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Blog Details for "Deglazed"
Deglazed Deglazed Have you ever dreamed of giving up your job to become a professional chef? That is what I did, and this is my blog that chronicles my misadventures as I follow my lifelong dream. Articles
Beer Dinner
2008-01-22 00:48:00 “We’re starting up our beer dinners again this month Matt, and I want you to come up with this month’s menu Matt.” Normally requests like this from Chef inspire me, and I’m always thrilled and honored to receive such a responsibility. But this time his request was accompanied by a touch of trepidation. Beer ... More About: Dinner , The Story
The $500 Run-Off Vote
2008-01-07 15:32:00 OK, so the first set of options I gave you all resulted in what I consider to be a 4-way tie. Some options really jumped out, while others have faded away. (I was kind of hoping you’d pick the lottery tickets, but alas, that was a no-go.) Anyway, here is your all’s run-off vote ... More About: Vote
Truffle This!
2008-01-02 05:05:00 = It seems that this country goes through periods of culinary stagnation wherein one ingredient is seen as the magical cure-all for whatever it is that someone is cooking. It is the epitome of culinary stagnation, like some collective “writer’s block” that all chefs suffer from simultaneously, and they collectively fill that void in ...
Heaven and Hell
2007-12-31 18:26:00 Pure Heaven . A thought occurred to me today as I made breakfast for myself and the wife. Every morning in heaven, you are served hot, sunny-side-up fried eggs cooked in fresh bacon fat. Runny yolks, buttered toast, perfectly seasoned. Every morning in hell you get cold scrambled eggs cooked in butter. Chef Matt More About: Hell , Heaven and Hell
Found Money
2007-12-24 17:08:00 This is one of those oddly true stories that makes no sense to me, but all the same results in an unique opportunity for you, my loyal readers. So my wife and I were going through piles of old papers and so forth that had collected over the past few months when my wife ... More About: Money , The Story
The Definition of Frustrating
2007-12-16 02:40:00 All of the sous chefs in a kitchen are in constant competition to prove themselves to the head chef. It’s like a bunch of children competing for their parents’ love, and in that way it is admittedly kinda dysfunctional. It almost seems that each one of us wants to appear to be the brightest, or have the best skills or ideas so we can be the main #2 guy in the kitchen. It’s not like such a position would really mean much of anything in the long run, but it is a way we can all compete I guess to make ourselves better at what we do. That’s what I’m talkin’ about baby! With the upcoming holiday party at our restaurant, chef had me bring in a whole pig so he could cook it for the crowd that’ll be on hand tomorrow night. He took the meat off the bones, holding the body of the pig all in one piece so he could stuff it with rice and olives and so forth. He then had Andrew (one of the other sous chefs) cook the stuffing, but Andrew over-cook... More About: Definition
The Venison Dinner
2007-12-15 04:07:00 Sure, I cook a lot in my kitchen at work, but people are always wondering if I still cook at home. I have answered before, that indeed I do, and I feel like this might be an example of what I do on my “own time” in my kitchen. It all began with some friends ... More About: Dinner
Finishing Up a Saturday
2007-12-11 17:32:00 I had dinner reservations this past Saturday with some good friends from college, and I knew that since Saturday nights usually get started fast and furious, I would have to make the reservations for later in the evening. I booked us a table at Corduroy for 8:30 which I figured would be plenty of ... More About: The Story , Nish
Catching Up
2007-12-04 18:57:00 Wow, so little writing as of late. I know my fans are disappointed - all 12 of you - so allow me to bring you up to speed on some of the things that have been going on, and perhaps this will lead me back into the world of regular posting once again. Disney World. ... More About: The Story
A Thanksgiving Story
2007-11-22 04:07:00 So I am sorry I have not written in so long. It’s not for lack of stories, but the muse has not been hitting me as of late. I just haven’t felt in a “writing mood”, and I don’t think I should be bloviating for the sake of staying current if I think ... More About: Story , Thanksgiving , The Story , Hank
A New Pizza for Autumn
2007-11-01 03:12:00 Autumn has arrived, and our new autumn menu is in full swing. Sure, it continues to change day to day as we refine it into something that works for our kitchen as well as our customers. But there was one addition I was able to make to this menu that is working out ... More About: Pizza , The Story , Autumn
Starting Advice
2007-10-16 22:10:00 Again I have received a question in the comment field of another one of my posts that is just too big for me to reply to in the comment field. Back on my post about how we had a culinary student working in our kitchen, Angelica posed me the following question: “I have just enrolled ... More About: Advice , The Story
The Root Beer is For Sale!
