DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

For all the cooking I do, and all the thinking about cooking, I’ve never once worked in the food-service industry. I have a ton of restaurant experience, but none on the other side of the menu. So today, I started a three-day intensive cooking class at a nearby vegan restaurant.

This class provides a second opportunity: we’ll be cooking for the public. And really it is a bigger deal than even that, for this restaurant is closed during the winter except for a handful of special-event meals; my class of six student “guest chefs” will be preparing the restaurant’s Mardi Gras dinner, the one meal the restaurant will serve this month. The owner expects 70 guests, including four VIPs. No pressure!

After just one class, I now have “knife technique.” Sure, it may not be very good, but at least I have one. I also have two hand’s worth of abused knuckles and a raw spot on the side of my index finger from chopping approximately 500 vegetables. (OK, well, probably it was more like 30 vegetables. A lot, anyway.)

Tonight’s session used a learn-as-you-go format; the class offers little formal instruction but lots of hands-on experience. The chefs identified the half-dozen items that could be prepared two days before service — dressings, sauces, stock — and assigned students to each. I made 4 gallons of stock. I was working without a net, but I guess it’s hard to ruin a pot of simmering vegetables. If they ask me to make another 4 gallons tomorrow, I guess I’ll know the verdict on the first batch.

At the end of the class, we ate dinner. This was a highlight; we had a Thai carrot bisque that was among the best soups I’ve ever eaten. The story of the soup is a testament to the knowledge of an experienced chef, and the power of a good recipe: someone requested that we have soup for dinner, so the chef scribbled a recipe from memory, scaling it as she wrote, and the result — as executed by two students who had never made it before — was spectacular.

[Read part II, soup from concentrate]

I saw a weird bumper sticker on a lightpost downtown recently: “Drive Vegetarian.” It’s funny, but what does it mean? My motorbike isn’t on the Atkins diet.

Below the slogan appeared a domain name: greasecar.com. The website there taught me something astounding: any diesel passenger vehicle or light truck can be converted to burn used vegetable oil instead of diesel fuel.

Think about that for a minute. You could drive a perfectly regular car, but burn no fossil fuels. It’s great for the environment and great for US foreign policy. (If the Bush administration knew about this technology, they’d be staging an armed invasion of your local diner.)

Alternative-fueled vehicles usually carry some sort of compromise. I don’t see any here. The cars are full-sized, work in any weather, and have plenty of power. You could even continue to burn diesel fuel (or, better, bio-diesel if it’s available). This means that, if need be, you can pretend you don’t have an alternative-fuel vehicle; you can just drive to the neighborhood gas station and “fill ‘er up” like everybody else.

There are significant advantages to burning grease, as compared to diesel or gasoline, according to the SF Chronicle: “[Grease-burning engines] emit fewer toxic byproducts, they utilize fuel from renewable sources and they consume a waste product that must otherwise be disposed of by less efficient means.”

If you think that’s neat, check this out: grease is free. Most restaurants would be happy to have someone take it off their hands.

My research indicates that it’s getting even easier to buy used cooking oil — you need not strike back-alley deals with the fry cook at the neighborhood greasy spoon. Co-ops have formed in California, Oregon, and Massachusetts. See also the Regional Biodiesel links in Biodiesel.com’s forums.

Here’s the thing that most people never think about: fossil fuels are not a renewable resource. The ubiquity of filling stations might make it seem as if there is an endless supply of oil, but this is simply untrue. We will run out — sooner rather than later, according to the trend analyses showing increased demand. We can drill more wells, fight more wars, or fund alternative-fuel research. Seems to me that driving a “greasecar” is a painless way to be part of the solution.

Today I made the most ridiculously complicated and fatty cake of my young life. It’s a recipe I found in a discarded copy of Bon Appetit a few years ago at the gym. (Yep, it’s pretty ironic that I came off the treadmill, picked up a magazine featuring a million-calorie dessert, and thought, “I really have to make this!”)

