So Close Yet So, So, So Fucking Far

5 weeks.

That's how long I've got left in school.
And yet I'm nowhere near done learning and I'm not really that close to my Red Seal. Time-wise yeah, I'm close, being done school and all.... But am I ready? Really?

I gotta get on this shit man.
I need to be Red Seal ready as soon as I can. Hell, I need to know my stuff, period, if I'm going to move ahead in my career. But of course the cash-in-hand and the (little bit of) respect from getting my papers won't hurt.

At the same time I've come a long way too.
I'm two years in the industry and less than two years old as an apprentice. I'm somewhat impressed with myself and what I've learned but in all reality I realize that I know sooooooo very little.

And what happens after school?
I'm starting to think (let's be real... I know) that Jack's is not likely in my long-term career trajectory.  I want to make some epic food. I want to produce recipes and menus. Not manage a bunch of muppets while they half-assedly put together plates with no regard for presentation or flavour. Not to down on Jack's and all my fellow peeps whom I love, but short of our recent push to manage better specs and presentation, the job is about moving as many guests through the door as possible.

But what the fuck is in my career trajectory?
Damn. I wish I knew. But I do know I need to get my ass into another, serious, kitchen.

Ultimately I know that I need to work with good, and preferably healthy, food. I'm going to point myself in the right direction out of school and hope for the best. Wish me luck, because I feel like there's still a long way to go before I land where I need to be.

A Biothermometer/Meat Thermometer

Unless you're a vegetarian, it's probably the most important piece of equipment in your kitchen. Digital or analog, I don't care. If you don't have one, spend the $10 to get one and save yourself the horror of overcooked proteins.

Why do you think every Chef has one on his sleeve? They are that important.
I keep three: one in my kit for school/work, and then both a digital and an analog one for home use.

What temperatures are we looking for?

Well, fresh beef (not ground) can be served at near any temperature. I aim for 135°F internal temp. And seriously, well done steak (>160°F) is offensive and makes me cry inside. You should be ashamed. It's not blood it's juice. (Though for ground beef that temp is perfectly reasonable.)
Pork should be slightly pink! And juicy! 145°F. No more or it dries out.
And oh god save the fish... Fresh fish can be rare. If it's fully flaking it's overcooked! *Beginning to flake* is key. Never dry! Dry fish is terrible.
And chicken... Stop worrying so much people. Get your 160°-165°F (after resting!) and you're good. While it's really shitty to get salmonella, you do not need to cook your poultry to bonemeal-like dryness to kill it.

Don't believe me?
http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html

Temp your meat. When it's about ready, rest it for 5 mins (which will also raise the internal temperature a bit) and then cut.

These poor animals lost their lives for your meal. Get a proper thermometer, stop overcooking your proteins and enjoy a proper, juicy, delicious centerpiece on your plate.

Trust me. It's worth the $10.

My Basic Bean Salad

Haven't posted in a while. My bad.
Mudder went great. Classes are going well. I'm content.

Now. About that food....

Market list:
Can of Bean Medley
Green and yellow pepper
Red onion
Roasted red pepper
Kalamata olives
White vinegar
Dijon mustard (or honey Dijon)
Honey
Olive oil
Optional: apple cider vinegar, cherry tomato halves and/or feta

Salad ingredients:
1 can of six bean medley
1/2 piece green bell pepper, medium dice
1/2 piece yellow bell pepper, medium dice
1/2 piece red onion, fine dice
1/4 cup kalamata olives, fine chop
2-3 pieces roasted red pepper, julienned

Dressing:
1/8 cup white vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard (or honey Dijon)
1 tsp honey (1/2 if using honey Dijon)
1/8 cup olive oil (or more to taste)
A couple drops of lemon juice
Salt and Pepper to taste (really just a pinch of each)

What now?

Rule number one of every recipe, ever; READ THE WHOLE RECIPE BEFORE STARTING. I cannot understate the importance of this.

Complete your slicing and dicing.
Rinse beans in a colander; get rid of the skins and excess salt.
Mix all salad ingredients well.

