Change is coming, but not the change I expected!

So wow.

I need to re-do my last post. So the changes with my car were a precursor to a big change in my life. But the change wasn't moving home. The change was getting a new job!

Long story short, I've been emailing teachers on and off all summer asking if they knew of jobs. A few weeks ago one emailed me back about a restaurant which I will refer to in the blog as "The Grille" that was opening up. So naturally I sent in my resume. Where upon I got called in for an interview.

I felt good about I handled myself. For the life of me I can't remember what he asked me, but we talked some about my experience and about how I want to get back in restaurants and push myself to learn more. And some about what the restaurant is going to be like. And then much like my interview at The Square I got a tinglely feeling at a certain point which made me have a good feeling. Close to the end he was like "well I have to interview a few more people, but I think you'll be a good fit. I like teaching people and helping them reach their potential. So if I hire you I'll probably start you at prep cook"

I may not know much, but I know if they give you the "I think you'll be a good fit" talk then they're heavily leaning towards you. So I left feeling good. Chef Ray (my boss to be) seemed like a nice guy. Like me he is kind of soft spoken. And like me he is awkward as hell talking on the phone. But yeah I felt great about it. And sure enough I got called two days later and got offered the job.

Orientation is this Thursday and then I'll find my schedule from there. But I know that my main days are going to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings and then one night a week. I have NO clue how I'm going to balance school, work at the Grille and work at the Square togther. But I'll figure something out.

So here's hoping I don't crash and burn like Graydons. I know it will be a great learning experience for me. And I hopefully will get the chance to write some interesting things about it. Who knows, I may get pictures to post.


Oh and on another happy note, I'm stayin in GR now too. Although that was decided on before I got the job.

Blown fuses and broken axels

So it seems that everytime something big happens in my life, something happens to my car.

I bought my old one shortly before my original stint in prep cooking.

I finished paying it off shortly before I started at Mark Maker

I replaced the brakes the first time shortly before moving into Matt's

I got the mirror fixed after having it be held on by electricians tape shortly before moving in with my sister.

The brakes got fixed a second time shortly before moving in with Zigs.*

and now it stopped working on the cusp of my final year of school**

Funny now things worked.

On the bright side, I found a new car yesterday. A Friend of my mom's works with a used car company. Kind of like a middle man. He finds customers to buy cars from the used lot. And then he's the ones who tracks down the "perfect" car for the customers. We've gotten my last car, my sisters last 2, and my mom's last 2 through him. So I trust him

The downside to all this is in light of not having a full time job I have to move back home. On the one hand I'm bummed cause I like living with Zigs. But on the other hand I think its kind of a good move. I get to focus more on school now, and less on worrying about rent or utilities.

And due to not having to buy my own I get to worry less about the cost of groceries (well kinda) and more on cooking.

I love to cook. I'm discovering its seems to sooth me and put me in a good mood.

Even when I was line cooking at Carrabba's or New Holland and even getting my ass handed to me at Graydon's it seemed all my worries went away.

I like cooking, I like learning about different cuisines, I like eating, I hope to be able to travel in the future. I just like having something I feel good about.

And despite sucking at it, I love writing about it.

So here's to a new car.
Here's to the beginning of a new chapter in life
Here's to eating
and here's to writing

Cheers

* I'm not sure if those things happend exactly around those times. But I like to think they did

** I still claim my car didn't die. For some reason it didn't start. The good samaritan who tried to help me jump it used to be a mechanic and checked what he could out (considering he didn't have any tools) and theorized it could've been either the ignition fuses or the starter. Considering that my entire rear axel and shocks were well....shot, it totally wasn't worth it to get fixed. Figures. Hope the new car can last as long

Counting the days!

So MJ's funeral was yesterday and now I'm counting the days untill people stop acting like the world is going to end because he died. Don't get me wrong, I respected the fact he was a decent musician with a bunch of creative ideas. I respect the fact that for the most part he was a big influence on African American culture. And I am sad that he died.....just like I'm sad that all other dozen or so people who died last week died. Otherwise I'm like "oh well"

It might just be me but I never get why people make a such big deal about celebrities. I mean yeah they're cool and all, and they may be great actors/musicians/athletes/chef's/reality stars who are only known for being douches/whatever, but I still don't get why people go crazy and run around saying they want to have the celebrities babies and marry them (etc, etc).

