A Little About Me
Hello
interwebs! You are probably looking at the picture on the right and
wondering, who is that dorky-snot nosed kid on the left. Well, that
would be me. You can tell I thought I was the bees knees of the culinary
world huh.Who am I? I am an Ex-Cook who worked in fine dining for 7 short years, I still have some of the burn scars to prove it. In my short tenure I worked at established fine dining classics in Seattle like Cafe Juanita and The Herbfarm but also worked the corporate cook life at The W Hotel, short stints at other lesser known restaurants and I even planned a Pop-up or two.
This is where I cut my teeth, burned my arms and brought thousands of people great tasting meals. I have worked for bosses that made life hell and bosses that knew how to grow young talent.
I have worked in kitchens that were small, and dingy and kitchens
bigger than the dinning rooms they served. I have broken down pigs,
rabbits, geese, chicken, whole quarters of beef, you name it. I have
even made pastry dough, wood-oven baked breads, tarts, ice creams, even
house made chocolate!
If you had ever made the mistake of asking me a question, you know you were about to get an encyclopedia style answer. Maybe you would hear about the reason for proper tempering of chocolate and how it can be likened to making medication or rock candy or maybe you would just get the entire anaerobic cycle quoted to you. Food was and is still my passion and knowing everything I can about it is still very important to me.
Now, it is my turn. I am looking to find the places that know how to tantalize the taste buds and create memorable experiences. Sometimes that means paying 200 dollars for an over complicated assortment of edible flowers, posh foams, spheres and meat that may have been sous-vide for 6 days. Other times, these meals may be scavenged in hole in the wall dives that serve food that would put a pachydermin a coma.
Food has so many different layers and so many different styles. I am often just as happy eating a whimsical meal with all the bells and whistles as I am eating a burger. Each of these offer a different outlet of expression. The Chefs that make these meals are awesome and I want to make sure I respect their work! I know it is not easy to please every customer, every time.
Do you have any places you think are the top restaurants?
Along with my quest to eat, I am trying to help the next generation of cooks come up. If you have questions about what is like in the industry, or how to get into the top places, I am going to try post about as many of these topics as possible. Maybe you are a young cook and you are looking for knives under 100$ or perhaps you want to find the best cook books to understand food. Then I will try to provide a post to cover that.
I was able to work at some of the best places in Seattle, in fact, in many cases I have gotten jobs in the corporate world because of the level of kitchens I have worked in.
If you had ever made the mistake of asking me a question, you know you were about to get an encyclopedia style answer. Maybe you would hear about the reason for proper tempering of chocolate and how it can be likened to making medication or rock candy or maybe you would just get the entire anaerobic cycle quoted to you. Food was and is still my passion and knowing everything I can about it is still very important to me.
Now, it is my turn. I am looking to find the places that know how to tantalize the taste buds and create memorable experiences. Sometimes that means paying 200 dollars for an over complicated assortment of edible flowers, posh foams, spheres and meat that may have been sous-vide for 6 days. Other times, these meals may be scavenged in hole in the wall dives that serve food that would put a pachydermin a coma.
Food has so many different layers and so many different styles. I am often just as happy eating a whimsical meal with all the bells and whistles as I am eating a burger. Each of these offer a different outlet of expression. The Chefs that make these meals are awesome and I want to make sure I respect their work! I know it is not easy to please every customer, every time.
Do you have any places you think are the top restaurants?
Along with my quest to eat, I am trying to help the next generation of cooks come up. If you have questions about what is like in the industry, or how to get into the top places, I am going to try post about as many of these topics as possible. Maybe you are a young cook and you are looking for knives under 100$ or perhaps you want to find the best cook books to understand food. Then I will try to provide a post to cover that.
I was able to work at some of the best places in Seattle, in fact, in many cases I have gotten jobs in the corporate world because of the level of kitchens I have worked in.
I
am always looking for suggestions and I am hopping to provide you guys a
few here and there. Feel free to send me your favorite places.
This is great... love u ben!
ReplyDeleteThis is great... love u ben!
ReplyDelete