here we come, reach for your guns, and you better listen well my friend

ok, so i'm not really copying my boy mikey's idea for a decade end list, i swear.  i've actually wanted to write a list like this for a while, plus its a totally different list, but i guess you could say he gave me the inspiration.

MY TOP TEN LIST OF SHIT I HATE FOR THE DECADE 2000-2009

1.  people that park in the no parking lane in front of grocery stores and target and stuff.  it happens the most at wal-mart, though i hate to admit i even go there.  i don't care how fat, lazy, old, whatever you are, and i don't care how quick your stupid wife is gonna be.  you can't park there.  it says so, in big yellow fucking letters, but you can't see them cause you're fucking parked on them.  you are a douchenozzle and you make me sad to be a human.

2.  skinny jeans.  i guess it's not so much the jeans (or that goddamn wacky anime hair) but the fact that i'm so old i've officially turned into "that guy"--the guy who says "everything was way cooler when i was your age".  but, let's face it...it was.  the 80s were awesome!  and skinny jeans are stupid!  bah!  you kids get off my lawn!

3.  that goddamn jalapeno on a stick guy.  your act is tired, and you suck it bad.  you're a fucking ventriloquist, for gods sake...do you also wear knickerbockers and think everything costs a nickel?  fuck you jeff dunham.  i hate you.

4.  late tables.  i've said it before...you can't walk in to target ten minutes before they close and expect to shop for an hour, right?  no, of course not, they close in ten minutes silly!  but if it's hooters, or the olive garden, and especially where i work, apparently it's fair game.  my boss says he likes the money, so we have to serve them.  i say bah!  we're closed and i wanna go home!  screw you people for making me late getting home.

5.  people that drag their goddamn dogs everywhere with them.  with the one exception of my buddy gator bobb, who takes his poodle pretty much everywhere, i cannot stand this behavior.  i guess if you're going for a hike or whatever its all good but i've seen soooo many dogs left in cars in my parking lot.  don't bring your dog to the restaurant with you.  you might bring him a hamburger, but it's pretty busted leaving a dog in your car while you eat.  you're a jerk.

6.  people with gigantic lift kits on their trucks.  with the one exception of my buddy gator bobb, who has a toyota 4 runner with like 36 inch tires and does mad four by four stuff up in the woods, i cannot stand this behavior.  wait, that's twice i've said that...actually i once told my wife "if that guy wasn't my friend i'd fucking hate him".  anyway...love ya gator.  back to the lift kits.  i can tell somebody who takes their rig up in the woods from somebody who just has a small dick.  you know who you are.

7.  twilight.  i haven't seen i but i bet it sucks and i hate having to hear about it all the time.

8.  people who don't use their blinkers.  you know how when your hand is on the steering wheel and you're driving?  yeah.  your blinker is that thing your left pinky is sitting on.  use it.

9.  non hd programming.  come on comedy central and cartoon network, get with it.  also a lot of griz games are on non hd channels, which blows.  i have like three hundred non hd channels and i never watch them cause the picture sucks.

10.  having to work when everybody else has the day off.  but ya know, that's part of the restaurant business. when you play, we work, when we play, you sleep, and we don't ever get to sleep.  my wife has all these awesome holiday days off and i always have to work on holidays cause people that don't work in restaurants tend to eat in restaurants on holidays.  i haven't gotten to take my girl to dinner on valentines day in like twelve years, and i never get to get drunk in the morning on st. paddys day like any good irishman would.  ah well.  i love me some line cooking.

trust i seek and i find in you

ok.  first things first.  nobody got the last title.  i'll admit, it hasn't been a full day yet but none of you are gonna get it so forget it anyway.  it was from baggy trousers by madness.  one of the greatest ska bands ever, btw.  i think this title is way easier.

