muchoNews

The new girl at work blows. not only is she super slow and its been over a month already, but shes also a bit numb. She told a couple coworkers, that warm water in a warm plastic bottle can give you cancer, I feel that’s a bit exaggerated. When someone told her to label something, she turned to them and said, can you show me how? Christ! She went to culinary school, that’s one of the main things you learn and do every day! She didn’t know what a lowboy was. Like, talk about green. Sure this is her first restaurant job, mine too, but I didn’t have anyone to hold my hand. My department doesn’t have 2 people working nights and she does, so shes “lucky”. And no gives her hell, they just pick up the slack and do mas trabajo then they should be. Drives me bananas.She may never make it in the restaurant world, only thing on her side is her mediocre looks.. I could go on about how terrible she is But I shan’t. Other than that, shes a lovely girl.

Other rant would be that I hate when people stroll into work in jeans. You forgot your chef pants?? UHHH, go back home or buy a new pair. Like, this is not Chile’s, or fucking Taco Bell– actuallllly, I bet Taco Bell or BK have strict rules about attire, and not only that–they match! You are working in a 3 star restaurant, for an IRON chef and you are wearing  jeans??? WHO ARE YOU? Unacceptable.

I really need the G1, but it’s still, what? a gillion pennies? or $350ish? $170 if you get a plan with it. Ridiculous.

The boy and I. Well–I like him a ton, still not sure if it’s for the right reasons, but he is amazing. All the little things he remembers and does for me to make me feel better and to show he loves me. out of this world. I have never had this before. What I need now is a wall that’s not made by an amateur so that when we shack up I don’t disturb my roommates, oy. I know I have too. How embarrassing.

I’m sure there is mas, but time is not on my side kids. Until then..

 

-r

slowdancedForthe1stTime–inaLONNNGtime

I had drinks with an amazing chef last night.

He is hilarious. Quick. Great hair. Typical ‘I can wear anything and make it look good’ attire. One of those guys that always make you nervous and leave you wanting more, but not too much in fear of losing the ‘always heart you from a distance’ feeling.

You feel me?

 

Yeah, he just pulled me in and told me to slow dance with him for a moment. I didn’t want to. My first thought was, ‘fuck no, I don’t dance anymore, and this is foolish’, YET so freakin cute. So he says, ‘but you want to, I can feel your hips moving’, and I replied, ‘then I shall stop’, and I did. and he says, ‘just once around, that’s it’.. reluctantly, I did. Lame.

But seriously, on another note, his facebook says [in a relationship], and he certainly wasn’t acting like he was in a relationship. tisktisk, I reminded him of his boundaries. I believe he understood what I was referring to…

 

more to come

 

-r

ThedevilInThekitchen

I just finished Marco Pierre White’s book, The Devil in the Kitchen. F a b u l o u s book. Yes, he does bounce around a bit in the book, but it’s fantastic nonetheless. He is such an inspiration, yes he is in the culinary world more so than pastry–but, a m a z i n g.

He came in to eat at the restaurant I work at. OMGosh. I was f r e a k i n g out. Mr. White was going to eat where I work and I may have the once in a lifetime chance to plate his dessert[s]. Wow. I was truly ecstatic.

His courses came in and he ended up ordering pappardelle and bolognese. 2 orders of tripe. and for dessert, 3 scoops of olive oil gelato. One can look at it as, What? You came to Babbo and just ordered that??!! Or one could say, hey he just wanted comfort food. Either way, amazing. My buddy who’s been in the business for 5 or 6 years didn’t even know who the guy was! Geez, I’m a pastry gal and even I know of him. He is a legend. One of the best in the world. He replied to my excitement, ‘he’s just another guy that cooks..’ True, but not true.

He finally said, ‘yeah, he seems cool, he’s wearing checkered vans’ Whatev. My buddy did end up reading this book and getting some respect. About time.

 

Anyway, I still need to get his earlier book, White Heat. I am having a bit of trouble ordering anything off amazon, they keep asking me to enable my cookies. I did, but It still wont work. [boohoo] 

Damn.

-r

yoDoc.

So my chef has been in Italy since January for the next year to write another cookbook. She’s been back to the states to change the menu a couple of times and due to visa-ness. Anyway, about 3 weeks ago she came home for another menu change and for the James Beard Awards, [she was nominated for like the 6th time for best pastry chef] And while she was in NY, she decided to go in for a checkup. Yeahhh…

Ends up finding out that she has ovarian cancer. Awesome, and by awesome I mean fucking terrible.

So She got surgery asap, she was at stage 4. They had to get rid of so much of insides, uterus, tubes, o’s, part of her liver [ which grows back which is the craziest thing ever] Like she’s lucky man. They claim they got rid of it all. I sure hope so. Otherwise..

So, I don’t know if shes going to ever get to go back to Italy to finish up th her book and such. I don’t know how long chemo lasts.

 

so I haven’t visited her yet. I don’t think I can bring myself to do so. I haven’t even seen my grandfather who was brought to the hospital because of Alzheimer’s. That’s been years. So ho can I see her? I can’t. My papa, oh man. Guilts me. But I just cant do it. It;s too sad for me. Wont even know who I am. I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t allowed to see him. My dads side of the family is crazy.