This would be the point where someone may be prone to pointing out my semi-obsessiong with Tony Bourdain. Then thing with Bourdain is that I've pretty much admitted that if I were to hang out with him I'd probably get him to hook us (and out entourage) up with decent seats and meal at one of his friends restaurants, then find some dive bar to go to with a "crappy" punk band and drink all night. You know, hanging out doing normal people things, talking about normal people things (well as normal as a guy who travels around the world can be). People seem to forget that celebs are regular people (well not reality TV stars.....they're just dumb) and probably want to hang out and do regular people things.

So all in all, MJ dying is sad. But its nothing to lose sleep over. Besides, I doubt people are going to be running around crying as much in 2 weeks. go figure

Adventures in eating Sushi

So I once read an article, or maybe it was a blog entry by Anthony Bourdain. In it he talks about how he places bets with the members of his production staff (especially new ones) about when the first person is going to get sick on any given shoot for an episode of No Reservations (well they do it when in other countries). 99% of the time Tony picks the breakfast buffet at the hotel because, as he so bluntly points out, you can't always trust that food and you shouldn't eat food you can't trust. Almost every time a member of the production crew eats the hotel breakfast buffet and sure enough they get sick.

Last week, I totally disregarded that word of advice and I paid for it dearly. For a while I had a bit of a craving for sushi. I have no clue how that craving started because I've only had sushi once back in November. But I had a craving nonetheless. My forary into eating Sushi here in Grand Rapids started out fine enough. I mentioned my craving to one of my friends who I went to Culinary school with the first time, and she mentioned that Jonny's Cafe at Calvin College (where she works) had a sushi bar on Tuesdays and that its pretty authentic. So a week or so later, I finally made it in (it probably helped that it was 90 degrees that day and hanging out in A/C is always a good thing). I had sushi and it kicked ass. I'm totally going again when I have a chance.

Needless to say, that is not what made me sick. What made me sick is two days later I was at the grocery store getting something to eat for dinner. I saw the grocery store made sushi and got a small bit of desire to buy it. A little voice in the back of my head was saying "don't do it, you know you want Potato Wedges instead!" a little voice which I then told to "fuck off" (bad decision). I bought the sushi, took it home and scarfed it down. And I seemed fine.

The next day I felt off. One of the classes I'm taking is bowling. Normally I can break 100 and even make it up to 120. (and today I got 143) But I was sucking due to feeling totally out of it. After class I met my dad for lunch and my trademark appetite seemed to be missing. After lunch I went to my aunts house to hang out (god bless A/C). Eventually I told her I was feeling like crap and upon mentioning I felt like I almost had to puke she said that making myself puke might help me feel better.

Thust started a 30 minute ordeal which has probably been the worst 30 minutes for me in the past 19 years. Seriously kids, I don't get sick and when I have puked, its because I've drank too much. After I finally felt I couldn't puke anymore, I grabbed an empty trash can and told her I was taking a nap and plopped down in my cousins bed. Naturally I woke up feeling much better.

Its funny though cause I tell people that story and the unadventerous ones always snarkily ask me "I bet you aren't going to be eating sushi anytime soon?" and its like "why not?" I'm not letting one bad experience turn me off. I ate bad food, I puked, it happens. I'd much rather be adventerous and puke than sit at home eating crappy fast food.

