Continuing our recent trend of posts about mentoring all the fresh new faces joining our industry, I whipped up a Holiday gift guide for this year focused on all the stuff that a brand new cook would need to get started in a kitchen. We’re talking about someone green, first day of culinary school green. Finally made it out of the dishpit and is about to chop their first onion green. Read More
“What’s really going to make you unique sometimes is the way your brain is different than anyone else’s brain who ever existed on the planet. That’s valuable right there. Write down what comes out of the brain… And sometime an idea isn’t good until the second half arrives later.”
-Dan Carlin on the Joe Rogan Experience
Recently I discussed at great length how the best part about working in the culinary industry is the people I get to work with. These people are the best people and this past August on a sun-soaked hill in Sannichton I got to be with my people doing what we all enjoy most; serving food to appreciative people surrounded by the astounding beauty of BC at the 2017 Vancouver Island Feast of Fields food festival.
Over forty different food service vendors ranging from restaurants to cola companies all with a “farm to fork” ethos filled ten circus-sized tents and a barn full of more good stuff at Ravenhill Herb Farm. The event raised a ton of money for FarmFolk CityFolk (a local non-profit that raises awareness of and provides help to local food producers) and gave us cooks a chance to get out of the kitchen and into the late August, fried-eggs-on-tarmac heat for a few hours. Read More
It was a night like so many others: A hurricane of twittering servers running to and fro, The Clash blaring from the prep area, orders billowing like Tibetan prayer flags on the line and the hungry ghosts of a hundred tables whispering in my ear that they’re food’s taking too damn long to…
“Y’know, I’m really thinking about taking the Culinary Arts Course at the college… This feels right. I’ve already learned a lot already and I really like this place.” I overhear one of my prep boys debating his future over in no-man’s land and I automatically shout back, “You’re too damn smart for this industry! Go be an undersea wielder or whatever the hell makes more money!”
Everybody has a laugh and goes back to business but as I dug out another plateful of mashed potatoes I hear my own words ringing in my head. It was the same stuff I’d heard before and been told a million times by other, usually older cooks. Now I was the “lifer” on the line: The grizzled old man chiding the younger guys to get out fast and find a better path to fame and fortune far away from the hard slog of kitchen life. Read More
The holiday season has moved in like a ninja this year: swift and unseen, appearing only at the last minute for a killing blow. Thwack! It’s time to start buying gifts for family and friends. If you’ve got a special cook in your life that you think is ‘kinda keen, then this year you should think about stuffing a little literary love in their stocking (not a metaphor).
I’ve been reading a lot this past year and I’ve been blessed with a lot of family and friends that have gifted me many books on food and kitchen life. I’ve compiled a short list of my favourites, why they pop and my recommendations for who might love finding them under the tree this Christmas. Read More