My family has owned and operated a nursing facility since the year I was born. My first job was working in the dish-room of the facility. The work was hot, sweaty, greasy, grimy and all over just not very fun for the average 14 year old. I, however, was entranced by it. There was something so quiet and peaceful about the kitchen when the lights were off and things were quiet. It seemed as if the kitchen was effused with a sense of endless possibilities. That same wonderment still holds true for me today.
Since that time, I went on to work in such esteemed haute cuisine establishment as: Roy Roger, McDonald's, Burger King to name a few of the more well known ones. Jim's Restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, TGIFriday's in Overton Square, Memphis Tennessee, French Quarter Suites Hotel, also located in Memphis Tennessee to name a few lesser know establishments.
My crowning achievement, however, was the United States Navy. To be honest, the Navy and I didn't get along very well. It was a dream that was best left as a dream, hindsight has shown. I was a Mess Specialist, in other words, a Navy cook. In 1996 I spent 8 weeks at Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas learning how to
I would love to say that I continued in my course of food-li-ness, however, that was not to be. I changed course and went into Information Technology, where I have been ever since.
It was only recently that I rediscovered the joy that is cooking.
It began with something simple. It began with butter. Yes, the humble yellow stick of greasy goodness that no omelet should ever be made without. That wonderful substance that has been a staple of cookery for centuries. I was (and am) entranced with butter.
Somewhere along the line, a few months ago, I got rather aggravated with the whole store-bought butter idea and decided, I was going to make my own. I did some research and found that making butter was really not overly difficult. All it required was a quart of heavy cream and a stand mixer. Could it be an easier? I think not.
So, I proceeded to head to the local grocer and lo and behold! They had heavy cream. Albeit, they only had 1 brand with 1 fat content but they had the cream none the less.
I quickly grabbed it, headed home, threw the heavy cream into the stand mixer, 10 minutes later out popped the most beautiful sight I had ever laid my eyes on! A whopping pound of butter that I HAD MADE!!!!! I DID IT!!! I made butter...butter for crying out loud! I made butter!! It was a HOLY SH*T moment like no other I had ever had. It was awesome.
I decided that now that I had made some butter, I had better use it. So I started making omelets. A LOT of omelets. I was beginning to turn yellow from al the butter and eggs. After a while the omelets were just not all that appealing, so I set it aside and let the idea of cooking marinade in my brain.
I'll tell you more about how things came to be in the next post
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