 

I feel bad I haven’t seen her. She checks out tomorrow too.

 

-r

chocolatebuttercream+passiveaggressive

So today at work, I made a white chocolate butter cream into a dark chocolate butter cream. Why? Because the white tasted like shit. Perhaps it was because “it was a couple days old”, but.. I doubt  that

 

I ask my fellow co-worker, if there was enough chocolate in it, “taste this, what do you think? Enough chocolate?”

 

Makes a face at me. [??]

 

“what? I don’t know what that face means..”

 

Pauses, looks at me and says something along the lines of: “Ohhh it’s perrrrrfect. You are like the next Jacques Torres! We should put this on the menu! Oh my god, amazing. You are so good. Wow, Mike, come try this, what do you think? It’s amazing huh? Tastes Grrreat! ”

 

I just flat out say, “you’re a dick, you are such a dick. A dick with a capital D.”

 

Then he gets all confused. Whatever. Like fuck you man. I asked a simple question and you gave me sarcastic bullshit. go fuck yourself, I am in a working environment asking a work related question. So I gave him mean eyes and didn’t hang around. [I didn't say those words exactly, hence the non existent quotation marks.]

 

Anyway, I made pretty damn good vanilla cupcakes with the chocolate butter cream. Shazam, delicioso* Well what I really did was cut the tops off like it was a muffin top, iced the cupcakes, then put the tops on slanted and 10xed it a bit. I am a crafty lady.

 

*spanish?

 

-r

 

time\s_t|cking

Oh em gee.

 

So me and my coworker are going to try and compete in a pastry competition; applications, with the recipes, and picture of the final product are due the 12 of May. Um, it’s almost the 5th soooooo Im freakin’ out.

 

I was looking at the previous years contestants, and they are goooooood, with a capital G. wow. Professionalsx9074509875340975498. Like, I want to win so bad, or atleast make it to top 5 finalist. I don’t know though. Being an anal perfectionist, I dont know. My friend says to ‘just have fun!’ yea okay, whatever, I wanna win bitch. [not her, but in general]

I suppose it will be a ‘good experience’. Now I need phenominal inspiration. yowzas. gimmie gimmie.

 

 

fingers crossed!

 

-r

RUNrunRUN

YO, can I just say it’s my weekend and I haven’t slept in once yet. Yesterday I had to go to the doc’s , and today I am getting up at 8am to go running with my chef.

 

What the shit man. So dead tired. Tired I say, tired.

 

So yesterday was fun though. I hate when doctors are doing something awkward to you, and they feel like they have to talk to you about other shit to get your mind off of whatever awkward thing theyre doing, like checking your breasts for cancer. Like what is your favorite dessert? Whats your favorite thing to make, You like chocolate? It’s like, SHUT UP, I DONT KNOW, I DONT EVEN KNOW. Just do your thing and tell me wtf is wrong with me. Stop trying to make me feel “comfortable”. I’m just saying.

 

Then I hung out with the boy that gave me the “ultimatum*” for like 12 hours, pretty much lose track of time with the guy hence why i am so tired because I didn’t get to sleep till 2ish. He couldn’t really move because of his kidneys and stuff, so since he was out of work and it was my day off, not a bad day to ditch everyone else for this guy eh? which is exactly what I did. I’m a slight douche I knowwww.

 

I think I took 3 cabs yesterday. How fucking lazy is that. Wow. Terrible.

 

Okay, I cant be late for running yo.

 

-r

 

*see past entry relating to ultimatum to understand

ohh/chef..

So I have been rather frustrated with the fact that I wanted to come in on one of my days off to help out in kitchen where I work, but on the savory side. I’ve always been a terrible cook, and I only took the pastry course. I was willing to work for free too. But I told my pastry chef and she said she wouldn’t allow it. Her explanation consisted of me needing balance in my life, how I already spend atleast 60hours there, and that I should enjoy my time off, and do non-cooking things.

But I want to learn, hands on. Sure I can read, but I am more of the type that needs to actually do it to retain it and understand. So then I had to tell my other chef that I couldnt come in, and so that chef flipped out, because it seemed strange and unfair to deny someone of learning. It’s like, hey, free help man. wtf.

I even had another chef I know tell me that my chef may be telling me no because she has other plans for me. That I could be be ruining my chances at a raise (which is already overdue) or promotion in the future. That my chef may feel like I have betrayed her. That she may feel like, oh no, what if she leaves pastry for savory. I’m a pretty loyal person, I just like to learn all that I can when the opprotunity and chances are available, especially since I know everyone already and the kitchen layout and they like me, and it’s not like I have to pay to go to school and learn this stuff. I have the chance to learn it right there where I work, with people who are willing to take the time and teach me. This other chef even told me that it’s people like me, that try and learn everything and they end up losing focus and thats why they dont move up and become leaders–this was mostly directed towards women. Okay, with that being said, I guess I should stop cooking dinner at home, because it’s savory, and I could be losing focus. I say fuck that bullshit. Fuck it. Such horse shit.

 

Anyhoo. I won’t disrespect my chef, but I will say it was a surprise to me that it wasnt a universal response..

 

-r