1 - C

Mike, you are right. A chef invents, he/she creates. He/she runs the kitchen on paper per say. The sous chef makes sure that all of the gears are running right. He/she is the right hand man of the chef. Sometimes a chef has several sous chefs. A great chef mentors his sous chefs, to learn to grow, to take over his/her position. A chef wears many different hats. They are an account, marketing director, shrink, cook and sometimes an ASSHOLE. The restaurant business is so different from so many different jobs. We work when you are off on holiday or weekends. Are weekends are your week days. Our hours SUCK at best. We work with fire, oil, knives and people either on drugs or alcohol. I cannot tell you how many times I have burnt myself, or cut myself or have gotten into physical altercations. There have been times that I have cut myself and used CRAZY GLUE to stop the bleeding. Or have had to get stitches and I have pulled them out myself. Or the countless number of times that I have really burned myself really bad, that when I finally go to the hospital the Doctors yell at me for waiting so long. I am not but far, the best chef out there. I think I do a fair to good job at what I do. I love what I do and that is the difference I guess over some. One day I was having Chinese food and the fortune cookie spoke VOLUMES to me; it read “Choose a job that is a hobby and you will never work a day in your life.” BLAM; from right field that hit me! Don’t get me wrong, I have worked for some pretty shitty owners. At times, I have questioned what the hell I am doing. My best friend of 35 years has been telling me get out! My reply; “you are asking me not to breath!” Eventually, I will find that perfect fit, whether it will be my own or someone else’s that I run for them. My future in this business is endless. I will make something happen, because no one will do it for you, you have to do it for yourself. Life is not easy, if it were, then would there be such things as hunger, war or death? I can go on with all the old sayings but where will that get me. More and more I am leaning towards saving my money up and going to three different countries to refine my skills. I think there is SO MUCH OUT THERE FOR ME TO LEARN. “A wise man admits he knows nothing, while a stubborn man admits he knows everything.” Socrates said it the best. I am not a chef, I am a cook, I am a sponge that needs to learn. I live to eat not eat to live. I look at food as an art form not just eating. We use all of our senses when we eat. Our smell makes the others start or maybe it is the sight of a slice of pie. I just went back to my childhood city. I wanted a slice from ANGELOS CORNER. Why, memory. Food does that, invokes memory. That is a powerful product. No other thing, to me, does that. You could be 38 years old and remember being a teenager skipping school to have a slice, (sorry mom I skipped).

Oh the stories that I could tell you that I have seen in this business or what I have not seen cause of the industry. For starters, I do not know how many family functions I have missed. Or, how many parties that I have missed cause I was working. I have seen guys fall elbow deep into a 350 degree fryer. I have seen a bartender dry a martini glass and the stem brakes and slices (lengthwise) cut into her wrist. The gut wrenching scream of my name hunts me, still to this day. Oh and the fights with guests that I find myself in, some physical some verb. I cannot count how many times when I have fired an employee I hear, “GO FUCK YOUSELF!” My reply is “I have been told that so much I am an expert, and you should try it yourself.” I will never forget I had this cook that worked for me, he got caught smoking weed in his car before he punched in for his shift. When I cornered him about it, he fought me, and said and I quote “DUDE, I was not stoned. I know I took a hit but when I punched in I was fine.” If you know me, think animated facial expression (insert here, if you don’t think YOU ARE FUCKING HIGH TO B ARGUING WITH ME RIGHT NOW FACE) my words were “Are you kidding me, what you have magic weed. When you punched in, you were magically not stoned!” The fight went on for months. He asked every other employee to talk to me so he could get his job back. I mean, come on people, he is the reason why they’re warning labels on products. If he read the back of a shampoo bottle he would still be in the shower right now. Go, look at the back of your shampoo bottle I will wait….It says wet hair, apply leather rinse and repeat if necessary. He would still be there right now, folks, trust me.

Some friends have been telling me that I have to fine balance in my life. That life is not all about cooking and working on Chefffrey’s. To me, bite your tongue. Well, they are somewhat right. My ex girlfriend told me that a lot. “We are losing you again!” I would get so wrapped up in my work that I would forget to see what was right in front of me. My best friend would tell me, “Pick 5 things that you want to learn and then do it. Take a break from the food, the hussle and bussle of the business. Do what makes you happy, that something you have always wanted to learn to do and then do it. So, this week I started. It is all to find balance. I went to library and got a book out that has nothing to do with cooking, no really, stop laughing serious! NO really I did. It is important to find balance. I know too many chefs that have taken from us for not taking care of themselves. One mentor died at the age of 47, heart attack! He was not that much older than me. I come up with excuses to not go to the Doctor’s. I am busy or working on this or that. Well, this has been a long rant huh. What can we talk about food wise? Hum, what is the difference between a pastry chef and a chef? One more thing, is it important for a chef to know how to make desserts or pastries? Or, is it that a chef who is going to go on the Foodnetwork is suppose to know how to make pastries or desserts?

