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New Pants
2007-06-05 21:03:00
The traditional checker-board pattern of chef’s pants. YAWN! After two years of culinary school and almost one year on the job as a cook, my standard-issue checkered style chef’s pants just aren’t cutting it any more. The stains in them are deep and dark, to the point where one might actually think the original ...
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I?s Graduated!
2007-06-03 05:36:00
Maybe I need a photo with a chef’s hat on some diplomas and such… You may now all officially call me “chef”. In fact, I think I will require it. Of course I am kidding, but as of today, I am officially a graduate of Stratford University’s Culinary Arts Program. The graduation ceremony was this morning, but I ...
More About: The Story , Adua

A Day Off
2007-05-29 03:20:00
It has been pretty much ten straight days on the job to get things started for my tenure at Rustico. Technically I had a day off on Wednesday, but I went in anyway to work on some spreadsheets for the inventory for the new menu. It was nice not to be pounding away ...

Embracing the Heat
2007-05-23 02:26:00
I forgot what it felt like to stand in front of a hot sauté line. But the sweet kiss of sweat rolling down my forehead welcomed me back to the line this past Sunday. So much is happening at Rustico so fast for me, it is almost impossible for me to sum up. ...
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Day 1 At Rustico
2007-05-19 04:20:00
The alarm clock awoke me at the ungodly hour of 6:15, and I struck out the door with hopes that I had left myself enough time to get to work for my first day on time. My commute is now 25 minutes each way, and thankfully I seem to be missing rush hour by ...
More About: Rust

Vero?s End
2007-05-17 21:55:00
Well, my time at Vero has come to an end. Those of you who read these posts closely may be wondering what I mean, seeing as how today was supposed to be my last day. Well, you are right, today was supposed to be it, but Thursday night is the slowest night of the ...

Two Ingredients I?m Taking With Me
2007-05-16 15:29:00
Every chef is different and composes flavors in unique and characteristic ways. Just as you could identify which chef made your dish by the fingerprints he may have left on the side of the plate, you can also identify a specific chef’s handiwork by the spices, sauces or special ingredients he chose to use. ...
More About: Ingredients , King , Taking , Ingredient

What I?m Not Going to Miss
2007-05-14 16:21:00
Of course I am sad to be leaving Vero (only three days left!) as they have been a great group of people to work with and for. But since we are all human, it can’t possibly be the case that everything there was 100% perfect, right? Some of you have been writing me ...
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One Week Left at Vero?
2007-05-10 16:59:00
I told you there was big and exciting news afoot! Yes, in an announcement that I’m sure is a surprise to most of you, I have put in my notice at Restaurant Vero and am moving on to a new job at Rustico Restaurant and Bar in Alexandria. I actually told Joy I ...
More About: Left , Week

Trotting Off to Turkey?
2007-04-27 05:01:00
I’m going to Istanbul. (Not Constantinople) Hey there Deglazed fans, I am off to Turk ey for the next week and a half, so alas, no updates for a little while. (This is going to totally ruin my blog rankings…) I am excited to sample all of the great culinary wonders of Istanbul, and hopefully ...
More About: Rotti

The Early Shift
2007-04-25 06:05:00
My cell phone rang at 7:40 AM this morning. This would normally annoy me to no end as that is time I usually have reserved for sleeping, but I was up this particular morning. I was going in with the early shift today. Because I am going on vacation next week, I am a ...
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The Amazing Range of Carolina Cuisine
2007-04-20 17:20:00
I just took a trip back down to Durham, NC - where I went to college - just to see some old friends who still lived there. Some of them have babies now, so it was good to meet them as well, but when asked what it was I wanted to do there by ...
More About: Cuisine , Amazing , Carolina , Carol , The A