anyway, whoo....we gots busy today!  me and the boss didn't think it would be busy cause it rarely is on new years eve plus it was snowing to high hell.  but we were pleasantly surprised, we had a pretty good lunch, were steady all afternoon, and had a damn fine dinner.  it wasn't like, valentines day busy but it was a helluva thursday anyway.  we actually ran a couple of specials...a pecan crusted chicken breast with a fucking amazing huckleberry cabernet sauce, and a 10 oz sirloin with bleu cheese and balsamic reduction (also fucking amazing). both are things we've ran before (we do the chicken two or three times a year) and both are things that i just get better at making the more i do it.  i thought i had perfected the hucklecab sauce but i guess i was wrong, cause...damn.  it was gooood.  for those of you who don't know a huckleberry is kinda like a tart, plump, purple blueberry.  they grow like crazy in montana, and thanks to my mommy in law i get freshies every summer.  i dunno where else they grow but i do know that they can't be domesticated.  hmm.

anyway, i take a bunch of cabernet savignion (is that right?  lets just say cab) and a bunch of huckleberries, lemon zest and juice, onion, garlic, sugar, and salt n pepper and boil the crap out of it until it reduces, then i blitz it in the choppy chop, and then i add a few whole berries back in so you can see em.  it's super good, and the breading we (blitzed up pecans and cereal---won't say which one) use goes well with it.

so yeah, it was nice.  i like being busy.  and it was kind of a mad dash to get it all ready by dinnertime, cause we had a lot of prep and i was steady the whole time.  but jenney knocked out most of the prep and i made the hucklecab sauce and the balsamic reduction (which i reducted for like an hour with honey and garlic...mmm!) and the breading plus i knocked out a bunch of tickets at the same time.  also i burned my finger right off the bat trying to fix the gas flow to the broiler.

all in all a pretty good day.

lots of girls and lots of boys, lots of smells and lots of noise

so this isn't really a post per se, but more of a hey-go-check-out-my-friend's-end-of-decade-list-on-his-blog.  being an internet junkie i've read a lot of year end and decade end lists but this one is the best cause it mentions my blog and also has no order and makes no sense but is still awesome anyway.

also my song quote here is a pretty obscure one, so the prize is fifty bonus awesome points!

can't ya see i'm standin here with my back against the record machine

ok.  fun fun fun.  the title of this post is a quote from a song.  from now on all my titles are gonna be lines from songs that kick ass, and ten bonus awesome points* for leaving a comment with the right answer.  yesterday's title was of course from through the fire and the flames by dragonforce.  duh.

so, anyway, of course the steamer got fixed today.  it took the guy like four hours.  the element burned out but apparently there was years and years of calcium buildup cause i guess you're supposed to chemically clean it once a week but we've never done it.

whoops.

anyway, it took a long time and it smelled like a science lab all day.  but the cleveland steamer lives again!  huzzah!

so, i guess the only other thing of any interest that happened today was ONCE AGAIN i was forced into making breakfast after we stopped serving breakfast.  ok, listen, i understand the five after two tickets (we cut off breakfast orders at 2) but this order didn't even come in until almost twenty after.  and it was a seven top.  two of them had cheeseburgers, but the rest were breakfasts.  what i was told at about twenty to two was that there was going to be a seven top but not everybody was there yet.  so, naturally, by twenty after, i had completely forgotten about it.  and i guess because some of them were there before two, the server (she who shall not be named but has pooped her pants at work one time) figured that it was okay that they ordered breakfast.  i only cooked it because i'm super passive aggressive and i shy away from confrontation but enjoy complaining.  only afterward was i told that it was actually a different server's kids and their friends.  so, the moral of the story is, those kids should know what fucking time breakfast ends.

anyway.  i always do shit like that, and go against all my line cook instinct (which 95% of the time just screams "FUCKOFFIHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU") and do special orders for people or serve something before or after i should.  i'm a softie...what can i say?  i'm a big bowl of puddin, with a tiny nugget of raving lunatic in the middle.

*bonus awesome points can't be redeemed for money, favors, sexual favors, sexual favors that maybe i did once but that are illegal in nine states, or sexual favors that i may have gotten from your mother and you'd like to try.  they are simply a way of measuring your awesomeness compared to that of your peers, so that i may belittle and humiliate you when you guess wrong.  peace, suckas!

