Experience? Who Needs Experience?

Well, I do.  Seriously, my most recent commercial kitchen experience is from 1974, where I worked prep at a pizza delivery place in Milwaukie, Oregon.  So here I am, trying to open a restaurant with no real time in a professional kitchen.

So, what to do?  Well, I think I’m going to get a job.  A side job.  For free.

I’m going to offer myself for free to a restaurant on Sundays for two months.  That’s right – for nothing.  Just the pure joy of the experience.

So what restaurant?  Well, given that our concept is Southern food, I sure don’t just want to flip burgers at Mickey D’s.  Although the chance to rattle chons and woks is intriguing, I don’t think a Chinese place is really what I have in mind.  Neither, then, a roadside barbecue stand.  So where, then?

Well, I tried a little Belgian place nearby recently.  The owner is a friend of a friend, and I got an introduction.  Michael was cordial and interested, but it seems they had recently lost their head chef and things were in a bit of a turmoil, so he and his wife felt I would introduce an unneeded distraction.  It would have been fun there.

So, now what?  Well, there’s a place over in Manassas I want to try next.  They make food I like and seem sufficiently large to offer a variety of experience.  I may give them a whirl this weekend.

I’ll keep you all posted!

Getting schooled

A big part of the fun of food for me is the learning. 

I’ve been at my day job a long time and one of the things that keeps it fresh for me is that I try to learn something new every day.  Some days I don’t really succeed at that, but most of the time I do.  Today, for instance, I tried a new type of system design diagram.  It’s the chance to try something different that keeps the job fresh for me after sixteen years at the same place.

Likewise with food and cooking.  Part of what has fired my passion is that there is so much to learn.  I don’t think I step foot into a kitchen without picking up a bit of knowledge or trying out some new ingredient or technique.   It really satisfies my desire to grow and improve.

So tonight, Suellen and I are watching the premier of Gordon Ramsay’s new show, Master Chef.  It’s been kind of brutal.  Gordon and his fellow judges are being a bit blunt.  A number of contestants have left in tears.

One of the participants prepares macaroni and cheese.  This is somewhat surprising to me.  It just seems a bit, ummm, ahhh, pedestrian for a show called Master Chef.

I’m watching carefully as the contestant plates his dish, and I’m immediately struck by the presentation.  He has neatly punched out a perfect circle of his casserole and placed it on the serving plate crust side up.  It sits there quite regally, holding its shape, not oozing, flowing, or collapsing, and with that perfectly toasted crust on top, just begging to be eaten.  It looks amazing, so maybe it’s not so pedestrian, after all.

Before tasting the dish, Ramsay announces that, since the dish is so simple, it had better be perfect.  Not just good, mind you, but perfect: pasta done just al dente, proper seasoning, excellent flavor, and that moist-and-creamy-but-still-just-firm texture.

I am suddenly struck that some of these requirements from Gordon are kind of missing from one of our menu items, a crawfish and tasso macaroni and cheese.  The flavor is certainly there, but now I think I have to improve the pasta, texture, and presentation.  I need to take this dish back to the drawing board and rethink it to make sure that it’s really the best it can be.

I’ll be in the kitchen now, learning something new.

So what’s for dinner, anyway?

So what kind of food would we serve?  American Southern food!  We’ve designed a menu that includes dishes from the Tidewater area of Virginia and Maryland, down into the low country of the Carolinas and Georgia, over through the gulf states, and on into east Texas.  Here are a few sample items:

• Big Pig Jalapeno Poppers.  Whole pickled jalapenos stuffed with pulled pork and barbecue sauce and cheddar jack cheese, beer battered, deep fried, and served with a ranch remoulade dipping sauce.
• Creamy CrawFish and Tasso Enchiladas.  Made with butter, cream, sauteed crawfish and tasso, rolled in fried corn tortillas and broiled.
• Bananas Foster French Toast.  A brunch entree based on the famous Brennan’s dessert. Cinnamon swirl french toast covered with bananas sauteed in a brown sugar, butter and rum sauce, topped with fresh whipped cream.
• Carrot Cake.  Not just any carrot cake, mind you, but made from a secret family recipe with a cream cheese frosting.

Just this weekend we tried a seared pork chop with Andouille and crawfish stuffing that was amazing!  We need to work on the doneness of the pork, but this recipe has lots of promise!

We’re Here!

Welcome to our story!  As you’ll read on our About page, we’re a couple of long-time home chef foodies that have decided we’d like to quit our day jobs and start a restaurant.

So how serious are we? 

Well, we have:

• A menu
• A recipe book for the menu
• A draft business plan
• A prospective location
• A marketing plan, including a logo and signage
• And even a possible launch date!

Wow!

So keep reading as we tell you more of our story, OK?