Do you remember?

Wait, before that....let's preface that I'm no licensed doctor (you knew that). I'm only speaking here from a perch of infinitely long and sensitive experience with my own thoughts on a day to day basis.

i've so far only been a retail clerk and a chef, professionally. That is, we can only validate that experience because I received payment.

A common held belief is that our minds become more and more stagnant with age. This is true in my opinion because of a few tangible and abstract stimulants on that condition that we are exposed to at length as we grow older.

to name a few:

i. hard mineral content in our water and foods (American specifically)

ii. hard wired patterns influenced by dopamine response

iii. economic adversity that affects the above

IN THIS COUNTRY

we unleash the alcohol on our brains at age 21. Open the door on smoking at 18.

These vices have a huge deleterious effect on our physiology. I believe they are meant to be implemented as tools to repress emotions that are the result of what we see, hear, eat. However, their habitual use destroys our brain.

In order to learn like we did in adolescence, we have to first ween ourselves from the vices that adulthood has presented us. Stuff that mom wouldn't be happy to hear about your practicing. Replace the intake. Then, give it a chance....like four years minimum.

Unless you're totally satisfied with how things are going.

I gauge my plasticity on the likeness that my dishes have with people of  the modern culinary age (2000-on)

Why was i spared?

Carl's pissed.

I haven't caught the end of any of his icy stares. Haven't had to answer him directly all day. He did call us the 'b-team' but that's just a gimme'.

Coasted through the afternoon's prep' because ignorance is of course: bliss.

So , while some things changed the two days I spent in class, I'm  already seeing the light.

I'm turning laps between the printer, the reach in, the low-boy, our makeshift hot-app' section, ( an induction burner next to an icy 400' with some mise') and the convection oven in the back. These moves are simple, this eighteen year old version of myself is limber and nimble as ever, no sweat.

How the hot-line dudes might be faring, I have no clue. I'm still in that self-centered-teenage phase and cant spare a second helping our my brethren even when it might help me indirectly as I'll see later.

[Well, maybe I'll grab a container full of snapper or some herbs for them every once in a while.]

Then the link breaks off.

In one of my ballistic peeks into my reach-in inventory I catch a glance of the soufflé stock.

I've got two left and it's eight o' clock.

We've obviously doubled up the size of the souffle in the past week. My station partner made a batch earlier for sure. Excuses accounted for, it's still looking like I'm toast. I'm gonna run out of soufflé.

To trip this cue is surely death.

In the five seconds since opening the refrigerator door I've now entered mental deliberation over how I'm gonna deal with this. I can : come clean and get reamed or play it coy, hope for the best and see if i can wait out the service?

I say 'FUCK IT' - somehow i've figured i've got nothing to lose.

I throw some butter in a pan and get that roux moving. Justin gets a look at what I'm doing - he understands the situation instantly and while we lock eyes he says 'uh oh'.

Thanks man.

this photo is shot in 2013, so things haven't changed much for this item.

I drop that milk into the roux, throw it into low heat. Plate a caesar, separate the eggs, throw down on some beets , toss some point-reyes into roux, pull it, and run to the walk in and start whipping.

I whip the average bowl of whites in record time, alone in the cold.

It's 2007, I haven't gotten a hold of youtube yet, haven't spent hours listening to a Roger Taylor kick drum, haven't taken up juicing full-time, barely exercise. I'm still a lanky, near autistic strand of life. Hair's super long and out of place for the restaurant I'm at.  The current state of affairs means that if it weren't for my first-hand familiarity with the recipe, the taste in my mouth would be 100% despair!

If anyone opens the walk-in, i'm exposed and the boss is gonna lose it!

But I make it out in record time, fold yolks, then the whites into the roux and toss that mix into the walk in while I butter and flour ramekins like i'm stressed or something.

The soufflés make it in the oven. But I've been running around for the better part of ten minutes. So...everyone already knows I'm fucked.

In fact, since i was in the walk in, my station partner already told people we're running out of soufflé.
So...

Pretty soon i get the question "hey, Rake. Where are you!?"

"Just cooking up some soufflé"

"Fuck man, cmon".

I somehow missed a verbal lashing.

I'm stressed but the souffle's been in for a bit, I'm home free.

I send away those lost two soufflés, scratch a couple more salads, a few apps. I get that ticket for a four-top where two people need some blue-cheese soufflé.

Carl's eyes shift to our section again, and we wait out those babies cooking. No one's opened the oven door yet.

Six minutes later, it's show time. Barry, Rachel, and I peer around one of my freshly baked. Rachel pops it out of the ramekin easily, it's solid, light, fluffy, nutty.

She sets it gingerly on a square plate. It's a premium soufflé , identical to any that were labored over for an extended twenty-minutes.

"Jesus man, you gotta go know how many of those you need!"

I like that you're reading, but try not to get lost on your phone!

chief influences that come to mind. ..

I wouldn't call them idols, but these are the people that I observe(d) regularly.

Heath Kirchart (skateboarder) -  I wrote an essay about Heath's skating in middle school that focused on the way he points his fingers and arms while aerial. It was a large dissertation on his form and style (that's the word) that was making a big impact on me at the time. That's kind of like an examination of modern dance in ways, but I wasn't connecting the likeness until years later. He's like a graceful and powerful hawk on the board.

The fact that Heath is a pioneer in big rail skating is well documented too, you can read someone else's blog about that.


Good outwear too, I appreciate all the marketing that goes along with being a professional.

