Surf n' Turf Saturday Night

So the guy from my last "Saturday night" post? Yeah. We're still seeing each other. And he's been just as awesome. I keep telling him I want to cook for him, but with our schedules, it's been close to impossible. Currently, I only have Saturday nights free to spend with him; and that's usually after a brunch shift that totally drains me. However, he's been fantastically understanding. Last Saturday, we grabbed Little Caesar's and just chilled at his place. Last night, he offered to cook for me!

When he picked me up, he mentioned we had to stop at the store- he had picked up some beautiful ribeyes earlier at the farmer's market, but needed to pick up a side dish. Apparently his green beans are magical,  so we stopped at the grocery store by his place to pick them up. On the way, we both decided we were a bit too hungry to wait and needed a pre-dinner snack. And something for dessert. We walked the aisles, snagging brownie mix (because if I didn't have energy to make a whole meal, dammit, I can do brownies from a box at least) and a shrimp cocktail platter.

We got to his place to discover the shrimp was frozen solid. So I set it under a tap of running water and got "baking" while he started dinner. Once the brownie mix was in the oven and he was halfway ready to start cooking, his mom called. Dinner got put on hold for a bit while he took the call, and I remembered an old quick-thaw trick for frozen cocktail shrimp I learned at a restaurant I used to work at. By the time he was off the phone (and 15 whole minutes after I could have had the shrimp thawed), we were decimating our snack.

Watching him cook, his technique could have used work. But I behaved and kept my mouth shut- after all, he was cooking for me! And you know what? It wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed it immensely. I'm so thankful he was willing to cook, and I hope he does it for me again.

*Andi's "no shit sherlock" shrimp thaw trick*
Put the frozen shrimp in a bowl and cover with very hot water. Let it sit for 2-3 minutes.  Drain, then quick chill in ice water and drain again. Serve immediately
*I cannot guarantee this is the most food safe way to do this, but to my knowledge it hasn't gotten anyone sick yet.

Brain Drain

Life is just such a crazy amazeballs clusterfuck sometimes! And I am willing to admit a large portion of that may be because I am a bit of a goddamn lunatic.
For starters,  dating.  Jesus christ I haven't been single long and I am sick of it already. I'm tired of meeting people,  I'm tired of building connections that go nowhere, and more than anything else I am sick of not having someone to call and be my sounding board. I want to get married,  dammit. More than anything,  I want to marry the man that knows all the good and bad about me, and can put up with me when I freak out and calls me out when I'm being a bitch. He exists, I know he does, I just need him to reveal himself before I go on another godawful date wih another sadsack of a human being.

Can I sound any more like a Bitter Single Girl? Probably,  but nobody wants to read that. I'll get over it and be fine soon enough, but sometimes you just need to vent! Honestly, life is pretty good for me right now.  Passed my trail- I start training at the wine bar on Saturday night. They have thw coolest hiring procedure- the staff has the final hiring decision,  not the management. Frankly, it makes a lot of sense if you think about it- restaurant managers don't work with the servers and bartenders as closely as they do with each other.  So isn't it better if your coworkers decide if they can put up with you day in and day out? It's brilliant,  and a strategy I intend to implement in my place when it gets up and running.

As for my future place, things are moving in a very positive direction!  I fully believe that it will be operational by 2016. Good things! I will be posting more of the nitty-gritty details in the upcoming year! 

Got Milk?

Hijacking a quote from 'Apron Anxiety' (by Alyssa Shelasky) that was hijacked from 'Daily Blender'...
"I would be displeased and scared shitless if my little girl started talking about wanting to be a chef. I guess it could be worse. She could talk about wanting to go OUT with a chef." ~Anthony Bourdain

For the majority of my romantic life, I have always seen myself as ending up with someone structured, vivacious, fun, dependable, impetuous, and with high standards. Essentially, a mess of contradictions like myself. I've dated a wide variety of guys to try and find that mix, too- bookworms, jocks, artists, geeky goofballs, felons, frat boys, and coworkers. Ultimately, I figured out that the people I was most likely to find that eclectic mix in was either going to be a Marine or a chef. I grew up as a military brat, so the idea of odd schedules and deployments never fazed me- it was all a part of the package. However, I'm not exactly in a military city, so chefs have been my most attractive option. I'm just wondering- why?