2007-10-09 16:13:00 After almost two months of testing and refining and subjecting my fellow chefs to varying degrees of palatable bottle-fermented concoctions, my root beer has made it to the production block! Seven bottles of Rustico’s finest homemade root beer (I need a name for it, don’t I? I’m thinking “Fin Root Beer ” - “Furb” for ... More About: For Sale , Sale , The Story
An Offer I Had to Refuse?
2007-10-06 02:54:00 About two weeks ago now, I had the second of my cooking classes up in Bedford, PA. The first class had a waiting list that was almost long enough to fill the second class, so we just decided to run my first class over again for those who couldn’t fit in the first time ... More About: The Story , Offer
The More Things Change…
2007-10-02 16:05:00 The other night, after I had finished my kitchen work, and had entered all the invoices into our QuickBooks system, Chef came by to ask me if I could help him with a new layout design he was thinking about for the recipes we have in house. You see, most restaurants write down the recipes they are using in house so that if one chef is out for some reason, and more gremolata (for instance) needs to be made, then another chef can quickly take over for the absence of that item. It just makes good sense. “Dammit, the recipe for our mushroom sauce has got to be in here somewhere!” The problem at Rustico - and we all agree it is a problem - is that our “menu book” has only about 60% of the recipes in it, and the ones that are in there are placed in no discernable order, and with no consistent style/layout. Any time I want a recipe for a salad dressing, I have to scan the whole notebook, and even if I do find it, I may or may not understand what the recipe is t... More About: Change , Things , Chang , Chan , The More Things Change
The Root Beer Taste Test
2007-09-21 02:50:00 I wrote before about how I was lucky enough to have been tapped (no pun intended) to make root beer for the restaurant. It has been an exciting series of tests so far, and I had come up with two options for how to get bubbles into the final product. The first was bottle fermenting. ... More About: Beer , Taste , Test , The Story , Root
The Real Use for the Pig Heads?
2007-09-18 19:34:00 So other than just scaring co-workers, we did actually have a reason for bringing pig heads into our restaurant. Indeed one of the other sous chefs, Andrew, wanted to make a pork terrine from them. (That is our more palatable way of saying “head cheese”.) I actually sold head cheese back in high school ... More About: Real , The Story , Heads
Yet More Kitchen Humor
2007-09-14 05:14:00 I guess I could be writing about all the cool recipes I’m working on, or how I see myself advancing in the kitchen, or how we are seeing a great increase in business with the onslaught of football season, but really, I know what my readers want. You want to hear about even more ... More About: Humor , Kitchen , The Story , Chen
One Out, One In
2007-09-06 04:33:00 Wow, it has been a hell of a long time since I last wrote. It has been a busy time to say the least, so first, some quick updates: Mmmm… root beer. 1. The root beer recipe I originally worked with was no good. I have come up with one of my own, and have ... More About: The Story
Been Caught Stealing
2007-08-21 22:13:00 As a huge fan of Jane’s Addiction, I’m thrilled that I have the opportunity to use this as a title for one of my posts. One of the all-time greatest albums. I sense a vague feeling of unrest out there due to the title of this post, so let me once again put your collective minds at ease, I was not the one who was caught stealing. They have yet to catch me. Yes, I’m kidding. Rather, twice this past week I was confronted with issues of theft from the restaurant that I had to deal with, and it is just another element of the learning process in how to manage restaurant workers. The first instance had to deal with paychecks. The paychecks came out this past Thursday (whoo hoo!) and chef pointed out two of them as being excessively high in overtime. I couldn’t explain this anomaly, but as the keeper of the schedule, I was able to confirm that they should not have had that much overtime since they simply didn’t work that many days. So of course the nex... More About: Caught , Been , Stealing
Making Root Beer
2007-08-13 19:07:00 Sorry I have been away for so long, but this past week - the “six” I had to pull - was more like an “eight” as I had two double shifts in there as well. It was an incredibly long week, and my reward for it is that I now get to pull together and teach my class tonight. I hope I can stay awake through the whole thing! So enough whining, on with the story. A few weeks back I received my latest issue of Saveur magazine, and as always I ran through it cover to cover as soon as it arrived. One of the articles that seized my rapt attention was an article on root beer - it’s history and recent resurgence in America. I have always been a huge fan of root beer since I love the flavor, and since I gave up drinking caffeine, it is one of the few soft drinks I can still enjoy. Therefore, learning more about the drink, and perhaps learning how to make it as well, was naturally a subject I took great interest in. For the record, Lost Trail Root Beer is the best... More About: Maki , Makin
Back to Teaching
2007-08-10 04:52:00 A long time ago - back when I was still working at Tirolo in fact - I was wondering if I should go back to becoming a cooking instructor, or maybe pick up some extra catering hours to help earn some more money for myself. The Tirolo job - being my first cooking job ... More About: Teaching , Back , The Story , Teac
A Short Weekend, or ?Pulling a Six?