Prepare dressing in separate bowl:
Blend/whisk vinegar, mustard, honey, lemon juice, and seasoning. (Use apple cider vinegar in place of a part of the regular vinegar if you want.)
Slowly drizzle (slow is important) olive oil into food processor/whisk.
Season to taste; it's very important to add some salt and pepper, taste and try again.
Also, don't be afraid to add additional oil/vinegar/honey/mustard depending on your tastes. Taste it as you go and remember that the dressing will get slightly milder when mixed into your salad.

Add dressing to salad; but don't add it all at once! Mix in a bit at a time until you get to *almost* the desired consistency and reserve the rest. Be aware that the veg and beans will sweat some liquid and dillute your dressing.
Taste and add more dressing and seasoning as required.
Add optional cheese/tomato before serving.

Enjoy.

Dishes:
Cutting board
Knife
Tasting spoon
Measuring spoons
Measuring cup
Whisk/food processor
Mixing bowl(s)

5 months of training.

And now I'm only three and a half hours from leaving the Tough Mudder starting gate.

Feeling a little nervous.
Hope this goes well for me, and especially Butler. I feel I should be ready. I *know* he's not.

Epiphany

Its one of the reasons I cook
9:56 AM

I can please people without even speaking.
9:56 AM

Sometimes it's nice to say something off the cuff and realize it's so much more than that.

I Wanna Live Forever

As I ride the GO Train downtown I'm a little anxious right now. I had a good morning and all, decent workout... crushed myself with P90X2's Plyocide workout... But I'm on my way in for what could be a troublesome lab. We demo'd it yesterday, and I think I'll do alright but I always get jittery for labs. I think it's kind of a good thing, keeps you on your toes, can't get too comfortable. You get comfortable and you get lazy.
I decided rule number one a long time ago: Don't be lazy.

Either way, between one and four this afternoon I'll be producing the following; grilled marinated sirloin steak, pan fried sirloin steak, veal fricassee, veal schnitzel and braised short ribs. Leftovers should be good. Worst case, I've got about three or four pounds of pork loin at home that's been in the slow cooker for the last 15+ hours... 20 or so by the time I get home. Smelled godly this morning.

Anyways. Moving on. A close friend asked me what my fitness goals were yesterday. What do I want from working my stupid ass off like I have been. Why? What the fuck am I doing to myself, and to what end?
Well, short term, it's all about mudder. Tough Mudder is less than two weeks away and I wanna walk off the course feeling like I did well and not feeling like I'm going to die. That's definitely a priority. After my unplanned 4 mile full tilt run yesterday I'm feeling pretty good on that front. That's a third of the course in 30 mins, give or take.
Medium term goals? Well that's a little harder. Obviously good health and fitness are clutch. It used to be about taking my mind off of life, but now it's about feeling good - and a good workout always does that.
That's only part of the answer though. Truthfully, which I felt awkward saying out loud, a significant portion of my goal is to look goddamn sexy(again?). I will get there. Even though I feel like a shallow superficial ass for saying it. As she said however, "isn't that kind of what everyone wants?"

Long term goals?... This one is easy. To put it bluntly, I don't want to die early. My grandfather died when my dad was a teen, and my father almost died three years ago - in fact his heart was stopped for nearly two minutes. Why? Both of them from multiple heart attacks. Almost entirely due to diet. I didn't know my grandfather but from photos I can see he wasn't in bad shape. That's about all I know. However my father is/was in decent shape, exercised regularly and is by no means overweight, however his diet was/is shit. Bacon sandwich Sunday anyone? Yeah, sounds great, and I used to eat like that, by I also don't want three heart attacks and a quin-bypass in my early fifties. Fuck that. I wanna live forever.

So here I am. Learning how to damage peoples cardiovascular system with classical cuisine (with it's seemingly heart-stopping food) while eating like I want to live forever and training like an athlete with something to prove.

That felt good.

I'd like to thank Chevrolet for the motto of last night's sleep...

"Like a rock"

And now a day off?
Wonderful. Time to get some shit done.

I'm impressed.

Today was a fucking fantastic day, and I'm impressed. I genuinely feel pretty good about it and if I could manufacture more days like this, or give them out like Christmas gifts, I'd be one popular motherfucker.

Why? Honestly I don't know. It wasn't because of anything in particular - some given event or revelation, but because of a lot of little things.

