Archives for April 2011
Ten Top.
22 April 2011 | chef, delicious, faithful readers, jack yoss, jeff, tentop | 4 Responses
As faithful readers know, I’ve cooked my whole working life. In my seventeen years of kitchen work, I’ve only had one job that wasn’t food related; driving a horse carriage in Vail. I still hesitate to call myself a Chef, as it is a moniker for which I hold much respect. Even though I’ve had the word in my title as pastry chef for a few years now, Chef with a capital “c” is something else altogether. Jack Yoss is a Chef. Compared to him I will always be a cook. Semantics aside, the gods have somehow seen fit to land me in a Chef role of sorts, and I couldn’t be happier. As Chef jobs go, this one is breezy. It’s an invite only pop up restaurant for ten people, hence the name. The counter at Kitchen Cru was just begging for this model, and why shouldn’t it be me who answers the call. I was able to convince Michael, the owner of KitchenCru and my employer to try. Him being far from a slouch in the kitchen, a very experienced home cook, in fact, he came on board as co-chef. TenTop was born. We had very keen ideas from the beginning about what this would be; very small; very exclusive, the two of us having fun with food and friends. The idea to implement a Twitter/Facebook update blackout came to us very early, my friend and mentor Adam Berger having suggested it. Make this a true experience, one that didn’t need validation from the internet. Any blogging, tweeting or Facebooking that took place would happen on our end, before and after the event.
Our first dinner was Satan’s Feast, a heavy metal themed dinner. I wanted to make it fun and have an element of another driving force in my life: music. The menu descriptions were cryptic, as I tried to make them sound as metal as possible. I played some Instrametal like Pelican and Animals as Leaders during the dinner which at a lower volume seemed quite nice to eat to. Our first course was a freshly shucked oyster, because what is more metal than eating something that was alive only moments before? Second was my favorite dish of the evening, poached leeks with and Arrabbiata vinaigrette and duchess potato garnished with fried pepperoni. A last minute course we put together before the entree turned out to be the most metal of all, chicken heart dipped in agro dulce served on a duplex nail with a shot of grappa. Our entree was a fra diavolo surf & turf sandwich with some chioggia beet chips. Served on a house made pullman loaf, this sando was something to behold. It didn’t eat as well as I hoped, it ended up being a little cumbersome. The flavors were spot on though, hell of decadent. For dessert, I looked to make pastry metal by using the most brutal ingredient of all, blood. A pig’s blood custard with lemon sherbet, smoked pickled cherries, and blood caramel. This was a successful dish, the flavor of pig’s blood goes quite well with cocoa, the panna cotta’s other main flavoring ingredient. A subtle coppery earthiness and a slightly viscous texture created a nice complexity.
All in all, our first dinner was a huge success. In the near future I’m going to be bringing in some buddies of mine, fellow cooks and sous Chef’s who want to unleash their own food on the public, but don’t have a venue because they work in another chef’s kitchen. Also, you’ll see plenty of these dinners blogged about here with pictures and recipes, a la mrjeffmccarthy.com. For now you can download the recipes here. Check out all the photos for this event on my Flickr page. Follow TenTop on twitter @tentopcru, or check out the facebook page.
Landing at KitchenCru.
21 April 2011 | jeff, kitchencru, news, tentop | 14 Responses
When Ten-01 closed, I knew I was at a crossroads. Being a pastry chef at a fancy restaurant was fun and exciting for a lot of reasons, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized: being a Chef sucks. Sure you’ve heard it all before; the hours are long, the work monotonous and sometimes dangerous and almost never glorious. The part of it that I find fun is the creative element, the incubation of idea to fully realized dish. After that, it all was kind of annoying to me. The repetition of production and plating, and in spite of myself, always having to come up with a new dessert. I knew I needed a change, I just wasn’t sure what that change would be. Over the past few months I’d been picking up shifts at my favorite restaurant in town, Tabla. Producing desserts as needed and working the line a few nights a week was a blast. I worked just enough hours to keep me sane and just few enough to continue receiving unemployment. I came up with the idea for Your Mom’s and that has filled me with an excitement I haven’t felt in a long time. If I could get Your Mom’s off the ground (heh) I’d really have something. A few weeks later, I heard through the Ten-01 grape vine about a new commissary kitchen opening up in the park blocks. The proprietor had purchased a bunch of the used equipment from Ten-01 when it closed, and the industrious Teddy Rupert had delivered it. He brought back tales of endless stainless steel in a cavernous kitchen, steam jacketed kettles, combi-ovens, the list went on and on, his eyes glazed over in a recollection that was no doubt bordering the pornographic. He asked me if I knew anyone that might be interested in managing the place, as the owner was searching. Know anyone, I thought; hell I’m interested.
When I met Michael Madigan, he wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected, but he wasn’t it. The more we talked, the more we both were aware of a certain simpatico. The KitchenCru project excited me. It was hard not to get excited, Michael had an infectious enthusiasm that almost immediately swept me up. Here was an amazingly beautiful, brand new, state of the art kitchen. The guy who built it a lover of all things food and kitchen, a true patron of the culinary arts. The job he was looking to fill played to all my strengths: kitchen logistics to describe it simply. If only I could convince him to let me continue doing the Tabla desserts and to pursue Your Mom’s (heh,) this would be the perfect job. He didn’t need much convincing. He had factored in that kitchen use would be a perk of the position. He wanted his kitchen manager to be cooking, to be using all of the brand new equipment. Everything seemed to fit right in there, like a complex puzzle putting itself together. On top of all this, the type of clients this beautiful kitchen was attracting, there was a huge opportunity for me to learn from a diverse mix of cooks and Chefs, as well as impart my 15 plus years experience to others. It all makes sense to me, I thought, so I signed on.
About a month later, things have changed yet again. Working at KitchenCru has dared me to dream. Dared me determine what it is exactly that i want to do with my life. Doing the Tabla dessert menu and delivering it a few times a week turned out to be a huge pain in the ass, and spread me a litter thinner than I wanted. When it comes down to it, I want to experiment with food, and write about it. I started to dream up an idea of how to use the Kitchen Cru space to achieve this…Enter TenTop. A ten seat pop up restaurant at the KitchenCru counter. But that’s another blog post isn’t it?
Get Pricked. It’s Good For You.
11 April 2011 | news, people | 4 Responses
I’ve always been comfortable with needles, growing up with a severe case of asthma I had plenty of practice getting used to them. For some reason though, acupuncture has always seemed a little crazy to me. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in chi and it’s flow through all things in and around me, the teachings of Yoda are not soon forgotten. I mean if Seagal is in to it, I’m into it. Anyway, my girlfriend had asked me to try it, knowing of all my aches and pains form various injuries. This shit did something to me. I felt like I was taller; dazed, drunk on my own senses. In other words, you should have it done. Get that chi flowing again.
Lucky for you, my good friend Ericka Dooley is an acupuncturist. She is needling folks nowadays at BodyBar in downtown PDX. Check her out. Ask for the Winding Dragon, pictured above. Until the 20th of this month she’s giving out free sessions for newbies at the Pearl District location between Kearny & Lovejoy.
To contact her personally, try this: (503) 224 0292 or (971) 269 4959