1-b

You know that the egg is special to us as human beings because all protein is measured by how the egg is the most absorbed protein that we as humans can consume. It is that on the atomic level that egg becomes important to us as chef's. The key ingredient to souffles. the key ingredient to flourless chocolate cake, the egg. As mention before, the egg white has more water in the chemical make up, which means higher souffles and such. The egg white also has a lower coagulation temperature then the egg yolk. Hence the reason for having the ability to have eggs over med or eggs over easy. The different temperatures that eggs can produce different items. But enough about eggs for a sec. Let's get back to the mind of a chef. We mention that it is a roller coaster ride, and now we are at the start of that ride. We have heard all about the twist and turns that this ride has and the cork screw turns and the loops that this ride has. So, it beings, this journey into the unknown. This ride for me began when I was 12 years old. I saw this recipe from one of my mother's magazine and was like, "I have to make this." I have no idea what drew me in. I found myself, engulfed in cooking. I began by first using recipes and then developing my own. I worked in the industry for quite sometime before going to school. I learned a little from school, it was reading and working with some great chefs that rounded my ability to cook. I learned how to season from a famous chef. I learned sushi from that same famous chef's sushi chef. I learned by doing and following. I started to push the borders of food when I first got married to my Dominican wife. She didn't cook, but her mother, "Now we are talking." I learned Itailian cooking first. I am Jewish, what the hell would I know. But the main diffreence between Jews and Italians, Jesus and Pork! I was asked by the food editor to the Palm Beach Post to help with an article on cooking a roasted chicken. She asked for a Jewish view. My reply, "Sorry this Jew doesn't cook Jew food." It is true, most of my cooking is from the simple state of food. The Chinese traded with Marco Polo which gave the Italians pasta and the spice trade routes. And the culinary time line began for me. It is not, for me at least, that the French are the ones that started modern cooking. There is no such thing as new cooking just old things discovered, or that our world is becoming smaller. The only new cooking stuff going on is Molecular Gastronomy.
It is funny, I sit here thinking what next to write what turn to make, and yet I have no idea. I am writing this journey as it happens for me. I have been in a relationship for 2 1/2 years and it has just ended. I think a lot about what went wrong and what way I should have been if any. I am 38 getting older and thinking about what could have been. I thought this woman was the one. I thought, "Wow, I found someone to spend my life with." I was wrong. Not in a bad way. Cause for every thing we encounter is a learning experience. I have learned what to look for in my future relationships if I have one. I am on the search for balance in my life. I am looking for inner balance as well as balance of my life in general. I am looking for a love that does not judge me for my faults but sees them as a way to help me grow as a man. But that is enough about me, now back to food.
What is the difference between a chef and a cook?

Act: 1-A

Can you tell there is a lot to cover. Well, before we discover the egg and what it does for cooking, let's look deep into the Chef's psychotic side. Shall we say, "What's cooking" inside that brain of ours. HUM-that's like Penn and Teller (they unveil the magic tricks)! I do not know if you are all ready for that ride yet. That is the BEST ride that you will EVER be on! Here's the precursor to it. Your moods shift like the tide. You can wake up one day and want to rip every one's eyes out and Skull FUCK'EM to death. Other days you are walking into work with "Zip-a-de-doo-da-zippe-dy-day my oh my....." It is a vortex from another world. It can shift, it the mood, can shift from mellow to DICK in seconds, ok millaseconds. OKAY FINE NANOSECONDS. Point being, this is not at all the job for the faint of hearts. I sit here typing away this travel, this journey you and I are on right now questioning my very existence! All I know, all I love to do to in this world is to cook. And, yet I find myself questioning why I do it. The pain that one endures from working like a servant. Long horrific hours, no holidays, no true weekends. A lost love, "because, your hours you work!" Folks, I have not seen my grandmother (the only one I have left, mind you) in at least three years to five years! She will be 100 years old this year. Oye, and LOVE relationships, you have to be let's see spelling is not my forte, thank g-d cooking is. Oh yeah back to the spelling mishugana! CRAZY to think you will have a normal LOVE life. You want to know why, I will tell you my weekends are MON or TUES or WED or THURS, if I am lucky SUN! Most of you the normal FRI-SUN. There in lies the problem folks. When you have off, I am probably: one of many that cook for you. And me, when I am off you are working(during the day).
You know, statistically speaking, the restaurant business has the highest or one of the highest rates of suicide, drug and booze abuse, divorce blah blah blah blah. I am sitting here not drunk (although I wish I were. Not stoned, yet again, wish I were and divorced thank g-d I am!) I sit here trying to help you understand were I am coming from. To help me to know where I am coming from. You are my dairy!!!! You can tell me when I am being off the wall or let more out. It is therapeutic (where the hell is the spell check thingy) in a way for you and I...Okay more me than you. Or is cooking an excuse to show who I really am????HUM!

Eggs, there are 100 ways to cook an egg. It is said the in a chef Toque, the chef hat, is said for every fold counts for how many different ways that person knew how to cook eggs. There have been pages and pages written about the egg. (have I gotten you off my rant about being a chef yet, probably not but here goes....) I have been studying molecular gastronomy lately. It has been making me a better chef. How to make hard boiled eggs, or how to make souffle. My g-d I didn't realize they're so helpful to cooking. Like how much water does the whites have compared to the yolks? Why is that important to you or me. Simple, more water = more steam and in baking that is the important ingredient! Okay now that you're thinking WOW never saw that coming, welcome to the twisted mind of a chef!