Charcuterie Project #3 @PulinosNY: Lonza

Started on 01/04/12
Brought all I ingredients for curing brine to a boil. Completely cooled before adding loins to a non reactive container. Container's an appropriate size so that there's no overlapping. Weighed down with ceramic plates to make sure loins are completely submerged.

01/07/12
Flipped the loins in curing brine. Loins have appropriately gotten more firm.

Charcuterie Project #2 @PulinosNY: Peperone

Followed Michael Ruhlman's recipe for peperone, making several adjustments.
One being the amount of Fermento - instead of following the amount in recipe, i followed the containers recommendation of 1 oz per 2 lbs of meat. Used 2 1/2 oz per 5 lbs meat.
No cayenne in house so substituted aleppo peppers.
Toasted fennel and all spice prior to grinding in spice grinder.
And by pure mistake, used wagyu steak! OMG!
All other directions were followed.

Start date 1/2/2012 pm
(image 1)

Yield per 5 lbs meat: 8, 8" links weighing an average of 175g.

About 1/2 lb of sausage mixture wasted b/c of sausage stuffer.

Left to hang in boiler room over night to incubate. Started at 1030 pm.

01/03/12: Unknown negligent treatment by late night staff or over night cleaners during incubation period: Time unknown, apparently taken down from my hanging apparatus to be left on a sheet pan on the floor until I came in at 3 pm 1/3/2012. Lost one link due to this treatment - broken casing.
Next project, create a large "do not touch!" sign.
Left them to hang until 630 pm which then I decided to move them into the wine room. (image 2)
01/09/12: (image 3) checked the peperone's. 6 days in the wine room. Still soft. No fermentation. Splotchy coloration - dark red and brown - possibly due to it's treatment during incubation. Pretty oily - maybe due to the wagyu's meat and fat content.

The best thing about New York...

This is probably going to sound cliche. And no, Jodi's not hovering over me to make sure I say the right thing. But, i have to just say, the best thing about New York is being with Jodi. There hasn't been one day where I don't find extreme joy in seeing her after work or being home again together! Surely, The Lord's blessed us in many ways here, but one of his greatest blessing's has been to bring us together. And it could never have been possible without his amazing love & grace!

A letter home from New York

Hey family and friends,

Just thought I'd send you all a quick hello.  Right now Jodi and I are on a bus, heading to DC to spend a few days with her family.  It' so new to me that you can just hop on a bus or train and be in completely different city in no time!  Prior to NY we were visiting Jodi's other family in Milwaukee, WI for a few days as well.  I feel like I'm on an undeserved vacation!  Lol.  
However, since we've been in New York we've done a tone of commuting around, getting familiar with Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Also our fair share of getting lost.  Oh my goodness, we even ended up in this "wrong" neighborhood because we were looking for a apartment listed on Craigslist.  Not to be stereotypical or judgmental, but you could tell we were out of place.  But thank God that it was raining hard and we were the only fools running around the neighborhood.  God is good in the way he teaches us a lesson... Lol!
And actually it's been raining quite hard for the past few days.  I'm down to my last pair of shoes 'cause the two shoe I wore on Tuesday and Wednesday are soaked!  Another lesson (and thank goodness we didn't move in winter) dress for the weather.  Never did ever think I'd have to buy rain boots!  Sure Hawaii rains, but never did I ever have to commute like we do here, and never did I have to be exposed to the cold for that long (i'd just hop in my car!).
But, through it all we're living it out!  And enjoying it!  
We still haven't found a apartment yet, but we're still living in Heather and Andy's in-laws place.  And they're so kind and gracious to let us stay there.  The neighborhood is what they call little Odessa because it's a Russian neighborhood, but it's really a nice community and we feel safe and, now, comfortable with the hour subway commute.
Jodi starts work on Monday.  Yay! But, I haven't found work yet, but then again I haven't really looked much because I just want to get a little familiar first and find our own apartment.  Jodi and I did however run into the chefs of one of the new restaurants I was in contact with to work at.  They just had their grand opening this past week, so I should be able to check them out again this next week. But, I'll need to do more this week and hopefully make some progress with the apartment hunt.  It's just so hard not knowing the neighborhoods and the Internet is so unreliable when it comes to honest agents. Maybe if you could help us pray for good direction (a miracle would be good too!) that would be great.
And one last thing, I feel like I may have found us a church!  Trinity Grace Church.  I listened to one of their recent messages online and it was really good.  I know you're all busy, but I'll share the link with you:
http://trinitygracechurch.com/media/current-teaching-series/
If you happen to listen to it, lemme know what you think.  We're gonna go to this Sundays service.  Hope it works for us.

