Workings.

A busy work weekend is over. We have hit our stride in terms of being able to handle the cookery of a full restaurant. Which is phenomenal. Friday night there was a long wait for tables and it was handled, and last night we complained that we wanted more.

Other than that, it looks like my work schedule will be changing slightly to having days off being tuesday and wednesday (as opposed to M, T). At first is seems a trivial change, and then I thought about it, and realized I liked having Mondays off. Then I thought about it some more, and realized that there's nothing open late to do on Sundays anyways. I should just go home and run anyways. Which hasn't been happening as often as I'd like these days. I kinda messed up my back in NYC carrying my heavy messenger bag about all day one day, and it knocked my spine out of good alignment.

Conclussionally, I am rolling in the dart at the moment to the workings of the Gap Band.

Prolific.

I am apparently a "prolific blogger." This is a recognition by Dan@Freshly Ground, and I have to confess, I never, ever, EVER, have considered my blog to anything of that sort. It's just my view of my life experiences, and so, what does that mean? I have an interesting life, or, more likely, a perverse and often baffling viewpoint of my life.

I just blog because of my whole "existing in 2 worlds deal." I have my life here, and then there's this NZ version of me. People all over the world want a piece of me!

So, with the award, I am supposed to call out the links I love, but they're already called out.

Morgue, Cal, Dan are ones that I check in often enough. Really my American friends don't blog....

Also required to link back to the origin of said award.

So, onwards and upwards with prolific blogging!

Wow.

I have returned to a beautiful Seattle day. I am inside, but need to remedy that. Soon I will ride the bike.

But 1st, some blog action, from NYC.

Restaurants eaten/drunk at: Joe's Shanghai (soup dumplings), Katz's deli (corned beef on rye), Death & Company (high end cocktails and a tuna plate), Cafe Mogador (Moroccan food), D.B.A (a bar with lots of great beer), a dimsum place I cannot recall the name of (I was the only non Chinese person there), Bar Masa (technically perfect sushi, although very expensive and not a good value), Bar Jamon (the cat's meow, Spanish tapas and cups of txakoli!), Blue Hill NYC (4.5 hour dinner), Les Enfants Terribles (with a hot girl I picked up on the subway), Donut Plant (really need to explain this?). There was some NYC pizza in there too somewhere.....

Seen/visited/heard: MOMA, the Natural History Museum, a snowy/quiet/amazing Central Park, a crazy guy annoyingly singing "Jingle Bell Rock on the subway for no apparent reason, a woman saying on her cellphone: "I don't know if you're dead or if you're alive, just call me," and a woman telling her friend: "how am I doing? I'm worse than awful!"

Pictures of NYC.

Pictures from the post dinner fur-bourbon event at emmer&rye.

And finally, my experience at Blue Hill, long format. The formatting got wrecked by google docs, but this is it. In all its glorious detail.

NYC.

I'm up in CT right now; the city was epic. The dinner at Blue Hill was perhaps the finest meal I've ever had. It was a 4 and a half hour affair.

I will degust it for you when I return to Seattle on Monday, and have time to really do it justice. I even got a hot girl (really, really hot) on the subway to grab a drink with me and my cousin afterwards- she was on her way home to Brooklyn. Where else but NY would that whole idea be normal?

Yes. I love NYC.

Assorted.

Touching in from the NYC Central Library. Right outside NY Fashion Week is happening- models everywhere.

I slept 12 hours last night; all the activities previously mentioned caught up to me....I then walked to Katz's Deli, a classic NY Kosher Deli, and had a pastrami on rye with fresh pickles. Great.

Took a train up to the American Natural History Museum, and enjoyed the displays. I love that place.

Afterwards, I walked through Central Park, all covered in snow, and down 5th Ave with it's opulent shopping. Stopped in the library for a respite, and to escape the cold. I will head down to the Empire State Building (not going to the top) and then walk up to Grand Central, and meet my cousin after he's done with work. Who knows what the evening holds!

NY'ers say the best things on their cell phones. Overheard:

"I don't know if you're dead, or if you're alive!"

"I'm doing way worse than awful!"

Epic'd.

I have arrived in NYC. Exhausted. The last few days have been a cavalcade of delights:

Friday night: The Baranoff's back bar up in Greenwood. A total shiteshow. The place was insane. I may or may not have been hit on by a tranny.....

