Cooking is the easy part.

I'm sad I haven't saved more of my past wine dinner menus or specials... It's pretty crazy the things you were once so excited about and completely forget in a few months time. wether it's 30 or 500 covers, there's one thing that stands true about being a chef. The cooking is the easy part. I can promise you that when I was the FNG grumbling about portioning about how my kitchen manager just sat on his ass all day and had it way too easy, I was absolutely unaware of all the things that he had to keep track of in his head at all times. I used to lose sleep before dinners and menu changes because I was worried something wasn't right and I dropped an important detail with all the different stuff swirling through my mind. This week I lost sleep because with a lack of events for the week I panicked, wondering what I was forgetting because I had nothing on my mind for the first few days since I took this position. Last Friday I prepped for a rehersal dinner, to release a new brunch menu, a new dinner menu, and a wine dinner menu on each of the following 4 days. This last week was regular business, with nothing special and just being on cruise control getting my kitchen back into shape, I felt my need to juggle menus and thoughts come to an abrupt halt and then I merely spent time trying to think about what I was forgetting to think about! I have constantly been telling Michelle, night after night, that I want to write something... and can never think about what because I feel like I have so many other things occupying my mind (Dinner here, menu there, order there, cover a shift here...) that I can't ever activate my creativity to write... so I figured I'd write about why I can't seem to write. Until next time!

Blogging Regular!

Hello readers! I figured it was time to post my once-every-3-months post, heh.

Where do I begin? When I left off, I was the Sous Chef at the Lobby restaurant in Denver and I lived in a lonely box on 18th and Williams. 

On February 15th, Michelle and I moved into a fantastic 8th floor apartment in Denver. It's just far enough west to be able to skip back to Golden or Lakewood, but also a short walk, drive or taxi ride to anywhere in Denver.

My 25th birthday was on March 3rd, 2010. It was on this same day, at my birthday dinner, that I had the honor of announcing that I had officially become the executive chef of the Lobby American Grille. Charley had acquired a new position at another restaurant, and the owners approached me about being the new executive chef. I accepted, without any hesitation.

Today, March 23rd, was my first day off since my birthday. Well, I actually took in a Depot order, so it wasn't even a full day off :) 

I had worked 12 days straight when Charley went to Burning Man, and it was exhausting. I knew taking this position would mean about a month without any days off, but hey, it's the perks of the job and the industry! 

There's a huge difference between working long weeks for someone else, and doing it for yourself. I mean, I don't own the restaurant and still have owners to answer to, but it's finally my chance to make a name for myself, and because of this, 20 days actually flew by! With training new people and deciding my courses of action to get the restaurant running how I chose, I had plenty on my plate! 

Going into it, I thought adding my own creations to the menu would be the very first thing I would do. Not the case at all! I hired on two new cooks, and worked on training. Unfortunately, one of my two new hires (the one that seemed most promising, actually) didn't work out so well. Two steps forward, but thanks to my awesome crew, it was hardly any sort of step back! After some slight rearranging, we covered all of our bases without having to hire and train yet again. 

With training done, it was time to figure out our food situation. Charley and I took turns doing Depot food runs with minimal ordering from Sysco, but after about 2 weeks of daily Depot runs in my car, it was time to try and figure something else out! I got together with my food rep and we are in the process of figuring out what else we can order without spending too much more. Turns out the Depot really is a helluva lot cheaper than delivery...

However, it's definitely not all work and no play! I had my first wine dinner as Executive Chef on March 15, and it was an absolute blast! California vs Italy was the theme, and I had a lot of fun with it! I took typical italian dishes, and for the first two wines from Santa Barbara, I added my own "California" flair to them.

For the first course, I made a California "Caesar" salad. Romaine tossed in an aioli made with plums and peaches, rather than cheese and anchovies. Mandrine oranges rather than crutons, and lemon and orange zest instead of parmesan cheese.

Second course was a Strawberry-basil bruschetta atop a crustini. Diced strawberries, fresh basil, a little diced onion, and plum vinegar. Finish with just enough salt, and you have the best summer bruschetta ever!

Third and fourth courses were paired with the italian wines, so I went more traditional. The morning of the event, I chopped up fresh sage and put it in a pan with red wine and sirloin steak. Adding a splash of red wine vinegar to help tenderize the meat, the pan went into the cooler for 8 hours. A quick sear and finish in the oven, the steak as sliced and put over basil mashed potatoes and drizzled with an au jus made from the red wine marinade, garlic and onions.

Fourth course was a fried italian dessert. Plain and simple, it was an easy vanilla dough, twisted into bowties and served with hibiscus simple syrup over a hibiscus whipped cream. The flavor of the syrup and whipped cream were not as strong as I had hoped, but it came out delicious nonetheless!

