Sweaty, Tired, and Cranky

I haven't posted in a long time. Work has been very crazy, hectic, and frustrating. I'm tired and cranky. We had a catering event for 60 people that the owner knew about for well over a month. The event was on Tuesday but we weren't given a menu until Wednesday, 6 days before the event. Actually it is more like 4 days because we are closed on Mondays and Sundays we do not do any production, we just get out all the stuff for the display case to be purchased. 4 days before the event a catering company was not even booked yet to rent serving ware and stuff like that, supplies or food was not ordered, and we had no recipes. Keep in mind we are a pastry kitchen too. We put out tarts, cakes, and baked goods. We are not prepared to do savory items. The event called for 16 different canapes and 3 different types of pastries. So finally on Thursday after work recipes were given to us to try. This is fucking crazy because there is no time to be testing shit out. 2 days is not enough time to be testing, tweaking, and producing 16 canapes for 60 people. Definitely not when you have your own daily production to do. Especially when you don't have the ingredients to make them because they haven't been ordered. We didn't even know if the recipes are going to work or if they even tasted good. At that point we didn't have time for trial and error and tweaking. We should have been all prepped already. And you would think that the owner would simplify but nope she wanted everything beyond simple. I'm a big fan of fancy but when you are doing something so last minute and you are unprepared and running out of time it might be a good idea to go with something you've done several times and you know it can be done and will taste good. *Saturday night I get a messsage about freezing some compote (I made in case one of the canapes didn't work out and we needed an emergency back up) then something about layering some cheese somehow and some kind of strawberry tuile! Sunday we don't do production, Monday we are closed, Tuesday is the event. There is no time to be freezing something and drying something out to make a tuile! Crazy* Ok so back to Wednesday night, I was smart enough to go online and do some research and I came up with some of my own recipes to try on Thursday. I figured it was better then waiting for her to give us the recipes because I know when shit hits the fan all fingers will be pointing at us, not her. The recipe she gave us for for corn blinis came out like shit. They were dry, eggy, and hard as a rock. Mine came out much better so we tried it with cornmeal and without and told her one was her recipe and the other was mine. She, of course, doesn't even try the one we said was mine and said she liked hers. If she only knew that they were both mine and her recipe sucked. She didn't even prepare the cook for the things he had to do for the event. He was slammed on Tuesday with this huge to-do list. By Tuesday we had done everything that was asked of us. Our prep work was all done and we were ahead of schedule but I knew that shit would hit the fan because she didn't the food that she was in charge of. She was supposed to go in on Monday to prepare some of the savory foods. What time do you think she went in? 8:30pm on Monday night when the party is on Tuesday. It was ridiculous. Tuesday was a crazy day at work. I went in at 4am. Things that should have been already prepared were being made on the fly. We didn't have glasses for the panna cotta until 6:30pm and the party started at 6pm so pretty much it was made a la minute. Have you ever heard of panna cotta being made a la minute? Ridiculous right!? Meat balls were being rolled at 7:30pm in our kitchen and one of the girls who was waitressing the event had to drive back and pick them up and then cook them on site. Really really ridiculous and it didn't have to be like that. Catering a party requires planning and prep work.

So all of last week we were prepping for that event and getting our usual stuff done. I worked 11 to 11 1/2 hours a day which isn't awful but I had a lot of things to take care of after work. I had a present to shop for, made Dora the Explorer cookie lollipops for my two year old niece's bday, an appt in the city that I was almost late for so I had to go straight after work sweaty and dirty in my batter and flour stained work pants, a birthday dinner party the next day, some personal things that I needed to take care of, and two days of the fancy food show which was awesome. I was running around like a madwoman. Going into work sucked today. It's like waking up after a storm and seeing the disaster it has caused. You just have to take a deep breathe and start the clean up. Our kitchen was a mess this morning and we were depleted of a lot of our mise en place which needed to be made today. I'm sweaty, cranky, and tired. This is the first chance I'm getting to sit down and check my email and post something. I'm glad its over and hopefully this week will be a bit calmer.