2007-08-06 23:10:00 Summer is upon us, and that means that staff members want to take vacations. This of course means that there are holes in the kitchen where there are supposed to be cooks. This is where the responsibility of being a sous chef rears its ugly head as it is the other sous chefs ... More About: Weekend , The Story , Short , Pull
Looking Into a Mirror
2007-07-31 15:56:00 A kitchen is a place - as I’m sure you all can guess by now - where there is a lot of work to be done. We need to bring in more staff all the time to cover for those who have gone along their merry way as well as just to cover the ... More About: Mirror , The Story , Look
The Review I Had to Write
2007-07-28 03:56:00 A great film with loveable characters. Aren’t they just so cute? Of course I have seen Ratatouille. As a lover of cooking, movies and cartoons, there is no way I was not going to see this movie. On my way home from work last week, I dropped a call to my wife and asked her if she wanted to go see the movie. She was down for a movie date with her husband, so we trotted off to the late showing (9-something) at our local theater. We were the only ones watching the movie in there with the exception of one other lady who sat in the back and yelled out the answers to all the movie trivia questions that showed on the screen before the previews started. That is, she yelled out the answers to the ones she knew - which was only about half of them. Was she trying to impress us, or did she think that she was going to win a million dollars if she got the “secret question” right? Pathetic. Another reminder of why I usually wait for videos to come out before I see movi... More About: Review , Write
Becoming ?Institutionalized?
2007-07-24 17:41:00 Some of you out there I’m sure have seen The Shawshank Redemption. There are many memorable scenes in there, but I’m not here to recap them all with you since that isn’t really the point of this blog. There is one line in the movie though that came to me this morning that ... More About: The Story , Ming
What a Difference a Year Makes?
2007-07-20 06:05:00 Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of being a chef! I won’t be able to post tomorrow on the actual anniversary due to a friend being in town for a funeral and what not, so I figured I would use today as the actual anniversary. Clip art or not, this is about how I felt my first ... More About: The Story , Difference , Year , Ferenc , Diff
The New Pants Arrive!
2007-07-17 17:08:00 Well, thanks to all your votes, we have a very clear winner in the poll for which pants were to be my new chef’s pants. You overwhelmingly voted for “Pacific Rim” as the pants of choice which means that some of you were probably able to read what the writing said, and it says ... More About: Pants
Summer Soup Trio
2007-07-16 16:31:00 When people ask me what I do these days, it is hard for me to explain in a simple “elevator description” since I seem to be doing so much at Rustico. (An “elevator description” is what you use as a prepared speech to describe something to someone in the time it takes to make ... More About: Recipes , Summer , Soup , The Story , Trio
Friday Night - When Will the Fun Begin??
More articles from this author:2007-07-14 03:53:00 Some people have commented on how the blog posts I create here are too long. Perhaps that’s what cost me a perfect 10/10 rating for my Bloggy Award. So in light of that criticism, allow me to post a quick story about what life is like these days with the schedule I now ... More About: Night , Friday , The Story , Frida 1, 2, 3, 4 |