Thank You All!
2007-04-16 16:44:00
window.document.getElementById('post-385' ).parentNode.className += ' adhesive_post';Well, the votes were counted, and you all came through huge! Deglazed is now officially the “Best Food, Wine & Cooking Blog” in the “Best of Blogs” competition. Gold stars all around people! I could not ask for a better readership - your support has been truly astounding and ...
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Shout-Outs
2007-04-12 16:34:00
A few stories here that relate to other great blogs you should be reading. First off, to my good friends at the Rachael Ray Sucks Community I want to share this funny story. The other night in the kitchen, Dave (another chef) made a squirt bottle of extra virgin olive oil for use ...
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Back to Tirolo
2007-04-10 18:11:00
Some say you can never go home again, and since I had left Cafe Tiro lo back in November, I had not been back. Yes, even though it is my next door neighbor who runs the place, and I was friends with many of the people there, I just hadn’t had a chance to be ...
More About: Back , Tirolo , Tirol , Rolo

My First Birthday
2007-04-08 22:11:00
Well, it was actually my thirty-first birthday, but it was my first one as a chef. I mentioned how only the night before, I had started the wheels turning on quite the practical joke, so I figured that I was due for some serious harassment myself. I arrived at the regular time, but to stay ...
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Practical Jokes
2007-04-06 17:26:00
The jokes that are told in the kitchen are generally of the type that I won’t be sharing here. Mainly because my mother reads this blog, and because I am sure you have heard all these jokes before at one time or another. If you want some examples of the humor styles exhibited, you ...
More About: Jokes , Joke

Social Life? What Social Life??
2007-04-03 20:04:00
I am a night owl by nature. I don’t do mornings. And by “mornings” I mean ?anything that goes on before 10AM.? So on the one hand, making the move to becoming a professional chef who works the dinner shift made a lot of sense for me. I would be working ...
More About: Social , Life , What , Hat , Soci

Deglazed - A Best of Blogs Finalist!
2007-04-02 16:48:00
window.document.getElementById('post-360' ).parentNode.className += ' adhesive_post'; Deglazed has been nominated as a finalist for the 2006 Best of Blog s Awards in the category of “Best Food, Wine and Cooking Blog”. This is a tremendous honor to even be nominated as a finalist, but hey, I would also love to be a winner! So please head on ...
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Creative Differences
2007-03-31 15:52:00
As a chef at a fine restaurant, I am able to create a huge array of different dishes with lots of creative spins and ideas associated with them. It is probably the best perk of the job, that I am allowed to flex my “creative muscle” in the kitchen to some degree. A ...
More About: Creative , Differences , Difference , Ferenc , Diff

The Freshest Fare
2007-03-27 00:45:00
I have done a lot of traveling in my days, and of course the thing I focus on most when I am visiting a new place is the local cuisine. It is from the observations I make of how people cook and combine flavors in different parts of the world that I feel I am ...
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Oh Give Me Land, Lots of Land?
2007-03-25 15:24:00
One of my major misgivings when I considered becoming a chef was the fact that professional kitchens are usually very small. It is part of the deal of doing this professionally. Of course, working in cubicle-land was hardly what I would call “wide open space” but at least the space you have is yours. ...
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Problem Solving
2007-03-18 21:15:00
Introductory Aside: This story actually happened some time ago, and I have intentionally been holding it for some time so that any affected parties would have had time to come to grips with any of the errors that come to light in the telling of this tale. Also it may have been enough time ...
More About: Problem , Ving

The Trade Show
2007-03-14 19:28:00
I wasn’t in Kansas anymore - quite literally. The Adams-Burch trade show at FedEx Field is this week, and yesterday was the perfect day for Jay and myself to take a trip over to the other side of the city to check it out. Yes, it’s something like this, only slightly less Biblical. I have been ...
More About: Show , Trade

Quick Anecdotes
2007-03-12 14:08:00
I feel so bad for my irregular posting schedule. Sorry to all my readers out there. I have two great story lines that I am working on though - and I will get them up as fast as I can - I have just been so darn busy with so many other things. Enough ...
More About: Quick , Anecdotes