I seem to have the impecable luck of being an adventerous picky eater. I want to try a ton of stuff yet there are still things I won't eat. Despite that I have no learned an important lesson. No more eating food that can make you sick if its not being made someplace trustworthy

Old Memories and the journey from now to then

So for the first time in ages I've listened to the Ataris (the pop-punk/rock band). I don't know what compelled me to listen to them, but I did. For those of you who don't know, I some what credit them for getting me into most the bands I'm into now. I forgot how I orginally got into the Ataris, but for the longest time I wanted to see them and would always see when they were comining close to little old Holland, MI. They never really did, but I would pay attention to who they toured with, sometimes I like the bands, sometimes I didn't. During these inquiries into who they associated themselves with, I discovered a little label you may know as Fat Wreck. And inevitibly I fell in love with NOFX, No Use for a Name and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. And now I was following four bands, which led to the Epitaph bands and so on. But the Ataris have always been one of the first I "discovered" (after Blink 182 which I didn't so much discover as I did hear Whats My age again? over and over).

Eventually I saw them back in 2004 shortly before I moved to Lansing which is when I slightly soured to them. I had met up with my friends Ben, Brittany, Robert and later Jim (all whom I met off the Ataris Message Board...ha)(I had previously met Ben when his band played in GR) for the show. Brittany and Robert has been to a whole slew of the Ataris mid west shows and had met most the band and the crew and found out where there bus was which is where we headed after the show. And we pretty much got snubbed by the band. Mike, The bass player had already come and gone, Chris, the drummer stopped long enough to thank Ben for saying the show was good, Kris, the lead singer/gutarist walked by grumbling something, and then finally John, the other guitarist came out. He recognized Brittany and Rob and stopped to talk for a bit, and thanked us all for coming. Which made my night. I was bummed about the rest of the band and like I said, it kind of slightly soured the experience for me. Later I had found out that a few things had gone wrong that day and they were ALL just in a crummy mood. So for a while I was just kind of bleh. And things didn't get better when they released their nex cd. I didn't really like it as much and thats when I kind of stopped listening to them.

But today, I randomly decided to listen to them on my Ipod which brought me back to to that show almost 5 years ago. The Timmy back then was so clueless as to what he wanted to do or even what he had to do when he got there. Here we are 5 years later. The end of my college career is in sight and the options are plentiful from there. I have some ideas, I have some goals, but it goes to show how things can change. I'm happy with how things turned out. Part of me wishes I would've stuck with culinary school back in the day, but at the same time I don't think I was at the right time in my life to deal with at. With all the stuff I've dealt with since then like Aspergers and all the crashing and burning and more or less maturing, I think I'm much better prepared to deal with stuff now.

(on a bright note, word on the street is that the next Ataris CD is supposed to be a step back in the right direction.ha)

Future Goals

Once again I havn't posted in a while. But I think thats okay, I'm trying not to make this a blog posting random stuff about nothing....thats what my myspace blog is for.

One of my younger cousins just graduated from college out in CA and my aunt and uncle went out there. For a while now, my cousin seems to freaking out because she didn't know what see was going to do afterwords, but at the same time hasn't been really looking into anything. I mean, okay, so you've come to the conclusion you're not really into what you just went to college for, but since you spent all that money on it you should probably look into doing SOMETHING. Now I guess she's going to Denver to live with a friend and to learn how to sew. Which on the one hand is totally awesome. Having a hobby like that would be pretty cool. BUT she still has no plan what to do after that.

And here's where the main catalyst for this post happens. My Aunt Sally turned around and asked me what I planned on doing when I graduated. (which could be in December or it could be in May...long story). I replied that I wasn't totally sure, but that I'd hope to have those wheels start spinning soon. Weather I know what I'm going to do or not, I have ideas, and dreams and hopes. And places I would like to go. If anything, its the fact that theres too many chocies for me to make a decision.

As for the things I'd like to accomplish, well its nothing grand. I have no big delusions of granduer or anything. As long as I can succeed in what I'm doing and don't crash and burn I'll be content. With that in mind, who DOESN'T want to get somesort of recognition? I would hope not to fade into obscurity. Who knows.