Well, that's it for now.  We send our love to all of you.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you!  

Love & Blessings,
Mark & Jodi

Amazing

I know that if I just don't start writing I'll always have an excuse to not start. There's so much that has happened since my last blog entry. I have some writings from school that I'd eventually like to post, but for now I just need to start posting. Otherwise, years will go by and a rush of events, experiences and thoughts will just slip on by.
2010 has got to be the most amazing year in my life thus far. On April 17th I got bapatized by by Pastor Dale Vallejo-Sanderson of Wellspring Covenent Church. On May 13th I gratuated from culinary school from Kapiolani Community College. And on July 4th Jodi and I got married at the Foster Botanical Gardens with an awesome reception at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island. Three HUGE events in 2010 and we're just past the half way point.
It's amazing to me. I'm so thankful and humbled for all that God has done in my life. These past few months has been a harvesting of God's love and grace for me. Since starting culinary school my renewed relationship with God has produced a renewed life - a degree, a career, a vision, pasision, new love, and an amazing wife.
So what's next... Plans for New York are in the making. Why New York? About a year ago I believe God called me and Jodi to New York. Since then I've been excited, but I still questioned why and how? Do I go to Culinary Institute o America? Do I go and work in the city? And how? With what money? As of now I still have a little bit of that anxiety and fear. But, I have total faith in my Lord that he will direct out path and place each step ahead of us as the time is right. "Faith the size of a mustard seed..." is all Jesus asks us. Not a.... Lychee seed, peach seed, or a avocado seed. Just a mustard seed, and anything is possible. My life's events this year may seem like normal events to most people. But at one point I didn't see it possible! But my faith in Jesus Christ has lead me, and is leading me into amazing directions!

September 24, 2010
CULN 270
Reflection 5

In my second reflection in this competition course I wrote about the idea of the Chinese word weiji, which I saw as opportunities gained within danger or challenges. I couldn’t have predicted what exactly my challenges would be. But, as it turned out one of our challenges would be the relationships building within our group.

During the first few weeks there were definitely differences of opinions when we were given tasks that required creativity, and there were issues about work habits. Eventually, the group was split in half because of comfort levels between our four members. Those differences finally built up to an inevitable fracturing point. Personally, I would’ve ignored it, and remained quietly frustrated for the next four weeks, until the end of the module; a trait I should consider dealing with if I’m going to manage people one day as a chef. But, thankfully one member came forward and expressing his frustrations. I believe his frustrations were exactly what we were all feeling, but not being completely upfront about it – we were not the team we needed to be just yet.

On the first day of the following week we agreed on a team meeting with Chef Alan. Initially it was a little uncomfortable, but Chef’s calm personality set the tone. It was a great conversation, and everyone got to speak their heart. My contribution to the conversation was that relationship building is always challenging, and as a group that’s randomly put together, the chances of conflict is almost a guaranty. We fell into a comfort zone where we were comfortable and clique-ish with one team member, and we needed to break through that comfort zone. I’m reminded of a quote from Pastor Groeschel, and that is, “The path to your greatest potential is straight through your greatest fear.” To even start being a better team we had to face those fears of connecting to someone that we were uncomfortable with, or felt that we didn’t relate to.