Saturday night: Left work, and headed to my friend's birthday. She was crazy, excited, and crazy excited to see me. Then I went to a German bar and shut it down whilst enjoying landjager.

Sunday was Valentine's day. Work was actually slow, since it was all tables of 2, as opposed to larger, heavier-ordering tables of 4. After that, I went with some co-wo's (to borrow Cal's usage) to Liberty up on Capitol Hill for uber-swank cocktails. I had a Krux cocktail, and a Corpse Reviver #1 (which differs from a #2....gross!) and then headed home and hooked up with my main man in NZ, Morgue, via skype.

Monday: My birthday; Korean food, a nap, packing, a run, and an absolutely incredible dinner at my restaurant. We ate and drank like French Kings of Yore, and then put on fur clothing to become whiskey consuming cossacks/Russian gangsters. Then I went to listen to my friend's band.

Tuesday: I woke up 3 hours after going to bed, and headed to the airport. Slept enough on the plane to make it ok later in the evening, and then rode the subway into the city. In the Lower East Side, my cousin Brad and I walked his hood, had a couple beers, I told some interesting stories/anecdotes (I often do), and then we had incredible soup dumplings. Yes, dumplings. With soup in them. Like, liquid soup, like brothy water balloons. They were amazing. And now, it has all caught up with me, and I have to sleep. Lunch at DBGB tomorrow, and the Nat'l History museum are all I have planned for tomorrow.

Sleep land awaits!

Barely Worth It.

Oh Happy Valentines Day and Happy Birthday to me.

I'm going to the farmers market to celebrate.

I'm sorta rushed right now; have to be concise. More on Monday I suppose, before NYC trip.

Sorry.

Roundup.

My weekend goes by too fast!

After cooking for my family on Sunday at the restaurant (they enjoyed it immensely), I had Monday off, and threw a Super Bowl party for myself and the guys from work who missed it Sunday. I had managed to keep myself insular to the result, so it was exciting and fun to watch it, and eat the super, super bowl of chili I made. Ok, it was a large pot.

I then played lots of pool, and was discovered/told I need to be a stand up comedian by a comic. He wants to write some jokes for me, based upon the idea we had last night. It concerns mustard. That's all I'll say, over these here internets. I never thought of being a comic....

Today has been errands, marking off checks on my list:

Record repair done (currently listening to re-release of The Blues Breakers feat. Clapton- AMAZING.)

Car repair done. (At least for the moment.)

Car wash done.

Full body massage, check. I'm loose.

NZQA called up, and this one can't be quite checked off, as their website didn't like me attempting to log in so many times. But I will get on this one.

Tonight: Research NYC restaurants, and watch Lost.

And eat more chili.

Super.

It's been back to work; last night it was really back to work, as we were super busy. Tonight will be the same.

I have to work during the Super Bowl for the 1st time in years, and it's a bummer. I will record it, and do my best to avoid talk/score/reports on said game. Then on Monday, I can have my own little party....

Going to the farmers market to pick stuff up.

Delicious.

Selleck. Waterfall. Sandwich.

Refrain.

Ah. A day off.

I needed it. I can check off things on my list, reconnect with people, think about the Dart's issues to be fixed, run errands, etc, etc. It was a long week, where a lot happened. I thought a lot about who I am as a chef, why I'm doing what I'm doing, and my future. I was severely tested, and had not been under as much stress and fatigue as was last week in a long time; I often wondered how/why I had gotten myself into the opening project.

But it's the food. The gorgeous ingredients are uncompromisingly sourced. And that is incredible. I have said it before: there will be other restaurant with perhaps a finer end product, honed and presented with more aptitude than I can do, but it is not possible to start with a better foundation of products. And so one doesn't need to do much.....

I am also learning to become a better line cook; I am rusty somewhat. My memory has never been good for things like memorizing a ton of orders at once- my mind doesn't work like that. And then there's the expediting of orders: I am too nice. I need to form a persona that is outrageous and uncompromising, like if the Macho Man was a drill sergeant. I say extraneous things like "please" according to my boss....I am the yang to his yin in this regard during service.

Anyways, I don't need to extoll these facts here, I have done it waaaaay too many times in my head. It's sorted. For now.

The Wedgewood Broiler awaits tonight with my peoples!

(This post is dedicated to Ryan)