The big thing for me is the "WHERE." All I know is I want to to get out of Grand Crapids. I mean, its a good town but the options for food industry sucks right now. And I'm SOOO ready for a change of scenery. I've pretty much narrowed it down to one of the smaller big cities in America, or maybe somewhere in another country. See, its too hard to decide. The problem with moving to another country is that it will pretty much mean leaving EVERYONE behind. And I'm not sure if I want to do that. Moving across the country is one thing, but across the ocean, thats another. I wouldn't want to get held back over something as simple as missing friends, but I need some sort of support system where ever I go. Decisions, decisions.

I guess maybe this isn't as simple of a thing as I thought. I guess I've come to the conclusion that if anything, looking into the future is scary. Fascinating

End of the Semester!

So I finished the semester last week and with the exception of work (and some yard work for the parents), I've spent the past 5 days doing nothing. I'm really at a loss at what to write right now. Pretty much it came down to copying and pasting the Facebook note I wrote about the Blind Basket or my obsevation on Flay and Bourdain. I figured that I would re-post the Blind Baskte on to shed some closure on all the posts I'd made about school.

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for those of you who don't know I had my practical exam last night. It was hectic and kinda stressful and exhilarating and exciting all at the same time.

It was like an episode of Chopped (kinda). We go in, Cheff Dunn gives us our items that we have no idea of what they are ahead of time and then are let loose. It went great. I probably could've worked cleaner and been more organized. But thats me. My whole life is perpetually slightly untidy so yeah.

Our items were 1 chicken breast, 1 duck breast, a fillet of fish (I totally forgot what kind it was), 2 grains from the grain cart and half a tomato (they were left over from the graduation dinner and chef wanted to get rid of them I guess). And at least an ounce of cheese.

For my soup I ended up doing the Vegan Miso soup like I did last time. I didn't see any leeks in the walk in when I first ran in (my original idea was to do vicyssoise), so I figured why mess with a good thing. IT wasn't until I had gotten well underway with it that I went in the walk in looking for cucumbers for the original plan for my salad that I saw leeks and got kind of mad at myself for missing them. But it happens. Regardless, I knocked out the soup but didn't really do a garnish other than chopped chives (most which splashed out en route to chef :(.

My salad I ended up doing a duck salad. I chopped up the tomato to serve as the base. then put mixed greens in a red wine vinagerette. I origininally was going to smoke the duck breast but I kinda lit the smoker on fire. No seriously, I opened it up and there was a small little fire down by the wood chips. Luckily for me, one of the adujunct staff members was in the kitchen putting together a hoers douveres menu and she helped me put it out (so to my knowledge chef never found out). In stead I ended up slicing the duck meat and sauteeing it then putting it on the salad and grated the cheese on top.

My appetizer I wasn't happy with. I grilled the chicken, sliced it and then cooked the polenta and put it in a small cup. Not very inspiring. bleh.

My entree I was real happy with. I cooked rice for my starch. Sauteed the fish, then made a veloute sauce and put it over the fish. Then I sauteed (and slightly burnt) asparagus.

For my soup he said that the miso soups are normally garnished with black soy beans, or seaweed, but otherwise the soup itself was MUCH better than the practice. My salad he said he liked and that I redeemed myself with my dressing. The chicken and polenta tasted good. He agreeed with me to do a different presentation, to which I pointed out that if I were to do it again I'd probably incorperate the tomatoes in there somehow. The entree he liked. My fish was slightly over cooked, and he liked the veloute. But went on to point out that one of the faults that they as teachers made was that they taught us how to make it, but didn't teach us how to use it. And that most chefs would use it to make another sauce. So yeah, that wasn't my fault.

Oh and then we were supposed to tourne two potatoes but I totally forgot. Oops heh.

All in all I was happy with things (except the appetizer). Chef thought they tasted good and said that since the practice Blind Basket I improved the most!

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Overall I was happy with how I did, and how much I improved. Also afterwards I think I bonded a little more with some of my classmates. After he tasted our food we were able to go into the dining room and eat it. And seriously, the 10 or so minutes I was in there eating just shooting the shit with my classmates was probably one of the more entertaining 10 minutes of the quarter. Seriously if this is what my future holds as far as the socializing aspects are concerned (eating and conversing with other cooks/chefs) then I'm totally pumped for this business.