1. Bake a nut-cake (ground nuts, sugar, egg whites) and slice it into thin strips. This is tough to do well. Fortunately I’m an engineer — note the ruler. (The T-square is out of frame.)
2. Line a bowl with the cake strips. This is impossible to do well because the strips break easily and have to be fitted back together. As it turns out, it doesn’t really matter; the finished dome holds up even if the strips aren’t all in one piece. Even so, this was by far the hardest part of the process. The small pile of shards in the picture doesn’t really illustrate the half-hour spent cutting, picking, and fitting. Moreover, toward the end I was able to re-use about 2/3 of the previous discards, which I felt good about in the sense that I was conserving resources, until the next day when I tossed the uncut leftover cake in the trash anyway.
3. Spread the cake-bowl with chocolate ganache (bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream) made previously. The gooey ganache tends to pull the cake apart as it runs down toward the center of the bowl. Cursing might ensue.
4. Fill the cavity with hazelnut cream (heavy cream, chopped nuts, amaretto, chocolate bits). Top the assembly with more cake-strips.
5. Make a full batch of cranberry-coconut cookies in case the cake doesn’t turn out.
6. Invert cake, top with cocoa and fresh berries just for effect. Discard berries after photo — no sense spoiling a perfectly good chocolate cream cake with fresh fruit. Slice and serve!
7. (optional): have bad dreams about the four cups of heavy cream in the middle of the cake. Wake up sweating as your liver works overtime to cull the milk-fat from your bloodstream. Call the nurse line to have them talk you down.

So, was it any good? At first I was unimpressed — because after having spent 3-4 hours on this I expected something of otherworldly goodness. My initial impression was that it was just over-the-top rich, but not necessarily great.

I had a bite the next day, though, and was knocked out. The cake really is excellent. The problem the night before was that I’d already eaten my body weight in pizza, so my fat appreciation gland was blown out. Serve this after a light meal, or, what the heck, instead of a light meal, and you’ll get the effect promised by the recipe (i.e. cardiac arrest).

Here’s a tip for all you budding cabinetmakers. If you’re going to go to the trouble to custom-build cherry kitchen drawers, do not design them with an inset panel on the drawer face. These things are like magnets for crud. This pictured unit is especially bad because there’s an eighth-inch gap between the panel and the frame. You can’t imagine the amount of stuff that collects in there if, say, you accidentally spill a can of vegetable soup down the face of the drawer.

I admit it — I lost my grip on the can opener and flipped a can of soup off the counter. The entire contents ran down the fronts of four drawers. I spent 15 minutes digging out all the onions, leeks, tiny bits of bell pepper, tomato, etc. I dug out a lot of bits I didn’t recognize, too, implying that probably I wasn’t the first one to spill soup. I was just the first one to clean it up.

In June, I’ll be joining a group of 6 friends for a 25-mile roundtrip hike in Colorado. It’s a brutal plan: start at ~7000 feet at 2:00 AM and climb to the peak (at 14110 feet), quickly snap the obligatory summit picture and then turn around and hike back down. If we’re lucky we’ll finish by 6:00 PM. If we’re really lucky we won’t get caught above the treeline when the afternoon electrical storms come. (Read more about Barr Trail.)

Most of the guys in the group have already started preparing. One joined a gym, two others have increased their workout regimen. Several have changed their diets. Several have committed to taking local hikes regularly to stay fit.

So I was pleased when I was invited today to hike with some friends in Annadel State Park. It was a great opportunity to put feet to dirt, expand my lungs, refresh the callouses that keep my hiking boots comfortable, etc. But I stayed home instead and finished my taxes.

I’m not in complete denial — I have begun preparing for the trip:

• I’ve started to grow my hair out. I think it will be easier to tie together if it’s all one length.
• I have identified the portable air deodorizer I want to buy for the bathroom in our lodge.
• After much analysis, I have decided to use a butt-pack rather than a backpack to haul my clothes and water up the mountain.
• I’ve worked to increase my weekly beer intake. (Alcohol is an important part of a well-balanced diet.)

That should carry me through 12.5 miles of 11% grade, no?