gold star for robot boy

this might come up in group...

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:24:57 GMT

Moments ago, my cat Penny walked over to where I was sitting, unplugged my headphones from my ipod and proceeded to pull them off my head and drag them across the room.

If she wanted to use them, she could have just asked..

I sense unresolved issues.

In other news, my dad gave me a car care lecture today. I am 26, but I guess since my mom gets to lecture me about cleaning my apartment, my dad can bitch about how long I've gone without an oil change.

On not being cool

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:02:01 GMT

I'm going to start posting here more, because I miss writing, but mostly because I miss all of you. So there.

I've been aging for a while now, but I think I may be growing up. This is an unsettling thing for me on some level, because it means that I risk becoming a "grown up". Here are my symptoms:

1. I no longer go to shows, unless it's something I really really want to see.
No more
"Whar do you want to do?"
"I dunno, who's playing tonight?".

Now it's more

"What do you want to do tonight?"
"I want to do the following things in the following order: I want to watch the news, I want to have dinner, I want to play with the cats a little, and then I want to maybe walk on the treadmill, take a hot bath and either go to sleep or look at antique maps on the internet all night, depending on if I have to get up tomorrow or not."

2. None of the albums I've been listening to heavily were made in the last decade.

For the record (ha, pun) they are

What's Going On- Marvin Gaye
Worker's Playtime- Billy Bragg
Greatest Hits- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (shut up.)

3. My friends and relations mostly have real jobs. Even my friend the anarcho syndicalist I know is a shift leader at Starbucks, although he insists that it's not the same thing as being a manager...Six of one, half dozen of the other...

5. My ambitions no longer involve painting, becoming a music journalist, travel writer, or political operative They involve working for a catering company, a university food service gig, or perhaps, to quote my friend Jason at school "a little restaurant where you make just enough to pay everybody and don't really have to work too hard". Those places do exist. Of course, some of them are heavily in debt to the mob, but I don't think they have a big presence out here, at least not since prohibition ended.

6. All I want for christmas? A KitchenAid Mixer. Black or red. Lisa's parents are getting it for us. I am freaking elated.

7. :Lisa and I are trying to have a kid. Minty if it's a girl, Qwerty if it's a boy. That or Axl Rose Newman for a boy and November Rain Newman for a girl. God, my kids are going to hate me so much...I will embarrass them at every turn. Ha!

So yeah, I'm getting older, which the jaded hipster Colin of the early 21st century would not have approved of. But that's a Change We Can Believe In.

This has been a long fucking decade. I'm ready for the next one.

first post in forever...sorry about that...but STILL!

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:29:25 GMT

Lisa is asleep right now, but I'm still awake, because I can't sleep, because I know now that our kids will grow up in a different country than the one my parents were born in. I know that's an upsetting thought for some americans, but for the first time in my life, I've seen all of the usual dirty tricks, all of the hate and division, all of the karl rove playbook of character assassination deployed in truly epic fasion, and watched it...not work. It didn't work this time. Finally.

This is important. This matters. I can feel it.

my last day of break

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:42:15 GMT

what I did today:

Drove out to El Reno to help Lisa move her classroom (she has a really cool new room, with tons of windows and an actual closet!). good stuff except...I got a flat on the way.

Then we got stuck on the elevator (not for very long, but still)

Then we had to wait 3 1/2 hrs at the el reno wal mart for a new tire. We were in the angrydome.

Then we got ice cream. So that helps. But still.

I better be back in the kitchens tomorrow. I kinda miss it.

complaints dept.

Sun, 25 May 2008 08:23:16 GMT

Here is my list of
<b>Ten Things I'm Tired oF</b>
subtitle: "Because my opinion matters so much"

1.Molecular Cuisine
I was only recently exposed to this, and I'm already sick of it. One of my Chefs described it as "the future", but I think it's pretty much already over. Basically as a backlash against good food prepared simply with good ingredients and a little bit of integrity, some chefs have decided that food just isn't delicious unless it involves edible paper, foam, enzymatic glue, and a wholy owned subsidiary of dow jones' worth of chemicals. The only thing more offensive to me than the basic concept is all of the starry eyed cheflings who are trying to hitch their stars to what is obviously a gimmick, and a transparent one at that.

