BUSY SEASON!!!

Hey Hey There folks, sorry I haven't been around, I had a rather busy couple of weeks. Believe it or not this week is not so bad, even though it is Memorial Day Week. Monday was my 27th Birthday, and Thursday my sister is graduating from college, so I was off both days! We just have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. Today and tomorrow I will be wearing an outfit I hate to wear..one of my real beat up horror show chef jackets, and a bib apron...the sleeves are rolled up to my elbows and I have an 8" boning knife and a 10" scimitar on my table, the whole kitchen knows not to ask me for a thing, these days are butchering days.
I should re-phrase a bit, I don't HATE these days, I just know I will be in one place not cooking for a whole Shift. Today I trimmed a case of skirt steak and 2.5 cases of duck breast; on top of writing the specials, helping our line cook set up the line, and helping the Executive Chef with some baking. Also because we have such a busy week...we received a lot of deliveries which needed to be checked in, weighed, matched up and filed with purchase orders, then put away. Tomorrow it is right into another 180-210lbs of skirt steak and 300+ portions of Frenched breast of chicken. I am looking forward to the end of tomorrow which, thankfully will be at 3:00pm and that is why I love Country Club life, if you do not have a function, you have the same hours you did when you were a student back in grammar school.

On a side note, today I picked up a wonderful silver charm I had custom made for me. It is a pure silver chefs knife. I traded in some old tiny gold charms and the jeweler made this knife for me from scratch, it is one of a kind and I love it. I will post pictures soon.

Where I work...

For those souls who have no idea of where I work, why I am a Chef, what makes me a Chef or why I am making a blog, I suppose I should let you in on that.

First off, I am not going to go on about why I love food so much and why I always wanted to be a Chef...let's just have enough intelligence to know that there is a nostalgic story about food including my Mother and her meatballs, and so on. Now that is out of the way, let's pick up at June 14th, 2002. I am sitting in the courtyard at Hudson Hall, The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park. My stomach is cramped from whimpering over my girlfriend and I saying so long for our externships, we would make the effort to see each other over the course of the 3 months and speak every day and night, knowing this did not make it easier when you are newly in love. My Father came to pick me up, load up my dorm room in a bag and drive me back to Long Island. In four days I will start my externship.

Most of my friends got interesting extern sites at hotels, food channels, resorts, and well known restaurants. I chose a private country club hidden away in one of the most wealthy communities on the south shore of Long Island. It was called the Seawane Country Club. It had an 18 hole golf course, 4 tennis courts, a pool, a spa, a health center, just the works. It was a hotel without the rooms. The Executive Chef was Craig Henne, a name I did not know, and most of the public did not know, however if you were a chef in the 90's in Manhattan you knew. He was the former Executive Chef at the Ritz Carlton for 5 years, an impressive term to say the least. His Sous Chef, Phil Castro, was young, maybe 10 years older than I, extremely energetic and very knowledgeable. I immediately felt at home and knew I was going to learn a lot from this. Over the course of the next 3 months I worked my ass off. Chef Henne was strict and demanded a certain quality from his food, and Sous Chef Phil rode me like a horse until the breaking point and pulled me back to reality with reassuring talks and information-rich lessons. Phil and I developed a sort of friendship, although he was my superior and I was just an extern, I respected him a great deal, and I think he might have seen potential in me.

I returned to the Culinary Institute that December, with my girlfriend, Erica in tow, reunited in October and ready for the new school year. After talking to my friends on our first day I realized that I was one in maybe a hand full of students that returned a better cook and received a decent education over externship. Too many time have extern sites used externs as cheap slave labor. The reason for my successful extern was that I saw it all. I did front of the house cooking out in the dining room in front of the members, I did large volume banquets, I did a la carte dinner service, it was a little of every aspect of the industry in one very large facility.

We graduated in 2003 and we moved into the real world. Erica and I moved back to Long Island, a choice I know she sometimes regrets...she misses her family up in Vermont, one thing I will forever feel guilty about. I worked a bunch of pretty good jobs, nothing extremely upscale. At the age of twenty two I was Executive Chef of a private dining club and making pretty decent change. But of course, all good things must come to an end. The ownership thought it was wise to run illegal card games at night and eventually the authorities caught wind of this and shut us down. I found myself working in Long Beach as the Sous Chef at Sutton Place for almost 3 years. I loved it there. The staff became not only my friends but they became my adopted family away from home. Erica and I got married in 2007.

