Of Recent

Hey Everyone

So it's 10:15 in the morning and I'm sitting in a coffee shop next to the restaurant.
Since my last post, a ton of stuff has happened for me.

First of all, My Chef, Jaison, recently took me out to a farm that we are buying beef from, the farm is about a 45 minute drive out of town, but it was a great experience. Upon getting to the farm, we walked around with the farmer, Peanut, and looked at the beef we will be buying, I was able to listen in on my chef and the farmer talking prices as well as the logistics of getting the animals slaughtered. First though, we got the beef started on a grain diet for the last month before we started buying them, to fatten them up and get them as close to prime quality as we can.

As far as the slaughter goes, we will need to have the beef transported to a USDA inspected slaughtering facility, and must pay their prices for the animal to be slaughtered and cut into primals for us.

While we were there, we were also able to look at the lamb, goats, and chickens the farmer had, as well as his two pigs. I found it really interesting seeing how the farm worked as well as hearing how much feeding the animals factored into the price of the animals.

By the time I leave here, I will have been able to see a lot of the beef we are buying from the farm go through the restaurant, as well as hopefully just before I leave, I will be able to see a lamb or two go through as well. While it may seem kind of morbid to talk about living creatures passing through the restaurant as food, but it'd just a fact of the business, and humanity. We kill A LOT of animals to make money and serve them. But seeing these animals alive makes me very inclined to do something special and memorable with them so that they go to good use. This is just one thing that every cook should do is visit a farm they get produce, or meats from and see the work that goes into taking care of it, and see the product itself to understand it better and realize, if they screw up, they're wasting a life, cooks will be a lot less inclined to overcook that burger just to throw it away when they do.



In other news, the restaurant I'm interning at has now opened for lunch, and Jaison has decided once he is comfortable with my abilities, that I will be running lunch on my own. I'm both excited and nervous about this. I love the fact he is eventually entrusting this to me, and I will have freedom to cook on my own and hone my abilities. But at the same time, I really, really, don't want to screw this up, because as we have just started doing lunch, it means the reputation of our lunch service more or less depends on me. This is a huge responsibility and for someone who still has much to learn, it's a little scary.

I have also learned that Jaison is loaning me out to another NECI alumni, Lyndon to help him with his burrito cart for concerts at the Charlottesville Pavilion. I'm actually really excited about this, because it's something I've never done before, and it should be interesting and a new experience..... not to mention I get into the concerts for free :)

well that's just the update
talk to ya'll later.
-CT