It's been a while, old friend...

Happy May, everyone. The summer weather still hasn't fully taken hold here in L.A. My 21st birthday is in 13 days, my last final of junior year in 11, and my flight home for a week in the Bay Area in 14. My last post was over 2 weeks ago, and so I should have a large credit of recipes to make up for the weekends I've missed. It's a good thing, then, that I've added to my collection of culinary resources recently. I now have The Joy of Cooking, The Escoffier Cook Book, The New Food Lover's Companion, and Good Cooking with Herbs and Spices. This last book is somewhat of a gem in my collection. It's another one of Frank Dorn's books (I don't think I mentioned it, but my copy of The Dorn Cookbook is actually a signed copy by Brig. Gen. Frank Dorn himself). My copy of Good Cooking with Herbs and Spices also happens to be a first edition, got off alibris.com. I plowed my way through Kitchen Confidential, which was an interesting read. I took the book with a grain of salt, having read all the reviews to the effect of "the industry has evolved so much since the '70s... the narration is a caricature of how things used to be... etc." But still, it is an interesting read, and kind of makes me want to open my own restaurant eventually. What else? Bottega Louie is doing well to my knowledge. Our triumph to date (at least in my eyes) was our 1000+ cover day about a week ago. Some nights get extremely hectic, but we're falling into a groove I think (not a rut, mind you). I had my last class of junior year yesterday, and now am studying for finals. I actually went to the LA Trade Tech College today and got a registration appointment, so I should be all set to sign up for the very first Orientation I course of their culinary program. That will keep me busy this summer, in addition to working at the restaurant. *doorbell rings* ... Awesome, the mailman just delivered my copy of Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making. I'll have to look at that before I go to work. There are so many things going on, but they're all fun/good. Even once I get on that plane on the 15th to go home, that night I'm bar hopping in Alameda, the next day I'm cooking a pasta dinner with my dad, visiting with family all weekend, hopefully going to SF one of the days (I'm planning on eating at Nopa, the restaurant where Richie the author of linecook415 works). At some point between now and the 14th I will hopefully get my licence renewed (nice and early). I have to register for my culinary class. Sidenote, my schedule for next semester rocks, even though I have 20 units (a full load is 16), of which 2 are 400-level, 1 is 300-level, 1 is 200-level, and then Russian III. But they all sound super interesting (IPE of Eastern Europe, Politics and Economics of Development, Multinational Corporations, and The Global economy). After the end of this semester, it's all IR classes and Russian, all the time. Very interesting stuff, but then again I can't wait to finish. After college, still planning on moving to NYC. Some other possibilities have come to mind as well: move back to the Bay Area and work in the industry somehow (possibly open my own restaurant); stay in L.A. for a time and really work towards getting into the kitchen of Bottega Louie to learn the trade; stay in L.A. and go to culinary school here; see if I can get into the Opreyland Hotel Culinary Program (culinary school while you get paid since you're actually working for a hotel); move to D.C. and work for the government in some aspect; move to Europe and work for an MNC; take a culinary tour of the world (my friend told me I must go to China and see what they're doing over there); do something with the Armed Forces (still an option for me, though not a strong pull). In all, I'm feeling pretty good, though. Not as frantic to know what I'm going to be doing after college. And I'm happy knowing that I'm just doing what I think is best to prepare for whatever I end up doing. Let's see... Oh, I've also been designing/developing my website idea. It will be like a lot of sites that already exist (Chowhound, Foodbeast, Epicurious, etc.) but it will cater to young adults (college age) and culinary minds. I'm keeping the name and design under wraps until I get it near completion. I'm always looking for like-minded people to join the team, or else this is going to be slow goings as I haven't done HTML coding for a long time. Anyway, back to reading some books, and getting ready for work in a bit. After about two weeks, I should be back to more regular posting. Until then (to my handful of readers), remember:
Happiness begins in the kitchen. Be bold!

Cheers,
-Peter