Working at Sutton Place became slightly mundane after several attempts by the Executive Chef, David Bryer, and I to change the menu to fit our food interests and cooking styles, only to get them shot down by ownership and management. It was not because they were assholes, it was because they were right. It was Long Beach, a bar and grille town, not an upscale, nouveau type of place. People wanted to get absolutely shitfaced and eat some fried grease on some cheese. Dave is still there, cooking great food with the assistance of my friend Andy Mulligan for people with "peasant tongue" in Andy's words. If I could have 3 cooking wishes granted, one of them would be for those two guys to get out of there and do something great, something creative and daring, something I know the two of them are extremely capable of doing. In March of 2009, Erica 5 months pregnant, I called the Seawane Country Club and asked to be transferred to the kitchen.

"Hello, kitchen." "Uh, Hi, I was wondering if I could speak to the Chef?" "Yeah this is Chef Phil Castro....."

We did some catching up, Craig Henne was now General Manager and Phil was promoted to Executive Chef, a position that he is excelling in. He has been working with no Sous Chef for quite a while now and asked if I were interested. I originally called for a line cook position. Although I have had 7 years more under my belt since I worked there last, I still did not feel I was Sous Chef caliber at the Seawane Club. He said to call him back. I thought about it for a week and decided I was going for it. Cooking professionally is competitive and hard work, in order to advance, you have to challenge yourself and know when you have stopped learning from the place you are in. basically knowing when it is time to move on. I gave my notice, and on May 6th, 2009 I started work as the new Sous Chef of the Seawane Country club.

That was a year ago. Since then my Daughter, Caroline was born on July 28th, we moved into a new and much larger apartment, and I am a much better Chef. It is the first time that I can look in the mirror and have confidence in myself and how I work in the kitchen. I AM A CHEF. A real one, one who prepares for a large banquet, one that takes inventory, one that stays in health code and sets examples for others. I am a Chef that is the first person in the kitchen in the morning and the last to leave at night, or sometimes, the next morning. I am a Chef that manages 3 kitchens along with my superior. I am a Chef that creates and tries new and daring things with food and journals every triumph and failure in a book. I have never been more proud to call myself a Chef because I finally am.

New Endeavor???

I am literally days away from the edge of the cliff that is the busy season. Every minute I live I am that much closer. I decided to make good of my time left to myself and my family. I am starting a new project, and for once, it will not cost me an arm and a leg. I was inspired to hand build my own chef knife.

I am a knife and cookbook junkie. I can never have enough of any of them. Something struck me that the ultimate of these collections is to have one to call your own. So my book is years down the road, but my own knife? I am very skilled with my hands and can learn anything by reading and research. Apparently lots of people do this and it is fairly common, affordable and available! I picked out the blade, and the wood and hopefully I can get all this stuff in before the season starts. I do not know if it is an onvernight thing or a several week thing...either way I will be more than happy with the results. Look for updates and check for pictures.

Awesome Friday Night A La Carte Service! (A short one)

So yeah, this will be a rather short entry. Just wanted to share with everyone what a wonderful, text book day of ass kicking I accomplished in the kitchen. I got in at 8:30am and immediately sear off a case of marinated duck breasts for tomorrows station, and started my mise en place for one of the items on the a la carte menu. I finished all that around 9:15am. I broke right into de-boning, trimming and pounding french breasts of chicken, breading them Milanese style and pan frying them. Break time at 10:15. Back to work by 10:45, I am slicing eggplant lengthwise on a meat slicer to get perfectly straight first cts, then I cut the lenghtwise the other and make small dice, pan sear them in a hot pan with very little olive oil and let them cool, later I will heat them up with some garlic, brunoise of tri color pepper, and kalamata olives for the Branzino Plate, olive timbale, buillabase broth. I made a sauce Vin blanc, also a Sauce Pommery, which is a vin blanc, finished with Whole grain dijon mustard. We had a tasting menu today for a wedding in July, so we made filet, I made Potato croquettes, Mushroom madeira demiglace. I seriously can go on and on, but it was a full day of non-stop work; all of my tasks were accomplished on time and without any difficulty and I was cooking, rather than supervising for most of the time. A la carte service was flawless and our timing was spot on....boo ya!

