And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blog (file under Exciting Times)

John Henry Newman in his ‘Apologia pro vita sua,’ said; “Growth is the only evidence of life.” And I could not agree more.

Today is my Saturday. To anyone outside the food industry that may sound like a weird statement but when you realize that weekends are usually our busiest times then you can understand that more often than not we are scheduled in such a way that our weekends fall when most of you are at your jobs.

The tile of my post today and the quote that I have used to frame it are the result of three posts written in the last week. The title specifically is in reference to my return to my capturing my daily experience and the quote represents what I feel each and every day. As I grow and continue on this path that I started on over a year and a half ago.

Over the next couple of days I am doing some menu development. Working on some of the items that I am going to include in my menu for the summer on the grill. You’ll recall (if you’ve read long enough) that last summer I was supposed to have the same opportunity at Reservation. The lack of willingness or inability on the part of Reservation to let me toy with the grill menu was extremely disheartening to me. While I understood, at least in part the logic behind it; that being that it was high volume and quick turnover, the whole experience left me feeling like I was nothing more than an over priced McDonalds, merely slinging food to the hungry throngs that wanted to sit and have a beer. As I remarked many times last year I developed relationships with my customers, many of whom returned each week, as they expressly told me, just to come and see me. That felt good, but it did not nearly make up for the emptiness I felt working the grill.

That is not to say that I did not learn things while working the grill. In fact, some of the lessons I learned were key to my early development as a line cook and still benefit me today. Those include understanding organization, timing, set up, pride of ownership and a few other lessons as well that were difficult at the time to choke down.

My experience at The Club so far has demonstrated that when people truly believe in you and what you are doing that they will give you the freedom to explore your own comfort zones. And unlike other places I’ve been they will not allow you to fall on your face but instead will do their utmost to ensure that you learn the lesson, not without pain, but certainly without the deepening void which can taint and corrupt even the most strong willed of people. Executive Chef and I as well as Sous Chef and I have had conversations about the grill. Numerous in fact. And with each one I feel my resolve building, my excitement at the opportunity of creating my own culinary voice and demonstrating what I can do when given the opportunity. The first menu will be of Executive and Sous Chefs design. I asked for this to be the case so that I can get comfortable with the environment, demands and the people for the first week or so.

After that time I will start developing my own menu each week. This will consist of multiple proteins. A fish, a beef dish, possibly a pork dish as well as a few specials. I have slowly but surely been building my menu and today and tomorrow (my Sunday) I will be working on them for several hours.

By doing so I will have multiple posts to write. One of which will include my creative process, the process of menu creation, what I want to try and possibly a couple of others. I am feeling quite good (despite the last few posts being on my mind) and know that I have lots to accomplish in the next two days.

As well I am excited and thrilled for the love of my life C, whose show ‘Spinning the Butter’ goes on at Stella Adler starting tomorrow. Today is about refinement and tweaking and then the show must go on. I wish I could afford to be there but unfortunately I can not. My spirit and energy are with her as I know that she will be fabulous. She always is.

With that said, I need to stop writing now and get to the work that is a ahead of me. I also have to clean the house. Which anyone that knows me can tell you, I really dislike cleaning. But I have the time and it needs to get done. Stay tuned; the next couple of days are going to have a flurry of posts. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I enjoy doing the work necessary to relate my experience to you.

Buddy Hackett once said; “As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it” My menus will feature many more choices.

Are you dreaming big and inspired? Why not? And how can I help?

A la prochaine

SDM