I digress. This has become more of a ramble than a blog post :)

Baseball season is a week away. Summer is right around the corner. The future is bright, friends! I look forward to seeing you all in at the Lobby to come say hi, and look for my new menu to be out mid April!

Stay hungry!

Take 2...

Alright, so my last post was pretty damn half assed. If I'm gonna give you rubbish to read, it had better be full assed rubbish, in my opinion, so screw the survey crap, that went out with myspace! Let's take a little harder look back...

I definitely have learned a hell of a lot in the last year. I feel 2010 was my strongest year to grow as a person, and especially as a chef. I still don't feel I'm truly worthy of my sous chef title, but I like to think I bust my ass trying enough to keep it from seeming like a total mistake. It's been a lot of fun being part of the growing experience for an entire restaurant! I've definitely learned hiw to push the envelope on everything I do and where a few of my limits are, although that definitely doesn't keep me from trying to exceed them. Even though it usually ends in a little more failure than success, the success makes it all worth it...

I've learned you don't hire your friends.
Especially if they've ever held a position above you.
I've learned I still don't like culinary students.
I've learned there's a million different ways to do the same damn thing.
I've learned everything is possible.
Except making mashed potatoes on the fly.
I've learned that my greatest skill is my ability to be a total asshole.
I've learned sometimes more gets done when I put my greatest skill aside.
I've learned very rarely is the aforementioned true, but its still worth a shot now and then.
I've relearned a lot of basic stuff I forgot, which sucks, because I'm still to early into all this to be forgetting shit!
I've learned it's important to play when you can, otherwise your 20s are work and sleep, and that's just weak. You've got the rest of your life to sit around and think about what you've missed, so go out there and miss as little as possible! Friends leave, friends die, friends forget, friends were never really friends in the first place, but enjoying the here and now is the best part of the future. With nothing to look back on, you'll never feel like you did anything...


It's been a lot of hard work and a shit load of hours, but I loved 2010. I'm excited for 2011 as a chef and as a person. I feel more drive to succeed and be creative than I ever have before. It's revitalizing, and I hope it stays. I've found my way around and away from the people that used to do a really good job of stifiling creativity... Drive... Life. My new years resolution is to create And learn more than I have to date... And to justify my sous chef title, although I dont think I'll ever reach that point. However, I feel that as long as I'm my strongest critic, I'll only continue to progress. The day I feel like I've earned my title and have learned enough is the day I'll be letting myself and anyone that eats my food down.

Happy new year, everyone!

Good bye 2010!

I'm really good at keeping up to date with this blog. So good, in fact, that I just spent an hour trying to find it and find my way back into it.

2010 is finally coming to a close. Unfortunately, until Monday this will probably be the most gruesome part of 2010 for myself and my fellow kitchen mates in the Lobby kitchen. New years eve, a treat for any kitchen! I can't really tell you how much I'm looking forward to Monday, but before looking forward, let's look back...


My Best Meals of 2010

Bones pork belly buns
Michelles relleno casserole

Places I Ate At, Often:

Bones
Uptown brother bar
Satire
Brothers bar
The Lobby
Thai basil
...man my eating out experience is dismal...

Stuff I Couldn't Live Without:
My knives
My iPad
Android
Lawrence arms
Gaslight anthem
Music in general
The mexicans
Xbox live
My lovely lady friend! :)

Alright, so after spending so much time hacking into my own blog, I can't really think of things to "look back on..." so here's your chance for a little q&a. Leave me some best/worst questions in the comments and I'll answer every one of them!

Edible art!

Some people draw.

Some people play music.

Painters, sketchers, graffiti artists... everywhere.

I'm great friends with a lot of people that do amazing things with tattoo guns.

I used to think I wasn't a very artistic person. Until I got into the field of culinary. Peek through this window, if you will.

Imagine a 100 degree art studio with sweltering steam in one corner and blistering dry heat in another.

Imagine faucets running, metal slamming, hisses, sizzles, scraping aluminum, screaming, porcelain jiggling together like a wind chime in a hurricane.

All the while stories and jokes you would (or at least should) be embarrassed to say or even hear around your mother are spouting off between "EARS!" "ORDER UP!" "RUNNER PLEASE!" "FRIES DOWN, 3 ALL DAY!" being shouted as if mortars are landing in the dining room and we're the last of the front line. It feels more like war than an environment for creation.

To most people, anyways.

To the tried and true that I know, including myself, it's a sanctuary. I forget about my debts and drama and issues when I'm on the line. Myself as well as my coworkers work day in and day out in the aforementioned environment, and love every second of it. It's a chance to get our minds off of the troubles around us and do what we love: create beautiful food.

The hoity toity foodies that enjoy our creations probably wouldn't expect such a beautiful plate came from such a foul mouthed tattooed hooligan sneaking his after-shift drink at the bar. The pretty little plates that get set in front of you are our passion.

