GranDaddy/FryDaddy

 

GranDaddy/FryDaddy

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

 

This is the original Bob Bell. He’s 93, he dresses like a cool guy in his twenties, and he’s taken up frying recently. He lights a Yankee Candle when you arrive, offers you a breakfast beer, and tells you about his recent egg supply from his lazy chickens. Goats bleat in the backyard, Abby the blind dog bumps into your knees, smacks into the legs of the table. He’s a welder and bought a new snow plow last year, installing it without aid on his truck. He also just bought a brand new red car. Last week he mailed me a twenty dollar bill.

 

 

 

Nesting and Cooking

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I’ve been holing up a bit since settling in Brooklyn. Not only because I spent all of my money in Europe in the last few months, but because it’s winter. It’s grey. And today, it’s even raining. I spend so much of my time working in the restaurant that in my time off, I’m so tired that my bones hurt. This results in those down days being spent wearing loose knits while tinkering in the kitchen.

Last week, for the first time, I made lamb chops. I’ve never much been a fan of lamb, or rather, it’s never excited me the way I see some people fawn over it. I figure, if it incites such love in some people, I’d better let them have it. However, I had a crazy experience a few years back where as my dinner partner finished their lamb chops, I was overwhelmed by a need to suck on the lamb bones. I know that sounds like an inappropriate share, but it must’ve been a deficiency of some sort in my own diet that caused it, and last week, I wanted those lamb bones again. I seared the chops with Herbs de Provence, fresh thyme, and grey sea salt. Paired with roasted purple carrots, beet greens, and fingerlings that I seasoned with whole garlic cloves still in their wraps, a bit of rosemary, olive oil and more sea salt, it was simple, comforting and delicious.

This morning I broke down the chicken I baked on Sunday, saving the bones and au jus to make a stock. It’s simmering now with carrots, onions, rosemary, thyme and celery, making a wonderful perfume for the apartment.

I’m working for a new website, writing about food and artisans. It seems promising. I’ll be researching artisanal sodas this week, made in my Brooklyn backyard, by people likely to be as excited as I am to be cooking and tinkering, making your life and career out of what makes you happiest.

 

 

 

Other writing for other people.

I've realized that I haven't told anyone about the work I do for other people. I write for CHIVE Sustainable Event Design + Caterers, doing their bios and copy for their Sustainable Sunday Suppers. Below, I've linked a few of their pages to show the work done. Hope you like them!

http://chiveevents.com/ChiveEvents/spirited.html
http://chiveevents.com/ChiveEvents/hooked.html

And for an award given to Julia, her bio for Suffolk University's Ten Under Ten honorees:

http://www.suffolk.edu/alumni/52058.html

     Julia J. Frost, BSBA’08
A 2007 graduate of the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School, Julia first began her professional career as a travel coordinator for Global Learning Company’s international seminars. It was here that she honed her skills as an enthusiastic and passionate recruiter and realized both her personal worldly travel ambitions and her appreciation of the factors that influence how business is conducted in different regions. As President of Women In Business, a Sawyer Business School student-run organization, Julia’s strengths of organization, persistence and heart helped her to create valuable speakers series, fundraisers, and educational forums to not only increase membership and participation between faculty, students and staff, but increased engagement in the local community outside of the University. It was here that she learned the value of community and connections, and through her experiences there she gained a confidence that eventually led to the inception of her own business.
CHIVE- Sustainable Event Design & Catering, LLC, a zero-waste, seasonal, local farm- and fishery-to-table business, was the brainchild of Julia, her design-focused sister, and their chef friend. By bringing together their distinctive strengths, CHIVE is now in the throes of their fourth year—having doubled both the number of events and revenue of each fiscal year—for they’ve created a niche market in Boston’s events and food industry. Renowned for its support of the Boston area’s small businesses and educational community, CHIVE focuses first on their own North Shore community and more widely in New England in general through its relationships with local farmers, artisans and fellow, small businesses. Julia finds that CHIVE has married all of her interests: she meets new people daily, creating a network by linking the community; she supports non-profit, educational and environmental organizations through fundraising dinners and celebrations; and continually educates about issues that align with the core values of CHIVE’s—and her community’s—hearts. Suffolk offered her the opportunity to use her strengths to create the professional atmosphere she desired, Global Learning Company offered her the opportunity to lead fearlessly, and CHIVE has allowed her to flourish in the Boston and North Shore communities as a leader in the sustainable business model.    

Next, CHIVE and I are working on their anniversary dinner celebration coming in late May. We'll be concentrating on gathering community and creating a more delicious, sustainable, and supportive life around our food. Stay tuned.

 

Fulfillment...is it possible?

I'm starting a project. I'd like your help.

I've been thinking, endlessly, for about 25 years now, about the perfect life. Is it primarily a successful, loving, supportive, and passionate relationship? Is it professional rewards: living wage, emotional fulfillment, intellectual challenge? Is it family? The right neighborhood that offers community, interests, good food? Seeing the world? Learning about other cultures? Staying in bed all day on a Tuesday? What if you have all of these things and still don't feel it? How do you even identify it?

I have no answers. I'd like to hear yours. Where have you found fulfillment? Partial or full? Routes to get there?

I would love to blame this on a tough job market, a generation of indecisive kids, a lack of creativity, but none of those are it. Please email me your ideas.

kungpaocat@mac.com

Thanks.