Hiramasa featuring Malort  by Carlson c. 2011

Michael Carlson (chef) - A technical virtuoso who twists conventional offerings. His work is a proper example of what you do to stand out from the herd of chefs busy with trend. I ,however ,feel that his venue is sorely in need of some updating, but what do i know? Carlson works in a restaurant with a kitchen staff of maybe five people total. It rings similar to the situation at The Wine Vault and
Bistro ( with respects to the level of maturity i suppose).

Interesting to behold the challenge in tempering the chef's whim versus the public's demand without an owner to show objectivity regularly. That's supreme confidence in ability, no?

I like San Diego chefs too, it's difficult being creative and standing up to the global stage when the lifestyle here is this laid back.



 All these people are dead, by the way (RIP):

Mick seen here with the Travis-Been aluminum neck. 

Mick Karn (bass player) - A genius who was revelatory because of the melodic approach to bass playing that is his crowning achievement, and contribution to popular music of the early 80's. He's probably the only person that made the fretless-bass even sound like a remotely good idea. I think some purist will argue that Jaco is the fretless king and that's pretty nerdy to even bring up. His techniques brought his band to proper focus although the rhythm section of 'Japan' was sometimes overshadowed by vocals - that's quite  common usually. Karn's presence on stage is hugely understated but a hallmark of the band's live act.

Mick On the Right next to Nona Hendryx and David Sylvian. Just an all around cool motherfucker. 

Norman Walker /// Bernard Jansen (doctors) - Their outlook on diet and nutrition is focused on the mid-20th century. This is an era marked by a huge disconnect in computer technology that we have today. This tends to have me believing that Americans of that era were much stronger physically, pardon the focus on Americans.  There's also an entertaining archaic styling to way they wrote about the subject matter that is always entertaining.


Tylenol, please.

Til' I get it right.

Has this iPhone5 been enough trouble yet? Replaced battery, replaced charging port, inflamed battery, and another replaced battery says 'yes'. iPhone is like an extension of Chris' family. So while he might whine about the extended care that the little groove-tube brings into the picture, he could never neglect it to any sort of end.

In 2011, 2012, 2013 - I was enamoured with the affect of a fruitarian diet. The high carbohydrate and quickly digested lifestyle served the enduro-marathon of the level of chiefdom I had on the table at the time.  At the time - as I recall - I had a certain economic outlook that kept me from attaining more of the integral elements of my current diet/intake. I'll write about that outlook in the future....

If i recall, i enjoyed the lightweight, clean burning feel.

 If I'm honest though, I can say that I was experiencing a level of neurosis and to a greater extent orthorexia simultaneously.

Fat is the buffer between your nervous system and the harsh reality of the world around it.


You can fuel your body with sugar to good effect. However, the habit of spiking your blood-sugar is unsustainable and leads to a lack of fortification in mental facilities, later physical expression.

At this point, I can only advocate consumption of easily digested fat coupled with plenty of vegetable/fruit fiber. Nixed the cereals, hopefully most people know why by now.

Couple that with the consumption of plenty of herbal tonics to propel the absorption of nutrients, excretion of toxins, and education of the immune system.

Process

Force Feeding: A Sharper Axe to Cut Bigger Trees.

We agree that it isn't the work-out that makes you eventually stronger. We attribute muscle growth to the rest period, generally. I think factors that help cultivate optimal 'recovery' from the trauma put on the body include diet, sleep, and emotional enrichment. I think some people would also argue that you need exposure to the sun and purer oxygen, ideally.


We have to be realistic with the cyclical rhythms of this body. It's been thrust into a society (this one particularly American) that doesn't honor rest. You can't expect to get the same results on this physical plane during Winter as you do in Spring as you do in Summer.

Prioritizing a season of relaxation is imperative to the flow of energy both creative and linear.

You're not smoking the cigarette. That cigarette's smoking you.

If you purchase new tools to facilitate a new lifestyle you will find that the laws of this universe ( and i hate using that term) will allow for the safe removal of other 'unwanted' life-moves.

i.e:

 An abundance of pure, unfiltered, unrefined, spring water makes the acquisition of Mountain-Dew difficult.

This hack works to a degree whereby the so-called 'will power' to resist unwanted propensities is coerced into reduction.

Do you get me?

i.e.

Your love of spring water ( and you love spring water, believe me) will supersede your desire to even look at Mountain Dew.

Thus, you are spending less and less energy resisting your vice and instead using positive force to embrace your loves.

Lets talk about something in graphics:

A commodity: salad with tinned sardine at the pad. 

So not that i've evolved as a human at all in the past year or two....

But i've noticed that i can see the plate-ups in anything I'm eating that's at least somewhat composed.

I call this the Rythm Effect, even though food is most of the time 'stationary'.

In culinary school we had a short discussion about focal point(s) and negative space. I don't recall much emphasis being put on COLOR CONTRAST, but that shit is major, in my opinion.

I mean; it's fortunate that culinary trends c.2013 allow for any pile of shit you see to be filed under 'modern' and 'subtle'. I fully intend to use that consciousness to my advantage (and did for a year, by the way).

Even in this quick dinner i was eating (in the photo) my salad is spilling into the rim, its loaded with varying shapes (none of which are teased with some knife-tricks). I finished the whole thing by literally hucking a carcass at the plate. There's also a little moat underneath the sardine belly where the dressing (lemon juice only) will collect with some juices from the tomatoes and sardines to give that sort of 'nage' feel. Can you imagine if i had a little red-beet in there?

I COULD SELL THAT SHIT FOR $30 in a brick-and-mortar.

Listen to Sandra

 Remember:



It's always better to be an idiot than a slave.

 I think you get burned either way. This mode of thought would serve as economic landscapes here in the States evolve.

But don't buy into what I have to say. I think this forum is supposed to allow you to see it and then make a conclusion.

This is for all the folks telling me sugar is murder.