through the fire and the flames we carry on

so, remember about six inches ago when i talked about how everything was all broken and stuff?  well, most of it isn't anymore, which is nice, but the kitchen heat is still out and the steamer needs a new element and we won't get it for a couple days.  the heat is one thing...i mean, you'd think with a broiler, a six foot flattop grill, a convection oven, a steam table, and a fryer would keep the kitchen warm but not really.  we're in a super old historical building that all slants to one corner and has poor insulation.  anyway, it's cold in the back.  i am finding myself standing with my arms under the heat lamps lately.  anyway, the steamer...now, today was tuesday, and my two or three loyal readers will know that tuesday is all you can eat spaghetti day at my joint.  so, instead of having the ol cleveland steamer working (seriously...the company that makes our steamer is the cleveland corperation, and it has a big blue badge that says cleveland on the front.  cleveland steamer.  i dunno if that's where the saying comes from or if it's just the most awesome coincidence in the world, but there ya go.) i had to take a hotel pan and fill it with water and put a slotted insert in in and dominate two burners all night.  it wasn't as busy as last week (did i mention the drama last week?  there was drama) so it wasn't a huge issue but still, i kind of hate my routine getting changed.  i have a very specific way of doing stuff (in fact, i rearrange the containers on the shelf to suit my liking every day) and i don't like having to change stuff.  i usually heat the noodles in the steamer.  i can do it half a dozen other ways, but i like to use the steamer.  that's what it's for.  so when i had to change it up today i didn't necessarily like it but like i said it wasn't busy and it didn't really matter.  too bad for you, dear readers, cause if it would have been i'm sure this post would have been much angrier and altogether more enjoyable.  in fact i just re-read what i just wrote and it's pretty boring.  it sounded so much better in my head earlier.  not nearly as whiny.  "ooh, poor me, i wus cold and my steamer didn't work.  boo hoo!"

anyway, i just promised myself i'd try to blog more so there ya have it.  i'll try to not be such a pussy next time.

never fails...

so, i dunno about offices and all that, but when something goes wrong at a restaurant, it seems like everything goes wrong.  so...yesterday when everybody showed up to open, this is what was wrong....

motherboard on main office computer failed...all the computer terminals were down.  no way to turn in orders.

dining room thermostat.  it was 40 degrees when the opening shift got to work.

kitchen heater.  dead.  it blew cold air half the time anyway, but now it's straight up done.

various pipes froze and broke.  the dish sprayer cracked n broke.  also both hand sinks in the back.

employee toilet was full of ice and wouldn't work.

when i got there at two, the thermostat and computers were fixed but it was still cold as hell in the back and the hand sinks didn't work and we had to carry bus tubs of hot water from the back to the dishpit to soak plates and stuff cause the sprayer was busted.  and then i turned the steamer on and instead of filling up with steam, it just poured water out the front for thirty seconds, then made a super loud pop and then smoke came billowing out.  so, the steamer is DONE.  it's been sketchy for a few months now, but i think the fryed out electronics smell was a telltale sign.  luckily we weren't busy in the slightest, otherwise we would have had an annoying evening.  it was bad enough just due to the cold.  i don't want to have to wear a sweatshirt while standing in front of a broiler.  and then i'd go outside to smoke and get even colder and come back inside and i could never warm up.  and i'd walk over to the hand sink to wash up and oh yeah it's broken.  then i was drinking tea like mad to warm up and kept having to go knock on the dining room bathroom door to make sure it was empty so i could go pee instead of just peeing in the employee bathroom.  what a pain in my ass.

anyway, i got two days off so i'm sure when i go back either everything will be fixed or it won't.  i'm just glad i don't have to deal with dishes this morning.  egg plates have to be soaked and scraped, and our sprayer is busted.  it would not surprise me in the slightest if more shit breaks down today.

when it rains, it pours, i guess...

merry effin christmas errybody

i just wanted to knock out a quick post cause i got me a wireless router and now can blog from the comfort of my couch.  so i should get back on a regular schedule of posts, if anything interesting starts happening at work anyway...it's been super slow.  anyway, it's christmas and i'm rocking guitar hero van halen and drinking and eating cookies.  hope all my readers are rockin it.

anyway, more to come soon, ya'll!

bready bread breadsticks

so i've been going off lately making breadsticks...fresh, of course, and huge and doughy and awesome.  i made two batches on monday (parmesan and cracked pepper, sea salt and cracked pepper) that i was initially planning on sending out as xmas presents but i'm not sure they're gonna travel well and be good to eat in a week, so i'm probably going to scrap that idea.  see, every year, every damn year i get my boy mikey's address and i say i'm gonna send him a christmas present, and every damn year i fail to do so.  i feel stupid about it, although he's never mentioned it.  anyway, mikey my boy, i'm sorry i've once again let you down.