I’m thankful, that we had that meeting – it broke that communication barrier, and it opened each of our doors to a greater potential. In due time, because this week was the first week of our skills salon and cooking phase. Honestly, I wasn’t completely prepared – due to the “turn and burn” of my school and work schedule. And if our team didn't pull it together we could have bombed in many ways. We may have been able to pull off similar scores, but our biggest success was how we bonded as a team as our efforts, patience, and hearts opened up to each other. It was awesome!

A personal success for me was spiritual. Three minutes before we had to start our first attempt at the cooking phase, I offered a huddle and a short prayer. I'm very touched that our team was open to that. I feel that God was speaking to me to not only look to Him for my own personal goals, but that there was an opportunity to honor Him and look toward Him for the success of our team. Honestly, that was uncomfortable for me to do, but I’m always reminded of that clip of Chef Lance Nitahara praying with his kitchen team on the Food Network show Chopped. At that second, I broke through that fear, and everyone huddled up. Awesome! And on day two of our cooking phase we did it again! We huddled up, shoulder to shoulder, with our heads and hearts bowed. I said a prayer thanking God for blessing us with this passion and ability to cook, and asked that he give us wisdom, patience, and speed. God is good, and so was our scores! Praise the Lord!

September 17, 2010
CULN 207
Weekly Reflection 4

Coming into the fundamentals of competition I was under the assumption that competition was about cooking; flavor profiles, skills, and technique. Of course it’s all that, but there’s a whole component to it that was quite vague to me – the whole set of skills that’s involved in producing a cold platter.

The skills needed to develop a cold platter for competition is of course the most important skills necessary in this industry, and that is to cook. But the cold platter takes that to a whole new level. Not only do you need to understand the fundamentals of cooking, but you also need to be creative to the point of pushing the bar, and very, very critical of yourself. And personally, despite all the necessary skills and attitudes of a team, what’s ironic is that what’s least necessary in a competition team is a competitive nature.

The cold platter that our group was in charge of was to create a salmon “teardrop “terrine with accompanying garnishes and salad. When we chose the protein among the other proteins (reindeer and red snapper being the other choices) it seemed challenging enough for our group. (And out of all honesty, I don’t think I could’ve handled much more that that personally and as a team.) I honestly didn’t understand the concept of the particular teardrop terrine; I didn’t understand how we were to do it, or what exactly we were doing with it. I was quite oblivious to the whole concept of this section of competition. After our task was explained more in depth I better understood that not only would we be doing this preparation as a competition skill, but that we’d also be doing this for our Ho’okipa function to actually be cooked, served, and eaten.

So, the first step was to create flavor profiles; what was going to work with salmon? This was not only a challenging task, but it was also educating. The resource we relied on for flavors was the book The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary by contributing authors Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page. This is an excellent resource that I could get just as lost in as I did in Escoffier. In the end of our team’s research we came up with: a salmon teardrop with a scallop and chive mousseline center with a champagne vinaigrette, an arranged salad of asparagus, artichoke heart, and red onion with a grapefruit vodka vinaigrette, and lastly pineapple compote in a lavosh cup garnish.

After the developing phase we were happy with the results – everything came together and flavors worked well. The next step was the “glazing”. Now, I’ve heard of this term being used, but I didn’t know the mechanics of glazing. So, this was a completely new skill I learned this week, and any additional knowledge (even though this particular end product is inedible) will impact of my overall success in life as a cook and chef. I realized this when I took my camera to work and showed Town Restaurant cook Mark Noguchi and Chef Dave Caldiero; they both new of this aspect of the culinary industry and had helpful critiques of it, and then they both joked and asked how it tasted.

Although neither of them got fully engaged in competition they obviously are aware of the skill, and I’m sure if needed they could pull it off as well. What would’ve really changed my view of the competition course and it’s relation to the industry is if they had no idea of what terrines, and the skill of cold platter and glazing was. But now knowing all the skill, creativeness, understanding of flavors, and extreme attention to details it takes in competition, I have a newly developed understanding and appreciation to the culinary competition industry.