2. Neo-Noir
Frank Miller cornered the market on this in the mid nineties, and it stopped being interesting at roughly the same time. I really don't want to see another comic/movie/book etc about anything remotely "hard boiled" or "pulpy". It's boring. (Please note that I exempt anything having to do with Batman from this, because Batman is cool.)

3. Angular, dancy indie rock
I get it. You like Gang of Four and you live in Brooklyn. Good for you.

4.the election
It's kind of disingenuous for me to have this on the list, because I AM tired of the election, but I'm also a political junkie, so I can't get enough of it. I know that it's ridiculous that the extent of my civic engagement is reading political blogs and keeping up with polls, but I can't stop. It's disgusting. The worst part is that I'm just setting myself up for the dissapointment of a republican victory in the fall. I know it doesn't look possible now, but 8 years of bush makes me think that they'll find a way to pull it out in the end. (That's what she said. )

5. Summer
It hasn't even really started, but I've had enough of it. I can see the sun over the horizon, sneering at me..."you're really gonna get it good this year man, you're gonna cook all day in a sweltering kitchen, then you're gonna step outside at the end of the day into 100 degree heat plus 70% humidity. It's gonna rock." I hate the damn sun. It's like a big radioactive broiler.

6. being crazy
I'm at that point where my craziness starts to subside and the clouds part and I'm able to kind of climb out of the hole and look around, and looking around right now I'm sick of this crap. I'm an adult. I can't afford to keep washing up on the rocks 4 times a year for the rest of my life. I'm on the crazy pills, but I really don't think those are enough, because when I get depressed I stop taking them, because I become convinced that they can't help me, and then I become more depressed, which confirms it for me somehow. I can accept that part of it is a biological thing since my mom and my brother and my grandmom all have/had horrible, debilitating anxiety, but I think a lot of it is just stuff that I need to work through other ways. I've gotten cleared for therapy by the insurance gods, so we'll see if that helps. If not, I guess I'm just going to have to find a way to make it through, degrassi style. I'm just annoyed by it.

7. CG kids movies
When they took penguins and ruined them, I said nothing...but now they are coming for the pandas. You mighj think there's only one panda CG movie in the pipe, so it's ok, Wrong. Soon it will be Panda Snowboard Acadamy and Panda-dera's Box (ancient greek pandas) and vamping Bratz style girl pandas and...oh, the horror. If I had known Toy Story would lead to this, I would have flown to silicon valley in the early nineties, broken into whatever homely office park steve jobs rented for pixar, and gone to town on their workstations with a dremel and an electro magnet.

8.Northeasterners
Not all of them, really...well, a lot of them. My (now former) bosses are from Connecticut. They aren't dicks, per se...just...standoffish and kinda douchy. I'm sure that in the context of a modern play they would be lovely quirky local color, but in a work environment, they made me really uncomfortable. Really they set the mood for the whole place, and that mood was grim like a mausoleum. I quit after 3 shifts - they really just wanted a dishwasher, and I can get paid more to do more fun work at another place= but really if I had managed to connect in any way with anyone I worked with there, I would probably stuck around, shitty job or not. That's really the most important part of any job.

9. Buying gas
I can remember when I was pissed because gas was $1.80 a gallon. Looks like we get to be the generation that outlives our resources. Hurrah.

10. The government of Myanmar
I'm so sick of those guys. I was hating the junta before hating the junta was cool, and I really wish nothing but ill upon than shwe and his quasi fascist goons. If you want convincing proof that there isn't justice in the world it's that the guys who have been fucking their homeland for 40 some years somehow survived the cyclone, while the people who have had to put up with it this whole time get nothing but more misery. Disgusting.

adventures in fine dining, part one

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:36:29 GMT

So, yesterday I started my new job at Rococo, a niceish resteraunt here in OKC. It was kind of a mixed bag...it's hard work, but it's fun hard work. The only time I wasn't having fun was when we didn't have any orders and I had nothing to do. I think that's a good sign.

