Weekend Recipe 2/21/09

So after I got home from my interview at Bottega Louie downtown, I wanted to take a shower and go to class. But while I was in my shower, I started feeling sick. Like, reallllly sick. I then spent all day in bed, and suffered through incredibly high fevers that night. I went to the health center the next morning, and it turns out I have the flu. It hit me like a ton of bricks on Wednesday, and I've been pretty much bedridden and miserable since then. I keep on pushing fluids, resting, taking Advil, and I'm getting slightly better, but I'm still pretty horribly sick. Anyway, this weekend recipe is one that I just found, and modified. It was from a Washington Post article originally, but I doubt mine still has much resemblance to it:

2 cups water
ground ginger (pretty liberal amount)
brown sugar (3-4 teaspoons)
sea salt (2-3 pinches)
honey (1-2 teaspoons)

Microwave for about 1 minute. Enjoy. Honestly it tastes like sugar water, but you still get a very cleansing aftertaste of ginger that you can feel in the throat and nose. I'm sure you can tone down the sugar, and maybe use fresh ginger, boil the stuff, do all kinds of things to it. But for now, it tastes good and makes me feel better. Hope it can do the same thing for you.
Cheers,
*cough*
-Peter

A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step...

So I may have a job. This morning I went downtown to respond to an ad I saw on Craigslist. I brought my resume, dressed business casual, and kept an open mind and an optimistic attitude. I get to the restaurant (not quite finished yet, but it's Bottega Louie on 7th and Grand) and head upstairs. Turns out they were doing interviews, so I just waited for my turn trying to think of interesting things to say. It ended up great. The two managers, Mike and Eric, kept the conversation flowing like it would with friends. I just smiled, kept eye contact, and told my story. They ended up asking me to wait around for the president of the company, who has the final say in the hiring process. There were a lot of people coming in and out for interviews, and right before they broke for lunch, Mr. Flores comes by. Out of all those people, about five or six of us went in to talk to Mr. Flores, and two minutes into talking to him, he said, "Well, you have me convinced." So now all there is left is to wait for a call, and keep searching for leads. I'll try not to get too excited in case this doesn't work out, but I am certainly heartened by one of my first attempts at blind interviewing. Oh, forgot. The position that I'd have is a food runner (running dishes from the kitchen to the customer). Both managers also mentioned the possibility of being able to shadow a chef in the actual kitchen, which would be absolutely amazing. So far, it's a pretty awesome day. Hope you all are doing well (assuming I have readers at all hahaha).
Cheers,
-Peter

Weekend Recipe 2/15/09

It's another weekend. We had Valentine's Day yesterday, and President's Day tomorrow. This weekend I decided that I was going to attempt something I've never done before: roast a chicken. So my first attempt ever is in the oven at 350 F. You'd think my weekend recipe is going to have to do with chicken or roasting of some sort. Well you'd be wrong. This recipe comes from one of my dear friends from Georgia, Chelsea. It's got to be one of the best and cheapest breakfast ideas out there. We've all had cereal, oatmeal, porrage, and various other items that combine "eating and drinking with one hand without looking." (That's a Seinfeld bit, by the bye) Anyway, Chelsea told me of a rice and milk sort of "cereal" that she had often had growing up. It really couldn't be a simpler recipe:

cooked rice
milk
sugar (may be brown sugar)
butter
cinnamon

I didn't put quantities because it's best to experiment and find what amounts work for you. The way I do it is this: heat up the rice, butter, sugar and cinnamon in the microwave, just until the butter is melted. Take out and stir to make sure there are no clumps of rice (they usually form when you refrigerate the rice from the night before). Once done, you can pop it back in the nuking box if you want it a bit hotter, or just add the milk. I like it when the rice is plenty hot enough to warm the milk. It's like a rice pudding with cinnamon, but healthier (depending on how much butter and sugar you put in). You can also add raisins or apple chunks. Maybe dried cranberries. It's a great jumping off platform, and very wallet friendly, which I'm sure we can all appreciate in these times. Anyway, time to baste the chicken.
Cheers,
-Peter

Ambition...