I want someone dependable. Chefs, as a general rule of thumb, are not. Working in restaurants, I never get to celebrate holidays and birthdays on time anyway. Being with J, if we want to do anything, we have to pray we have a day off at the same time. And even then, our dates will be interrupted by calls from his sous chef, his purveyors, and his front of house staff at least two or three times. I understand this. I do. I don't get mad, because one day, that will be me. But it's a bit disheartening at the same time. Worse are the days we make tentative plans, and he has to cancel last minute because of a restaurant emergency. Again, it doesn't change how I feel about him, it's a chef fact of life and I get it. But why do I stay and willingly let myself get disappointed?

Maybe, it's because when we're together, he acts like I'm the only woman on the planet. We can go loaf around and talk for hours, or just be quiet and enjoy each other's company. He can make octopus shit jokes in front of a group of young kids and their grandmother, and we'll both find it inappropriate and completely hilarious. When he is here, he's a chivalrous gentleman and a sweetheart. When he's not, he still finds time to text me once or twice a day, and doesn't mind me polluting his inbox with inane bullshit.

I can handle the disappointments because I know, at the end of the day, he makes it worth it. It's like I've spent my life drinking shitty skim milk, and then someone gave me a big glass of chocolate milk. Sure, it can spoil like any other milk, but at the end of the day, it just tastes so much better- why would I ever go back to skim milk?

"You do something to me- that I can't explain-- so would I be out of line- if I said, 'I miss you'?" ~Incubus, 'I Miss You'

Sober St. Patrick's Day- an Introduction

For the first time in years, I am spending St. Patrick's day sober. Not intentionally, but crap happens. Today was supposed to be a gorgeous day, perfect for going outside and enjoying sunshine with my dogs. Instead, I have been granted clouds and brisk breezes, which has led to accidentally literally making myself ill with boredom. Which led to me starting a blog. Clearly a recipe for success! Well, here we are anyway.
They say to write what you know, so I suppose I should decide what that is.

Food.

I know about food. I'm a cook, and a total food nerd. I have shelves of cook books, chef memoirs, even cook comic books ('Get Jiro', anyone?). I get more excited about restaurants and industry news than I do about pop culture.

I also know a lot about dating. Specifically, long periods of shitty dating before finally meeting someone who meshes with me incredibly well. Extra-specifically, dating a chef. So I guess, by default, this blog will wind up being about my love affairs with food and, well, actual love affairs. Following still?

Now for our cast of characters- aside from myself, there will be at least two other people I can see myself writing about most frequently. The first is the guy I'm currently seeing, a fantastic chef who has been earning quite a bit of notoriety over the past two years (though I've only known him five months). The other is my boss, another excellent chef with a healthy heap of accolades. ...can you tell I like to surround myself with people with taste? For their privacy, I will refer to my guy as J, and my boss as Chef. It will just keep things simpler in the long run.

Aside from boredom, why am I bothering to start a blog? Well, I have been reading chef-related stuff all day, including the blog Desperate Chef Wives (http://www.desperatechefswives.com). Excellent material, all of it, but I was having a harder time relating. See, since I work in the industry, I wanted to find other women who could relate to my experiences- sharing similar hours, goals, ideology, and that sort of thing.

So, this is a perfectly selfish, self-serving blog. I want to find other lady line cooks like myself who happen to be dating "within the ranks", as Anthony Bourdain might say. So, here's to us, chickadees, wherever we may be hiding! And to the industry and fellow cooks we love so much.