Basically my job is to

a) do light prep (portioning out pasta, cutting tomatoes, making little toasted bread tip thingies)
b) make desserts, appetizers and salads
c) help with dishes

Honestly as far as the work itself and the pace, it's much easier than panera. At PB we had an hour and a half of closing to do every night; last night we got out in 15 minutes after the kitchen closed. I don't like the people as much though. Like most professional kitchens it's a boys club, and I don't have much to say about cars and dogs with "big wieners" (actual topic of conversation). Jose the dish guy seems pretty cool, mostly because he seems to have limited patience for stupid shit, which I can totally relate to. The sous chef I worked with seems ok too, although I don't think he said more than 6 words to me all night. (to be fair, he has stuff to do).

The special award for bigges tool of the night goes to one of the waiters...apparently there was a high roller in there, and so, realizing that his tip depends as much on our performance as it does on his, and that we have no incentive to care, he decided to be incredibly annoying all night, and not just to us...(he went so far as to have the jazz band that was there not play for an hour so that they wouldn't disturb the conversation of said high roller.) He then stood around in the back making bets with the other waiters about how much this guy would tip. His guess was 300 for the table, 100 from Mr. Moneybags (the maitre de said "well, I know you, so I guess two dollars...for the table".).

40 minutes later:

Sous Chef: "How much did he tip you?"
waiter: "Seven." (slams stack of dishes down)

Obviously, that's an inexcusable tip, and I'm sure this customer was a perfect asshole, but still I wanted to prepare a montage of his obnoxious behavior throughout the night, with the immortal song "Was It Worth It?" by The Pet Shop Boys over it.

Yes, I like the Pet Shop Boys. Bite me.

Next shift is friday night. We'll see how it goes.

grand!

Sun, 04 May 2008 09:00:17 GMT

Tart x 5
Originally uploaded by Tosei

Here are 5 fresh fruit tarts I made for our Grand Buffet a couple weeks ago...they're really easy, it;s just short dough (or puff pastry if you're feeling ambitious), vanilla pastry cream and fresh fruit.

1. Roll out puff pastry dough 1/8 in. (3 mm) thick.

2. Cut out squares or rectangles of desired size.

3. With the remaining dough, cut strips about .75 in (2 cm) wide and long enough to make borders for the tarts.

4. Brush the rims of the dough squares with water or egg wash. Lay the strips in place on the moistened edges to make borders. Egg wash the tops of the borders.

5. With a fork, knife tip, or roller docker, dock the inside of the shell (not the borders) to prevent blistering.

6. Rest in the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.

7. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until browned and crisp. Cool.

8. Fill with a thin layer of pastry cream, arrange fruit on top, and brush with apricot glaze.

Major depression, reporting for duty

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:30:44 GMT

I'm so depressed right now that I am barely functional. My motivation level is at or near zero. Nothing is wrong, my life is fine, looking up in fact, but I still want to curl up in a ball and hibernate.This happens every couple of months for a couple of weeks, and eventually I'll be back to whatever approximates normal for me. I'm on medication, which is why my life hasn't completely derailed like it usually does during these episodes (if you want to know how to change your major 6 times in 5 years I'm the expert).

Anyway, since nothing I want to write here would be anything more than whiny ass self reflection, here is what has been "up" with me, with no commentary by me, because any commentary I could offer would be annoying.

I quit my job and now have a job here: http://www.rococo-restaurant.com/
I haven't started yer, so I can't say how it is, except to say that it's expensive.

I'm still in school, since my last update I've done international cuisine, intro to baking, and advanced pastries (we go all day every day to each class, so it's a compressed schedule). I did well in international, I did well in intro to baking, and I suck at pastries. Just total crap, really.