Man Down Ethan? Man Down.
2007-03-10 10:50:05
After mopping, it is important to keep the floor clean when doing end-of-the-night inventories. Some of you may recognize the post title from Mission: Impossible - it is a phrase I have often used to describe a situation where there has been a “crash and burn” in progress. A dropped beer, a friend trips on the sidewalk, an especially hard tackle when watching football - it really is a very useful phrase. And it was the only thought on my mind when Jay told me that Edwin would be out this past Wednesday. Edwin is that one line chef that every restaurant has: the Miracle Worker. But rather than facilitating the deaf and blind, he is the one who can cook the most food in the shortest period of time. He always seems to know what is going to happen before it happens, and if you think you can help Edwin out by maybe prepping something for him, you’d only see that he has not only already prepped that - but he’s also helped you with most of what you need as we...
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A New Record
2007-02-28 10:47:01
Saturday night is always a busy night in kitchens. Everybody else is as deep into their weekends as they can get, so they figure why not live it up a little? Tomorrow will be Sunday, and that usually means church and/or chores, so now is the time for them to go out and have a little fun, right? Well, that seems to have been the thought pattern for all of Northern Virginia last night, and coincidentally they all were thinking that the ideal place to undertake their weekend celebration was Restaurant Vero. I mentioned a few weeks back about how we all entered a pool to guess how many covers we would have during a Saturday night. I actually ended up winning that night with my spot-on guess of 120. We did this pool a few more times after this instance, but it soon lost any feeling of random guessing as the number of guests who would come in on a Saturday night was consistently falling between 118 and 124. There was such a lack of variety in the outcome that we soon all wondered why w...
More About: New Record , Record , Cord

MY First Review!
2007-02-28 10:47:01
This story requires us to go back to several previous posts, so please bear with me regular readers (all four of you) as I recap for the newly-initiated. Back in December, we were reviewed by the Washington Post, and it was a very favorable review. However, seeing as how this reviewer visited Vero before I was an employee, I could hardly take any credit for the praise we received. Quoting myself: “I want to be clear about this review though. I claim absolutely ZERO credit for this glowing review. All of his visits occurred before I was an employee, so there is no way my additions for the past two and a half weeks had anything to do with what Mr. Nicholls experienced at Vero.” The business at the restaurant really picked up as a result of that, and I was proud to be working in such a well-liked and busy restaurant. As time has progressed on though, I have had more ability to flex my own “creative muscle” in the kitchen, and come up with some of my own dishes...
More About: Review , View , First

More Kitchen Humor
2007-02-28 10:47:01
I wrote a while back about how the humor in kitchens can trend a little more towards the “ribald,” and I am guessing that is about as mildly as I can put it. My own sense of humor tends to skew in this way as well, so I was actually looking forward to working in an environment that not only catered to my “low-browedness,” but one that would encourage it and allow it to blossom. Imagine my disappointment (and that of my good friend Boutros) when my first kitchen job (Cafe Tirolo) was about as straight-laced as they come. I don’t think I ever once uttered so much a single bad word in that kitchen. OK, maybe I said something when I burned my arm, but I don’t really remember… In short the humor there barely made it to the “PG” rating, though Vic did tell me one joke that made me laugh out loud. Here goes: A man is walking by a store one day and sees a sign in a window offering a $100 river cruise. He is intrigued by this idea, s...
More About: Humor , Kitchen , More , Humo , Chen

No Lovey-Dovey Valentine?s Here
2007-02-17 16:43:02
While so many other blogs that I read have had some sort of treacle about how great Vale nti ne ’s Day is, or all the cute things that they and their loved ones did for Valentine’s - mine is not quite that kind of story. However, being married, I am not also going to post the “I’m all alone for Valentine’s Day sob-fest” that I also am seeing so much of. Rather, I am going to tell you the story of how Valentine’s Day works for a chef. Or at least how mine went down. What DC looks like when it actually snows. The story starts the night before, when my wife calls to tell me that she is staying at a hotel where she was having an off-site conference since the weather was getting really bad. I was in favor of this, since the quality of driving in DC is bad enough as is - add snow and ice to the equation and you have got yourself a total death trap on our roads. So I went to sleep alone that night, but still anticipating the next day since I h...
More About: Love , Here