A Day in the Life...

So I find myself up at 6:30 every morning, usually from my alarm, but sometimes from a slight tug on my chest hair, compliments of my daughter Caroline. This morning it was all alarm, and it was wonderful. As usual I go on the computer, check my email and get in the shower by 7:15. By 8:30 I am in work, changed into my chef attire (jacket with logo and name/title, checkered pants, long apron, and my skull cap) and turning on all of the ovens, cooking surfaces and equipment, and unlocking the kitchen's refrigerators and storage rooms, getting ready to start a new day. Rarely is the Executive Chef in with me, I never hold a grudge or am upset with this point; this is just how it is, and it means I am the Sous Chef, and I am responsible enough to handle things on my own.





On a normal weekday I have a list of things that need to be done, seeing as we are closed on Mondays I make my weekly prep. list in the office before anyone gets in at 9:00. Today I have to make the specials for the next two days, and get the party going. By the way, today is not a normal day. We have our very first luncheon of the season today at 11:30. My crew comes in at 9:00 on the nose in a flood of white shirts, checkered pants and a buzz of Spanish, Tagalog, and English. It is time to start the day.



The structure of this luncheon was as follows:

*11:30 Passed hors d' ouvres (hot and cold)

*12:15 Plated, pre-set salads, consisting of Baby red and green romaine lettuce wrapped in a cucumber ribbon, citrus vinaigrette, diced cucumber, red and yellow grape tomatoes, candied walnuts and dried cranberry.

*1:30 Choice of Grilled Atlantic salmon with lemon chive beurre blanc with white and wild rice medley, and baby spring vegetables

or Roasted french breast of chicken with a mushroom pan gravy, roasted sliced sweet potatoes and baby spring vegetables

*2:15 Plated dessert of fresh berries, Mango, Lemon, and Raspberry sorbets in a brandy snap tuille basket.

VERY basic menu for my kitchen. Passed hors d' ouvres were in the window at 11:15 and everything went smoothly. The main course was plated up by only myself and the chef in under 30 minutes.

Things went out well, we hit a little snag when the new guy didn't put the first 40 plates in the hot box(a large metal box that can hold about 85 plate at a hot temperature) After the Chef and I separately reamed him out, he got it perfect. We both just got mad at the fact of the new guy not being able to just say " I don't understand" instead he wasted our time by plugging along and doing his own thing. However, after all was said and done, the party went out smoothly and there were no complaints. Trust me, when you work in a country club filled with rich old people, complaints happen not daily, but hourly. It is just all they have left. This was a short day, I was home, playing with my daughter and talking to my wife by 3:15pm! These days will surely be missed in a months time.

Here Goes Nothing...

How did I get here? I think it started all the way back in 2001, when I met a my friend Nathaniel Rhodes for the first time. We just hit it off and became friends immediately. We laughed our way through The Culinary Institute of America, joking about the difference in our upbringing (him being black from St. Louis, and myself white from Long Island) tastes in food, women and everythibg else under the sun. He was my group leader, one of the best in fact. He was my Class president, and he was my student graduation speaker.

One of his major talents is the ability to talk the underwear off a nun. He is extremely persuasive and very articulate. A few weeks ago he talked me into "doing something"...he urged "if only I listened to him and follow his instructions". Here I am, Twitter account, Facebook fan page, and now blogspot, talking to myself most of the time about food and postingpictures I took or others took of me. It is slightly therapeutic regardless of my lack of fans and followers, it fortifies my passion and love for the trade I have been a part of since my adolescent years.

Where this will take me? I am not sure, but I think I will try to keep it up. Recipes, pictures if I figure ot how to do so and a run down of daily activitis perhaps. I will tell you that tomorrow I have a luncheon for 95 people at 11:30 in the morning. VERY small catered event compared to what volume I will be doing in a matter of weeks. I work at the very same country club I externed at when I was a student, now as the Sous Chef. The busy season will be upon us any minute now, and there will be no time for anything but brutally fast-paced cooking and production. I will be missing my wife, Erica and my daughter, Caroline very much in the months to come. Well then, gotta go plan my future, read on, the next posts wont be so friggin boring.