A painter pleases your eye.

A musician your ear.

A chef, your sense of smell, taste, and visual aesthetics are all considered in every menu item we make and especially every chef special we create. The next time you're at a decent restaurant, get the chef's special. Not some diner or greasy spoon where the special is what needs to be sold before spoil, but a decent sit down place. Doesn't even have to be the most expensive place on the block, but 9 times out of 10 that chef's special is a cared for newborn for the day that we culinary artists want to share with you, hoping to make our art a passion for you, as well.

Forget the starving artists. We're the artists that keep you from starving.

What's in the rearview mirror: My beginning

When I was a little kid I tried to draw like my friends. I failed miserably. I tried to create music using a guitar. Curse my fat fingers! Apart from drums, I never learned another instrument. I grew up in Blackhawk, Colorado where pavement is sparse. Skateboarding was out of the question. My only talent as a child was hauling a bigwheel to the top of my driveway and hauling ass down until the death wobble took over and I toppled end over end, cried my face off, and dragged that bigwheel back up to do it again. Aaaah, mountain living. Ok, so I was a pretty talentless little kid.

Around 13 I got sick of fighting with my siblings to pass the time while mom and dad worked. So I ventured into the cupboards. What started as undercooked noodles and a can of tomatoes turned into burritos and mini calzones made with a crust of flour and water. Sauce too runny? I bet if I mix flour in it will fix that. At 13 I didn't understand the necessity of consolidated fat cooked down with the flour to make a roux, but I was halfway there! I was cooking up a storm to pass the time. And most of it wan't half bad!

My first job was as a door person at a little casino in Blackhawk. I was covering for a friend for the weekend and they decided to hire me on, but rather in the kitchen. I manned a "cook your own steak" steakhouse. I assisted in making sides and such, but nothing out of line for a 14 year old. When the steakhouse closed, I was moved down to the prep kitchen to make nasty, greasy bar food that was kept behind the bar in a hotbox to be scooped out to order. I was essentially moved back to being a doorperson until I ventured into the world of valet, and back again to the door. I was denied any sort of advancement after that due to my liprings and tattoo. After finally having enough, I took the rings out for a job interview elsewhere on the last day of my 2 week notice. The owner of the casino noticed they were gone and immediately offered me a short order cooking position behind the bar at his new casino. Upside? Amazing pay. Downside? It was frozen burgers and fried food. I did this for years before being fired for calling in once.

I got a job as a prep cook for a casino buffet shortly after. It was "food in bags in steamy water" sort of stuff. I learned knife skills, but nothing much about cooking.

At 19, I decided to move in with a friend in Vegas. After a month of not finding a job, I finally landed a gig as a banquet cook at the Palms. I had no idea what I was in for. I went from opening cans to trying to make tons of foods I'd never even heard of from scratch! I was asked to make a 4-cup mire poix and chiffinade 4 leaves of basil. I had no freaking clue what just came out of my chef's mouth! The chef had hired someone far more green than he'd anticipated, so he pulled me aside. He told me to buy notebooks and never be without one. He told me he wouldn't fire me so long as he didn't have to teach me the same thing twice. I held on by the seat of my pants for 4 months before I got homesick and the chef got tiresome. I moved back to Colorado and got a job at the casino with the buffet. This time as a kitchen lead. This time knowing I wanted to spend the rest of my life becoming a chef.

I was transferred to the fine dining restaurant as soon as there was an opening. I ran that line with one of my greatest friends ever for 2 years. The cheap beer and long nights consuming it eventually led to some bad decisions on our part ending in our termination. If I could go back, I wouldn't change it.

I landed a job at Nine75 North, Troy Guard and Sullivan Group's 2nd Nine75 restaurant where I learned that the "fine dining" gig at the casinos was a joke. I was finally really cooking! Fresh fish and great produce, everything from scratch, gastriques, romulades, reductions! We were young chefs having the times of our lives! Creating, teaching, learning, growing off each other! Jim closed the restaurant on July 4th, 2008.

I got a call from my chef on July 5th telling me to be at Nine75 Downtown at 9 the next morning. That was the morning I met Charles Sinden. He threw me on the line and made 3 soups and 2 sauces at the same time explaining to me every ingredient in each one faster than I could write in my little pocket notebook. I was the new Nine75 Lunch guy under who would become the chef I will (and have!) drop my goingons to go work for. We ran Nine75 for about 6 months before Jim decided he wanted out of the restaurant business and closed it.

We all worked odd jobs while the fine dining industry was in the can. I even got an opportunity to open my own breakfast joint in Golden, only to train myself out of a job. Lesson #1 to running your own ship!

I now work under Charley at The Lobby restaurant. We hired my sous chef and best friend from the casino restaurant to work our obscenely busy lunch rushes. Between the three of us, it's the greatest place to work, create, dine, be.