I am determined to move to NYC. All over the internet there are blogs about people's stories about moving to New York, and people's advice about moving to New York, and people saying "Don't move to New York!" Having read quite a few, though only a small percentage I'm sure, I feel heartened. This could very well be possible. But I think I have definitely been going about it backwards. I've been looking quite a bit at housing and such, mainly to get a feel for the costs. And because I've concentrated on that, I've been preoccupied with thinking of ways to reduce the cost. Instead, I should be concentrating on raising capital to get there/survive in the first place. I have just over a year before I need to start a serious job/apartment search from across the country. Between now and then, I need to have a list of goals:

-Get a job: I don't care what it is, I just need to fill my schedule. Without rowing, my evenings have really opened up, so hopefully I'll be able to get some sort of job downtown. Not having a car really hinders what I can do.

-Finish my degree strong: Anything to revitalize my GPA after the crash that was engineering. Good thing I'm actually enjoying my classes now.

-Save as much money as I can: There seems to be a trend here...

-Tap all of my resources: Find all my friends from New York, ask them about the city and such. Go to student services and see what members of the Trojan Family are living in NYC currently. See what online communities exist that I can gain contacts from.

Any input on what else I should do would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
-Peter

Weekend Recipe 2/7/09

Since this is a blog about my road to culinary school, I figure I should share some recipes that I've come across. This first one comes from one of my old cookbooks, The Dorn Cookbook. This is a very interesting read, in addition to having great (and sometimes unusual) recipes. With some of the recipes, the author provides the story that leads to his first encounter with the dish. Brigadier General Frank Dorn (1901-1982) was in the Army and served in the China-Burma-India Theatre in WWII. He has written a fair number of books (http://www.librarything.com/author/dornfrank), some of which have to do with cooking. In The Dorn Cookbook, he has stories and recipes from his various assignments in China, from the cooks and helpers from the bases in the US, and from friends in numerous countries. If you have the means and interest to impress with exotic dishes, I highly recommend picking up a copy. Also, just a tip that I have, use old cookbooks as much as possible. The recipes you find there will most likely have evolved to something that many people know about today. But using those original base recipes, you can blaze a completely unique path and make a dish that is entirely your own. Anyway, I digress. The recipe that I want to share today is the first one that I tried from The Dorn Cookbook, for "Cream of Peanut Butter Soup." The name may put you off, but trust me, this is a great warm dish that is perfect for rainy days and cold weather (not much use in sunny southern California, but certainly will come in handy when I get to NYC and experience my first real winter). Enjoy:

2 stalks of celery, chopped small
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. flour
1 qt. chicken stock/broth
11 tbsp. peanut butter (do NOT go overboard on this or it will dominate the dish)
1/2 pt. cream
Salt to taste
1 cup sour cream

In a skillet over a low flame cook the chopped celery and onion with the butter until the onion becomes transparent. Add the flour, stir thoroughly, and cook until the mixture is blended. Place the above mixture in a saucepan or pot. Add the chicken stock, and stir constantly as the contents come to a boil. Add the peanut butter, and stir constantly until contents again come to a boil. Remove from the heat, and stir in the cream, adding salt to taste. Place in large soup bowls, floating a big gob of sour cream on top of each (this is a fairly thick soup). Serve with tostados or Melba bread.

This recipe from The Dorn Cookbook is copywrited in 1953 by The Henry Regnery Company in Chicago. This reproduction of the text is intended for educational use only.

Which road?

So there's a lot to do before even thinking that this monumental change is possible.  But, many times I tend to start at the end.  That is to say, I've been checking prices for rent in NYC, looking at the Metro costs, and figuring out to to get to New York to begin with.  That being said, I've mapped out a few road trip routes that I could take.  The first one is my southern dream road trip, going to a lot of natural sights, along with some cities that I would love to see:

#1) Go to Google Maps, and put in the following as destinations in order:

San Francisco, CA

Monterey, CA

Sequoia National Park

Pahrump, NV

Bryce Canyon, UT

Grand Canyon (choose A)

Meteor Crater, AZ (choose A)

Carlsbad Caverns, NM (choose B)

New Orleans

Pensacola, FL

Savannah, GA

Myrtle Beach, SC

Virginia Beach

Salisbury, MD

Washington DC

New York, NY

The second and third options are minimalist road trips, starting in San Francisco, and Los Angeles:

#2) Go to Google Maps, and put in the destinations:

San Francisco, CA

New York, NY

#3) Go to Google Maps, and put in the destinations:

Los Angeles, CA

New York, NY

I'm still trying to devise a route along the northern part of the country.  Any suggestions for landmark would be appreciated.

