Career Lecture (Food Memory Essay)

Today was not for cooking, but for lecturing. A speaker came in, the same one from a few months ago, and ran down the basic budgetary theory of opening a restaurant. Start-up costs versus operating costs, working budget vs. profit/loss statement, and operating profit vs. net income. In three groups, we calculated the cost of ingredients in a single loaf of bread, and reviewed the many, many direct operating expenses -- everything from paper supplies and trash services to credit card fees and linen costs. Basically, a 4-hour overview of what others have learned in management class over the past several weeks.

Chef Al requested an essay from us, to include a statement of who we are, what we do, our favorite food, a food memory, and who inspired us to go to c-school. Admittedly, I recycled some material from my old blog, but if it fits, it fits! Here's the essay, for your readin' pleasure:

WHO
I am -redacted-. I was born and raised on Staten Island, schooled upstate, and now on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with my wife, B, and my ever-loving feline named Rufus, who happens to be a girl, but that’s another essay.

WORK
Out of college, I managed an independent music label for about 5 years, and then started a career in graphic design. Over the past decade, I’ve worked as a designer at a white-shoe law firm; as a production coordinator for a print broker; and, most recently, as a project manager at -redacted-. While putting myself through culinary school, I’ve been working as a free-lance business-to-business presentation specialist.

FAVORITE FOOD
It’s hard to pick one favorite food, because like music or sex, different things appeal differently at different times. If a gun was put to my head and I forced to choose, it would have to be pizza—for two primary reasons.

First, for nostalgic reasons. When I was a kid, my parents would bring home a pizza to give my mom a break from cooking. Pizza nights always felt celebratory, and put everyone in a good mood. It also didn’t hurt that there was always good pizza in Staten Island, with its large Italian community and independent pizza shops.

Secondarily, because of all of the fabulous pizza that’s come to New York during the past few years — Una Pizza Napoletana, Franny’s, Isabella’s, Otto, as well as the classics like L&B Spumoni, Grimaldi’s, Totonno’s, and John’s. Such a simple food with a limiting definition, but such character and variety can emerge from this restrictive palate.

FOOD MEMORY
A few weeks ago, I sat down to read my hand-written journal from my cross-country bike trek. I wrote down pretty much everything I ate—the good, the bad, especially the ugly— and a lot of thoughts about my parents, whose passings were still very fresh in my mind at the time. Only once, the two subjects crossed. From my Marshfield, Missouri entry:

Heard a piece on the radio about some local hospital improving their food, choked me up. Reminded me of the time my mom was hospitalized—her food, sharing pizza & Chinese food with her, bringing her chocolate. God I miss her.

Mom’s hospital food was bland and gross, and my mom had no appetite due to the chemo. Still, she would eat bites of the pizza, Chinese, and chocolate not because she was hungry, but because it was comforting. And it was shared with her son.

The full weight of my mother losing her facilities came to light due to her bearings in her kitchen. When she started her first course of treatment, they eventually sent her home, and every few days she would make her way back to the hospital. I got a call from her one evening at work, a little panicked because she could not remember how to turn off the oven. I immediately left work and rushed to her apartment. When I got there, the oven was off; she had mistaken the clock time on the panel as a temperature. The next day I moved in with her and started making arrangements for home health aides during the day.

My mom was never a good cook, and it was almost a relief that during the time I lived with her that I got to prepare breakfast and dinner (I’d set aside easy stuff to prepare for the aide). I remember one dinner: I was preparing dried pasta and jarred sauce, and made a simple green salad with most of the stuff I grew up on—carrots, cucumbers, green pepper, celery, onion, except instead of iceberg, I used romaine. I stopped eating iceberg lettuce years before because it tastes like nothing and is nutritionally void. When I served the salad, my mom asked where the iceberg was. I sighed like I was a snotty teenager again, told her this was much healthier, not to mention tastier, and it was HER generation who screwed up our eating habits by making silly stuff like that the standard.

Instead of getting into a raucous (and fun) argument with me about intergenerational food warfare and my silly teenage-like snootiness, she meekly said, “but I like it.” I immediately felt horrendously guilty—I knew subconsciously she was dying and these were most likely her last meals (they were), but on the surface I was hoping to introduce her to new things, to things that reflected my way of thinking and seeing things. Suffice it to say, for the next month until the end, her house saw nothing but iceberg lettuce. I can’t eat the stuff today without feeling a little guilty and sad.

CULINARY SCHOOL INSPIRATION
A few people shaped my experience that lead to culinary school. My mother, of course, because she was a lousy cook! I grew up hating the food I ate at home, and cooking for her was an eye-opener. I couldn’t cook to save myself, and I certainly couldn’t cook any better than she could.

Next, my nutritionist, Ilsa. In recent years, my doctor told me that I had to eat better to get a handle on my blood pressure. Having no idea what ‘eat better’ meant, I started seeing a nutritionist who led me on activities like walking through the farmer’s market and just vibing on what appealed to me. In honor of my mom, and to the delight of my wife, I started cooking at home, reading up on the culture and politics of food that has been evolving around my generation.

The more I read, the more I cooked, the more I knew that I was incredibly inflexible and limited in what I ate and what I cooked. I went to c-school to become a healthier, more worldly person who can cook for himself, a more generous and loving person who can craft a meal for loved ones who need to be fed, and perhaps, put a curve in a career away from the law and corporate sector and into something that involves nourishing both body and mind.

ADDENDA:
The lecturer told an interesting story about Shake Shack, in the context that restaurants are constantly looking to cut costs and boost profits. The vanilla shake's shake's ingredient cost was 15% of its price, while the chocolate shake was 40%, due to the mix of three expensive kinds of chocolate used in making the ganache (that was blended into the vanilla base). They called their vendor to request samples of cheaper chocolates. They made the shake the old way and with the new cheap chocolate, and did a blind taste-test in house. Everyone who tasted it agreed: The cheap chocolate tasted like ass! It would have been damaging to the brand and rep if people started asking why the shake started tasting crappy while the price remained the same.

So after class I went and got a chocolate shake from the Shack. After waiting on line for an hour and spending $5.25 on a petite 12 or so ounce portion, I must say it tasted pretty great -- the deep chocolate flavor had nice caramel overtones. Still, for the wait and the price, so not worth it.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Good milk and yogurt, banana, grapes, blueberries, flax, ice. Wasn't feeling inspired, but haven't had a smoothie in a while.

AM SNACKS: 9-11:30am, 2 crackers, small piece of baguette, small handful of peanuts
Weren't cooking this morning, but had a few snacks lying around.

PM SNACK: 1pm, chocolate shake, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNICKLESNACK: 5pm, seitan with quinoa and kale, sesame tahini dressing, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Chow with the HVS after an HVS-lead yoga session. Felt good to eat some intense green.

DINNER: 6:30pm, Capricciosa Pizza, a couple of small slices of Marherita, flourless chocolate cake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Delicious pizza at a place where I'm considering an externship. The pie I had was recommended by the waitress, a white pie with fresh cow's moz, sausage, artichokes, green olives, mushrooms and rosemary. Nice thin crust, seriously good, where has this place been? Really under the radar.

EVENING WATERING: 9:30pm, quart of water.