More Feet in the Kitchen

I have to admit I eat a lot of weird stuff at home. But to me it isn't weird at all! It's not unusual to find some sort of feet in my kitchen. That's a really odd statement to make! Last time it was chicken's feet, which I love at dimsum by the way. This time it's pig's feet, crispy roasted pig's feet to be exact. My mom is using them to make congee (rice porridge) tomorrow but not after I nibbled off some of its juicy meat and crispy skin.

Some Rules of the Kitchen

1. Never mess with someone's mise en place (ie. use it all on their day off and not replacing it so when they come back they are in the shit)

2. Don't invade someone else's workstation (ie. leaving your dirty crap on someone else's table)

3. Work as a team and leave as a team.

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Goddamnit!

I just recently read a post on Adventures in Culinary School and Beyond where he writes:
"I know of three basic ways you can injure yourself in a kitchen - being burned; being cut or stabbed; or slipping on the floor". And damnit I seared my arm on a hot sheet pan. I did it to myself. It was my hot sheet pan. I pulled it out of the oven. I put it in the speed rack. I told everyone the sheet pan was caliente. And then I proceeded to reach over to grab hot choux dough off the pan. And then my arm touched the hot edge. I was in a pissed off mood and was being careless. Afterwards I was even more pissed off.

Vietnamese All Around the Boroughs: Brooklyn Installment

Pho Tay Ho is my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn. My boyfriend, his gang of friends, and I go there almost every weekend for lunch or dinner or sometimes a late lunch depending on how hard we partied the night before to gossip and recap about the weekend's tales. They offer dishes that my favorite Viet restaurant in my neighborhood doesn't have.


My all time favorite is Bún riêu which isn't shown on the menu but is a special that's written on the wall. This soup is rich and deep with flavor due to the broth that is made by simmering crab shells and dried shrimp in tomato broth. I love the crab meat cakes, made from the meat of the crab used in making the soup, dried shrimp paste, and egg whites, that float on top of the soup. Also in the soup are chunks of tomato, fried tofu, congealed pig's blood, shrimp and onions. Once it comes to the table I like to add lemon, basil, jalapeños, bean sprouts, and extra shrimp paste. I order this 90% of the time because it is so good. Check out the May 2008 issue of Saveur: crab issue has a great recipe for bún riêu.


The rest of the time I like to order # 50 Bún bò Huế ( Hue's style beef w/ noodle soup on rice vermicelli). The beef pork broth is meaty with flavors of lemongrass, chili, and shrimp paste. The noodles are thicker and rounder than the noodles you find in Pho or Bun Rieu. It has a toothy chewy texture that kind of reminds me of al dente spaghetti. Along with the noodles there are slices of beef shank, pig feet, oxtail, and slices of some kind of sausage. I like to add lemon, shredded lettuce, and jalapeños to my soup.


As an appetizer I love #28 Muc Chien Don (crispy squid in garlic sauce). The squid is battered lightly and fried until crispy and golden brown. It is then sauteed with onions and a sweet, salty, and garlicky sauce. There's a kick ass dipping sauce to go with it too. I don't like my food sweet (e.g. Chinese sweet and sour anything; Yuck!) but the sauce that the squid is cooked in and the dipping sauce are perfectly balanced in sweetness. And of course #27 Cha Gio (Vietnamese spring rolls) are always good and a must!

Pho Tay Ho has an extensive menu. I want to try their other dishes but the damn Bún riêu and Bún bò Huế are so good I can't help but keep going back to these two dishes. Their pho, beef cubes, grilled pork chops and chicken are all really good too. But I grew up eating these dishes at my neighborhood Viet restaurant so I think it is better there.

*click on menus for viewing

Pho Tay Ho
2351 86th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11214
(718) 449-0199

* stay tuned because next I will be taking you to Manhattan to one of my favorite Viet restaurants there!