I need to keep it in check, struck with great vengeance and furious anger.

Our sous-chef, Chewie, was joking to me about how culinary students aren't always all that great. How some of them don't even know how to hold a knife, and that their last intern cut herself a lot because she didn't learn proper technique. Well I was haughtily swording onions, look at me! I'm going to be way ahead of this chumps when I get to school, for I! Am all that is man! And before a chuckle could escape my lips, I felt a terrible pain in my left hand.

Chewie says, "Oh shit man." And I go, "FUCK FUCK FUCK!" I just sliced off big chunks on two of my fingernails and it hurts like a bitch. I like to think I have a high pain threshold (At least that's what my tattoo artists have told me .. and apparently Asians have higher thresholds in general.) but this hurt bad. I ran it under cold water. Even worse. I was bleeding everywhere. I sat down for a sec and wrapped my hand up, held it above my head. I'm not usually squeamish about blood but I was really light headed. My poor mutilated fingers. Shit, shit, what if that really is the end of my cello career?

Well, turns out I overexaggerated because here I am on Saturday and the pain is almost completely gone and I can type again. But I seriously felt like a) an idiot, and b) a bitch. My exuberance and excitement at believing I just leveled up my swordsmanship went crashing through the ground. Chef Jeff and Chewie comforted me saying this will be the first of many injuries, you'll burn yourself soon enough (oh wait already did that at Oceanique. Damn.) You drive a car, you'll get into accidents. But I felt stupid. And weak. I had to sit out from work for 15 minutes because I was dizzy and my hand hurt. Kitchens are like battlefields, and I left my troops in the trenches taking 'nades! On a Friday! With parties and customers coming through the door! ... Wait, I thought this was supposed to be a battlefield ... I mean the word "Fire!" is even shouted out all the time, except in the kitchen it means "Finish cooking it now! It needs to go to the table!" as opposed to "Shoot that motherfucker in the face!"

The rest of that day was kind of a blur. Working was kind of difficult because my left hand legitimately was bleeding a lot. I couldn't really grip or carry anything heavy, and that is a big part of my job description. But the universe came along again and gave me a gentle nudge in the right direction. Apparently some kid shows up and he's a vegan. I mean a child, whose parents are raising him as a vegan. Before I go on I just have to say, Are you fucking kidding me?!?! I have been told that you can raise children on a healthy vegan diet, but CMON!! McDonald's is an important part of everybody's childhood. I mean I probably would be your typical scrawny Asian if not for all the Big Macs and subsequent growth hormones I ingested as a youth.

Anyway, Chef Jeff needs a vegan snack plate for the poor bastard and wants strawberries, apples and carrot sticks. Now it just so happens that I was reading "The Art of Simple Food" by Alice Waters the night before and was like, "Hey, I'm not sure I totally know how to cut carrots into batons." And hence I read that brief blurb in the knife skills section (you cut a section off the carrot to create a flat side to rest it on. The more you know *ding*). So when Chef Jeff barks the order I'm like, Holy shit I know how to do that and I don't have to look like a total noob. Gloved left hand and knife in the right, I cut up a stack of carrot batons with perfect technique. The universe, or something, has reminded me to take it slow and learn things the right way.

Harsh fucking lesson though. Dick. .... or Bitch.

Side note: I have to mention the cold apps/dessert guy, or El Maestro.

Now I had to ask, why is this guy called El Maestro? He's a goofy Mexican guy in his late 30s, and he doesn't speak any English. Which by the way makes my job incredibly difficult. My Spanish has improved exponentially in the past 2 weeks. He thinks strawberries are called raspberries, and that raspberries are called strawberries. Well everytime he asks me to get some I figure he mixed it up and is talking about the other, but turns out my prediction is wrong and he actually got it right this time and I got the wrong kind of berries. Great.

Anyway I ask Chewie, why is he The Maestro? Well Chewie responds with a smile,

"He used to be an instructor in Mexico. But here? He fucking sucks."

Probably the most hilarious and harsh nickname ever. Then I ask, what kind of instructor?

Jorge, a waiter responds, "He was a construction foreman. He taught people how to not get killed by people like him."

Even better. Turns out his real name is Arturo, and the cooks tell me he's on the run from the federalis for murder. I'm 90% positive they're joking, because El Maestro doesn't look like he could kill one of the chickens we cook for dinner, but I'm sure that's what a lot of poor bastards thought before they got BOOM! Headshotted, GG.

Okay that's all, bye bye.

EP #6