I need to shave, and I'm listening to a lot of Guided by Voices and Pavement. Because it's always 1996 in my heart.

Actually, I think that may be everything interesting that has happened in my life in the past couple of months. Exciting, I know.

how the world looks to me

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:19:07 GMT

I just found this website a few minutes ago...interesting.

http://www.kcvision.org/

you know, for a long time I thought that everyone could see the rings of light around streetlamps and headlights. Every painting I did in high school that featured an independant light source had rings around it...I guess my teachers just thought it was a stylistic thing.

Anyway, not much new to report. School is going well, although working with veal for a couple of days made me want to swear off meat altogether. Just finished reading The Man In The High Castle by Phillip K. Dick, which I highly reccommend. Definitely his most straightforward narrative, and probably the best entry in the alternative history genre that I've read. Still, I kind of prefer his more reality bending schitzophrenia induced writings.

Lisa has the flu. I have some sort of lung thing going on. We both came home early today and just slept. I have a feeling there's more of that to come this weekend Hooray.

the other shoe, dropping

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:55:06 GMT

I'm sick. I feel like my lungs are being kicked in the face, and my sinuses are standing there, laughing. I got no sleep last night. I should stay home. But I'm not going to. I'm going to go cook massive amounts of lamb for a tiny balding egomaniac, who will then proceed to either a)yell at me about a stray bead of water on the side of the plate or b)yell at me because eggplant stuffed with three kinds of fine imported mediterranian cheeses, bell peppers, basil, and roma tomatoes, then topped with feta and baked to an enticing golden brown is "boring". Hence the magic of chef tito, a man who claims with a straight face to have never been sick and never had a headache, a man who talks to the women in the class like they are 5 years old and says "good girl" when they do something right (yes, like you might say to a dog), who can find nothing right with anything I do, or anything anyone does, and who begrudges us help even though he's supposedly a teacher.

I knew when I got into this that I wasn't going to have fun every day, but the first month and a half was so fun that I was starting to get used to it. I've heard from students further along in the program that it gets better, and that it's really just this one chef who's an asshole, but I have to work with him for a while yet, and I'm going to need to find a way to go to school and work with him without losing my mind.
So far I've had a small amount of success by appealing to his massive ego, (chef, I have so much to learn from you) but I'm not going to be able to keep that up for long.

I'll find a way, I know I will. Dealing with difficult people is actually a fairly important part of my skill set. I just have to wonder how thin I can spread my patience before I snap and tell him off. Today could be the day.

too broke to rock

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:15:05 GMT

Every once in a while I grow up a little bit. I know growing up is supposed to be a constant process, but for me it happens a little at a time in short little bursts. My most recent bit of growing up came recently when I realized that I'm getting tired of being poor. I know it's not something anyone is really into per se, but I had sort of come to terms with it. Up until recently, I was perfectly happy to live paycheck to paycheck, have a nothing job, and persue a degree in a field I had no interest in going into, just so that I could stay in school and never face the music. I don't think I can do that anymore. I don't want to be SUPER RICH or anything, I just want to be able to go a month or twelve without having to worry about where rent is going to come from. That would be nice.

That's part of what culinary school is about- it's something fun and creative that I'm good at and that I can actually do as a career, rather than just an expensive ploy to run out the clock on responsibility. It's also what this new journal is about. I want to start fresh and make a new space for myself. It seems silly on some level, but it helps. Also I wasn't reading lj anymore because a lot of the stuff on my friendslist annoyed me. (If you found me and added me on my new journal, you aren't one of those people. )

I feel good about myself for the first time in a while. I feel capable and competent, which is a big part of feeling happy for me. Most of my life I've sort of tiptoed through feeling like a gigantic fraud, but if I can make something really great and I can tell that it's great and anyone who tastes it can tell that it's great, maybe I'm not such a fraud. Maybe I'm worth a damn. I like that feeling.

Also, apparently I'm a skilled butcher, which sort of grosses me out. It's all good though, because I also make a mean eggplant parmigiana.