I will say one thing... It was not my wakeup. My 545am wakeup was yet again absolute balls. I have to do this twice a week? I am obviously no fan of this. However my morning warmup (yoga) was decent and my sizeable yet nutritious breakfast was good.... And then my day continues...
- I am FULLY engrossed in The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. Reading it on the train to and from school is a pleasure. (and it's reinvigorating my culinary spirit)
- Class went well, I like to think my smartass comments were yet again a hit, and I think I rocked my management presentation.
- DESTOYED my back at the gym in the best way possible.... And ran a couple miles without feeling like I was going to die.
- Found an acceptable undershirt for Tough Mudder which not only makes me look stupid ripped but it was ridiculously cheap.
- Felt like a champ after getting a good trim at what will likely be my barbershop of choice going forward... And had a wonderful and enlightening discussion while getting it done.
- Bought a 4lb. jug of whey protein. New protein is always exciting.... Well for some of us it is...
- Got my groceries for the week (<3 food)... And last but in no way close to least....
- Made chili cheese burgers for dinner which were absolutely amazing. I mean fucking-epic-in-your-mouth and one day this-will-be-on-my-menu good. Not exactly a healthful meal but sometimes you just gotta eat.

Speaking of.

I'll start looking into posting 'easy, quick and healthy recipes for single people' as someone has requested it, and frankly it's a pretty good idea... Maybe I can make something of this blog. We will see. It shouldn't be too hard... Right?

Either way. I'm going to make a concerted effort to try and relish the little things in life that make my days feel like this one... I felt good, followed my gut and didn't sweat the small shit. Keep it up and maybe soon I'll have more fucking-epic-stacked-on-epic days like this one. I can only hope.

"Enjoy the journey."

Where is this going?

No, seriously, I don't know.
Someone tell me. If perhaps I knew where this is going, this whole process might be a bit easier.

I've been told I have a certain skill with writing. Finesse, panache, flair... Good words? It sounds to me like some people are just trying to make me feel better for spilling my guts all over a keyboard, with many, many words and syllables.
I have been known to write a lot. Both during my four year stint at Waterloo and then during my time in China, until the "Party" (fun word for a pretty unfun group) shut down access to Wordpress. Still, I have worked on my writing quite a bit and I might agree that perhaps I have got a little skill with it... Though I also often edit the balls out of what I've written to make myself sound eloquent, well spoken and funny. All things I am often not. A little from column A (skill) and a little from column B (editing), perhaps. I will however, attempt to not turn this blog into a series of over-edited diatribes and waste everyone's time. Most notably, my own. ....Though now that I think about it, this is for me, reader, so fuck you!... If I wanna go off on a topic I will! I'm pretty good at the occasional (every day?) diatribe. I'll just try to avoid the over-editing.

So. What the hell am I doing here? My best friend suggested that starting a blog again might be a good experience... cathartic (love that word) even. I've been struggling to find some personal direction. Perhaps my thoughts-cum-penmanship might help me find a path, or at the very least could be a good outlet for some serious angst I hold within. I don't anticipate (nor perhaps want) legions of followers for my brains chicken scratch on the internet. That just seems awkward. But at the same time I do think that there may be a few people that might be interested in what I have to say. Might.

What are my interests then? What in the hell shall I ever write about? I fully expect to end up scribbling random notes of nonsense on the occasion. Random thoughts and considerations. But likely more often than not I'll end up on here spending an hour (...ugh, really?) carefully detailing a post regarding my interests.... Food. Fitness. Fun.
I'm a cook. I eat well. I workout. These things I do in spades. I occasionally like to do things that one might consider "fun" or "entertaining". Perhaps that might show up in my thoughts here at some point. But really, I'm intending on this blog being an outlet for my fitness and food interests. I love food and enjoy the hell out of talking to people about cooking. And fitness? Working out? I usually spend an hour or two a day doing some kind of exercise... Maybe I can motivate some others to do the same? It is good for you... and goddamn it makes you feel good.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Nobody's reading this shit yet. And again... this isn't *really* for you. We will see how this goes. I can say with confidence however, that I am never going to get derailed into rambling about stupid shit like Miley Cyrus' floppy ass, or ... God knows what.

And now here we are. I've spent some time writing and "where is this going?" has now, maybe, turned into something concrete. Well, perhaps as "concrete" as words on the internet can get... But it is an intended direction. Safe to say that is better than nothing. I'll try to keep up on the writing. Call me selfish, but... For me. Not for you.