Launching!

Friends, Family, Mysterious Denizens of the Internet,

I am finally ready to officially make an announcement.

I have been vaguely speaking about this for months, divulging bits and pieces as I saw fit. Now I can comfortably say: it's happening. I am ready, with a new partner on board, to begin moving forward with plans to create Atlanta's newest member of the Food Revolution. All goes well, and Trinken will be operational by 2016!

So here's the skinny: Trinken is unashamedly German, with local Atlanta sentiment. Specializing in German food utilizing locally sourced products, I have teamed up with Rob "the Brewru" Merrick to develop it into a full-on brewpub. We will also be featuring guest taps of other excellent Georgia breweries, and of course a quality import list of some of our favorite German beers. I want this to be a pub for Atlanta, by Atlanta- so next month, I will be launching a crowd funding campaign as well as searching for investors. Over the course of the year, I will also be hosting a variety of dinner parties and other fundraising efforts. We're going to make this happen. It will be incredible.  And if you want to get more involved, email me at TrinkenBarAtlanta@gmail.com. Join the future of Atlanta's food scene!

Wilkommen auf Trinken- Not Your Grandma's Biergarten!

Once Upon a Time...

And just like that, it's finished. Four years of conceptualization. Three months of research, mathematics, procrastination, and cooking. Cumulative five days of typing, reformatting, and typing again. Over fifty pages of relevant materials,  nevermind the obscene amounts of other materials I have yet to polish because they are irrelevant to potential investors (Though those will be done soon enough). More work invested in this one project than I ever put into any of my school projects combined. And I can finally call it DONE.

DONE!

I no longer have this aggravating leech of an idea, just sitting on my brain and nagging me constantly with thoughts of, "You haven't done enough research!  Your idea probably won't work. But hey, you'll never know- you keep procrastinating!  Lazy. You could TOTALLY be working on it right now!"
Well screw you, Brain! I finished something. For once. And my math actually supports my research,  my bar can be a viable business. This lunacy of mine may just work!

Of course, now the first leech has been replaced with a newer, bigger persistence- "Way to go, smartypants.  You got your shit figured out. Now, let's try this whole getting your shit actually together and get this place built, eh?" (The voices in my head seem to all be grizzled old Brooklynites... I can't even begin to explain that)

So, the prelude is over. I guess it is now safe to say my story actually begins today. Cool. :)

The Final Countdown?

Decided to be productive today.

It's a bit scary.

I am sooooo close, I could honestly finish this damn plan today if I had physical copies of this information in front of me. I have the hardest time focusing on screens. However, I think I'm going to make it happen. Notebooks will be filled with numbers and nonsense before today is over. Oh man. Oh man oh man. I'm even doing financial stuff! And while yes, my brain hates me at he moment,  it's getting DONE. PHASE TWO IS IMMINENT. SOON THE WORLD WILL BE MINE!!!

...Or, you know, my bar. Whatever.

Bittersweet

It's been hard to write recently. I've been backsliding into bad habits I had a few years ago, and when you're busy getting fucked up 7 nights a week then working the same amount, it's hard to pause for self-reflection.

I know what it is, too. I still miss J. When we broke it off, I avoided actually processing it. What's worse, I pretended we were fine as just friends. I still talk to him, I still see him when he's in town, hell, he and I cooked together last week. I helped him tile his fucking bathroom. I am a fantastic liar, I actually believed that by jumping into the dating pool again, I was over it. Not. Even. Close.

I shouldn't beat myself up about it so bad- theoretically I, too, am human. But it is so much harder than I want it to be to look at someone I want so bad to spend the rest of my life with and realize it probably won't happen. I need to give him up. But everything reminds me. Even my bar. Especially my bar. And that's really getting to me.

Progress on the bar is accelerating as far as the business plan. But every minute I spend on it, I want to share it with him. He was one of my catalysts to motivate me to actually work towards it. His influence is all over it, even without direct involvement. At this rate, I can only hope the bar consumes so much of my time I won't have time to dwell on him anymore.

Eggs

Happy New Year!  And I am beyond excited to begin it. After an insane holiday season, I am ready to kick my year into top gear and really kick ass this year. I was lucky enough to have my immediate family in town, and we had a great Christmas day. I had worked the night prior, so they were kind enough to let me sleep in a bit- we opened gifts at 2, then proceeded to go make Christmas dinner. That consisted of a massive 8 pound ham and 2 trays of lasagna- very italian gorge-fest merged with my sister-in-law's ham tradition. We ate ALL afternoon. And we drank. All afternoon. We had a blast! My friend Robin even made an appearance with her amazing homemade pickles, an excellent wine, and toffee. Everything tasted fantastic,  and getting to connect with the family again made my day.
I did get an incredibly meaningful gift a few days afterward- my own copy of "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee. I had been borrowing my friend Darrell's copy for a few weeks, and the book fascinates me. It's essentially a big textbook about the science of food, and I loved it. Well, he was kind enough to get me one, and I couldn't be happier. It's incredibly informative,  and really helps me connect what I want to do with food with the actual reactions that will commence during cooking. It's brilliant. And it has taught me more about eggs than I ever thought. And that's just one small portion.
When I was in my culinary classes in high school, the second lesson after the Sanitation class was egg cookery. That class in particular sticks out for me for many reasons- for one, I remember being surprised that we were going to spend 4 hours just talking about eggs. And I was a little grossed out- we were focusing on fried and scrambled eggs, and I was not a fan at the time. Still not overly fond of them, to be honest, but I'll actually eat them nowadays. We went over basic breakfast preparations, and how to crack the egg one-handed, and how to flip the egg in the sauté pan sans a spatula. When I tried my first flip, my yolk and white somehow separated, flipped simultaneously, and then broke in the pan. It was surprising to watch, and I promptly forgot about it. Fast forward 8 years later, and I have found myself eating and cooking eggs more often than ever, especially completely different preparations than I have ever tried.
With my new book, eggs have become far less mysterious, and far more important to me. They are so incredibly versatile, and now that I know what the hell I'm doing with them, they are actually pretty tasty. I've found I make a freaking awesome Sunnyside-up.
It's a cool juxtaposition that eggs, the symbol of rebirth in some cultures, has also found itself at the biggest culinary steps in my life. And nowadays, I'm very interested to see what else I can do with them. So here's to 2014, y'all! Let's see where it takes us!