Cheers,

-Peter

It all comes back to money...

The FCI (French Culinary Institute), in NYC, which I would love to attend still costs about $35k. This would be a problem for me. I'm getting the same deal that my brothers got from my parents, 3 months of rent post graduation, then that's it. Of course, being a student isn't condusive to earning lots of money. I currently don't even have a part time job (though I am searching). Like I mentioned earlier, I've estimated (generously) about $17k for me to get to New York and have 3 months to find a job (most likely plural). The plan was to save up enough money and then go to the FCI. Assuming I need $1000/mo for rent and utilities for a room in an apartment, and $200/mo for food, I would need to get two jobs at $7.50/hr for 60 hours/week to barely squeak by. That means no saving up for FCI. And supposing I somehow managed to get the money for the tuition, the 9 month course takes 3 days a week, during which time I wouldn't be able to work enough to make rent. So basically, I've got to find some way to save up a LOT of money between now and New York, and finish my degree with good grades at the same time. But, I did manage to go through miles of red tape (from the government, no less) in two weeks to go to Field Training last summer. If I really want to do it, I'm going to find a way. I'm going to find a way...

A Brief History... Part 1

So I've done a lot of things in life (I'm sure I'll look back at that statement and laugh hysterically, but for now...). All through high school, I was gonna be a doctor. And honestly, I still might if I could swing another acceptance to the University of Poznan some time later in life. Well, the time to choose a college came and went. I ended up at USC, turning down a half tuition scholarship and guaranteed fellowship at UCR. According to my mom, eight days after school started, I called and told her I was switching majors to Linguistics and Music Theory. After a talk, I ended up choosing mechanical engineering. That ended up not working (took me a year and a half to figure it out). So in the spring of 2008, my parents came down to L.A. for the weekend, and I explained that I'm not happy with ME, and need to change. We had a long talk, and looked at the Course Catalogue. Now I'm in International Relations and happy. I'm actually enjoying my classes, which means I'm actually going to classes and studying (a far cry from my engineering days). So academically, I'm very much into international conflict and diplomacy, as well as foreign economics. Going back in time to the change from Pre-Med to ME, that winter I also joined the Air Force ROTC program at USC. That was fun. ROTC for me was an escape from ME classes, which I hated. I gained most of my friends from that program, along with my rowing friends. I even went to Field Training (the ROTC version of boot camp) in Alabama last summer. That was a memorable experience. I looked terrible in the last few pictures from those six weeks. But I wouldn't trade that time for the world. I don't feel I wasted any time in ME or in ROTC. I think it's pretty obvious that I love learning in all forms, and travel because I'm interested in other languages and cultures. Going even further into the past, I was taught to cook at a very young age. I remember watching how much my dad enjoyed spicing a meal just right and how satisfied he was with a great meal (which it always was). I guess I get my love of cooking from him. Talk about brief... I'll continue my personal history later.

Every road has a beginning...

...And this is mine:

Hey All,
I'm Peter, a student at the University of Southern California. I'm in my junior year studying International Relations (after a long mire of finding what I wanted to study, but more on that later). Without too much personal history, there are certain things in life that I want to do, with everything else being means to doing them: travel, learn, teach, cook, write (music, books, scripts, etc.), have a family, live life. I always like having a plan, which until last semester was set for me for at least four years after college (I was previously in Air Force ROTC). Since I left that program, I have been feeling a growing anxiety about what I want to do with my life. I've been told that I need to not worry about it, and enjoy being in college. But I know that I want to minimize the time between graduation and starting life. And to avoid taking a few months to decide what to do, I wanted to have a plan, which I have:

I am going to move to New York City after graduation and pursue a culinary education.

I need to get off the West Coast for a while (I've never had a chance to miss it). I need to do something to be self sufficient. I have a tentative plan (which will undoubtably change) with what I believe to be a solid first step. After some research and some overbudgeting, I've estimated that to start a life in NYC, I need some $17,000 dollars. Later, I'll clue you in to how I came up with this ridiculous amount. But for now, I've got to make a sandwich and head over to Open Mic Night at Ground Zero Cafe. I hope you enjoy my chronicling of my quest to start my life, and maybe participate in some of the discussions that are sure to ensue.
Cheers,

-Peter