ANYway, now that the guilt has passed, check out my killer breadsticks!

they're fatties!  and super good!  here's the recipe:

take a packet of quick dissolve yeast and mix it with a cup of warm water, let sit for five minutes.  add between 2 and 1/2 and 3 cups of bread flour, a teaspoon and a quarter of salt, and mix until it becomes doughy...the extra half cup of flour may be needed to keep it from being too sticky.  flour up a counter and knead the bejaysus out of the dough for five, six minutes.  spray a bowl with cooking spray and put the doughball in the bowl and put it in a warm spot for about a half hour, or until doubled in size.  punch that sucker down and let it sit for a couple minutes.  turn it out onto the counter and roll it out until it's rectangle, maybe a foot and a half long by a foot wide.  brush it with an egg wash, and top it with damn near anything.  coarse salt and fresh cracked pepper are good first time choices.  then spritz it with cooking spray, and using a sheet of plastic wrap push the toppings into the dough. use a pizza cutter to cut it into twelve or fourteen strips.  take each strip and gently pull it and bounce it in the air until its around a foot long.  you don't have to, but i like to twist the strips to make them awesome looking.  spray your cookie sheets and arrange the breadsticks about an inch apart.  toss them into an oven preheated to 450 for ten to fifteen minutes or until they look done.  cool on racks.

boom.

breadsticks.

that went pretty well

so i knocked out another party, a small one this time, only about twenty people and it was cocktail party style food.  it was fairly easy but not super easy.  i woke up wednesday morning with a fantastic headache, so bad that i ended up getting sick and going back to bed, but not before i got the pulled pork working.  that was important.  also on tuesday night i got held up at work and didn't get home until ten thirty and still had to make marinara sauce and coleslaw.  the marinara was killer...pretty standard except for white wine instead of red and the addition of a half pound of carrots blended into it.  it was good.  i'm not really a tomato sauce sort of guy but i thought it was great.

anyway, i only made three dishes...pulled pork sliders with coleslaw (kinda my go-to dish), meatballs in marinara, and bruschetta.  but i made three damn good dishes.  and i've never made the meatballs or bruschetta before...but i knocked them out of the park.  the meatballs were full of parmesan, fresh parsley, and tons of fresh ground nutmeg.

i know, right?  nutmeg in meatballs?

yep.  they were soooooo good.

i've done pulled pork a ton of times, but it was awesome as ever.  i usually put lots of chipotle chili powder in my slaw but made it more on the sweet side this time.  killer.  the pork has the lid on but trust me, it was tender, succulent, and wonderous.

the bruschetta was something i'd never made before, but how can you screw up tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and olive oil?  i wanted to plate them up individually but the host of the party didn't want to have to do another batch when the first was gone, so i toasted up a ton of baguette slices and kept the bruschetta in a bowl, and served the balsamic on the side.  it was still awesome and yummy.

the whole spread looked like this...i even made a menu card and framed it!  bam!

so, sorry i haven't been blogging a lot lately...i don't really have an excuse...i'm just lazy.  also my buddy let me borrow new super mario bros. wii, so i've been hitting that pretty hard.  anyway, i was excited about cooking yesterday, and i was listening to awesome 40s big band xmas music the whole time.  good times.

until next time, loyal readers...i'm takin what i'm givin cause i'm cookin for a livin.

more kick ass food on the way

so i got another party to cater...it's just a small xmas party for a local law firm.  my friend eli (who i haven't seen in a couple years) saw my catering pics on facebook and when his wife came home and told him she was having the office xmas party at their house he immediately thought of me.  flattering!  anyway, we're still working out the menu but stay tuned for a post next week with pictures and the story.  i also maybe am catering my boy mike's wedding in august (hope everything works out for that).

other than that, it's been slow at work, it's cold as hell, it's snowy for pretty much the first time today, and my computer works like crap.  oh, and my blackberry just up and quit working.  also my dvr won't record it's always sunny in philadelphia for some reason.

i'm having a hell of a time with electronics lately.