The Joy of Dishwashing

Lately, I've been re-reading one of my bibles: Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. This is the fourth or fifth time I've read the book and just like the other times I'm getting myself all up in a tizzy. Suddenly, I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic for my days in the restaurant business.

Just the other day I said to my wife: I want to go back, work in a restaurant.

She then reminded me that I am currently enrolled full-time in graduate school, already have a full-time gig, and that I hardly have time to take a daily shower let alone re-commence my old, doomed career path.

I suppose she's right, but still. I go to bed, dream of fine-dicing carrots. I wake up, immediately think of demi-glace. In the kitchen, at home, I'm getting impatient and joyfully hostile. It's the sort of loving kitchen attitude I cultivated in the restaurants but it doesn't really fly at home, with my wife.

Recently, family came over for dinner. She was in a good mood, laboring over her spectacular risotto and a few composed salads. I was all hopped up on Bourdain and red wine so I walked in the kitchen, looked at her slightly overdressed salads, and said: Mmm, seaweed. She nearly broke down in tears.

Bourdain writes:

"If you are easily offended by direct aspersions to your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your appearance, the mention of your parents possible commingling with livestock, then...professional cooking is not for you."

My wife is a beautiful home-cook and she makes no pretense to wanting to be a professional cook. I'm just an asshole.

The weirdest recent behavior, though, is my recent craving for dishwashing. I started in the restaurant business, like a lot of people, washing dishes. I was fourteen and I didn't break out until I was nearly eighteen. By then, I had learned to hate dishwashing with an all-abiding passion.

I distinctly recall my final night washing dishes. I walked up to my boss, told him I was finished. He said: Did you hose down the carts? I did not. So I went back and hosed the carts. Midway through, my boss walked up and surveyed my work. I gave him a little squirt. He was shocked. So I said: "You come back here, you're going to get wet."

Then I pointed the hose directly at him and pulled the trigger.

For five tumultuous, roaring seconds, I was King of the World.

I had never felt so liberated. It was the most glorious way to quit a job. And don't think that bastard didn't having it coming. He treated us dishwashers like degenerates (which we were, but still.) Among other things, he refused to give us gloves to handle the piping-hot plates, he paid us next-to-nothing, and he made me stay an hour late on my eighteenth birthday because he was unsatisfied with my mopping work. (I did a stellar job; he was just a mean bastard.)

It was always a sore spot for me that Steve worked at the same place as a waiter. The ethic, promoted by the boss, was that us dishwashers were sub-human and were to be treated as such by the staff. Steve candidly obliged.

So I suppose it's odd that after we finished our recent meal, I joyfully skipped into our kitchen and washed all the plates, all the pots and pans, cleaned the counters, and mopped the floor. I then made a stock for another risotto (my wife was going for a double-shot), melted chocolate for chocolate-fudge brownie sundaes, and brined two chickens, thereby necessitating a whole new round of dishes. Whatever. I didn't care at all. I was in love--with dishwashing!

I love people who don't mind washing dishes. I always think about a great anecdote from Bill Buford's New Yorker article "The Secret of Excess" about Mario Batali:

"One of my last recollections is of Batali around three in the morning—back arched, eyes closed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor—playing air guitar to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Batali had recently turned forty, and I remember thinking that it was a long time since I’d seen a grown man playing air guitar. He then found the soundtrack for “Buena Vista Social Club,” tried to salsa with one of the guests (who promptly fell over a sofa), tried to dance with her boyfriend (who was unresponsive), and then put on a Tom Waits CD and sang along as he went into the kitchen, where, with a machine-like speed, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor."

That last simple, elegant sentence pretty much sums it up for me. Nobody really wants to do dishes. Dishwashing is real work. So you just put on a CD and, like a machine, do it. Today, years away from my early dishwashing travails, I love the sense of accomplishment I feel after washing a night's worth of dishes. I love going into the kitchen, sweating about two pounds off, and dropping to my hands and knees to scrub the floor. That's real work, something to be proud of. Perhaps that's why I hated it so much when I did it as a young man for money. I love dishwashing so much that I was corrupted by the cash. The promise of riches took all the joy out of it. Still, if (big if) I do go back to the restaurants, don't think for a second that I think I'm too good to wash dishes. To find no task to low or demeaning--that's the attitude I like.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Squash Risotto

I always get depressed in January because squash season is almost over. So I grasp at the last of season and try to make something immaculate. I originally published this recipe here.

4 acorn squash
3 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
6 cups water or gluten-free vegetable broth
1 cup finely chopped leeks
2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped sage, divided
2/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut each acorn squash lengthwise in half (from tip to stem) then scoop out and discard any seeds and stringy flesh. Brush insides of acorn squash with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil and season with salt. Place acorn squash, cut side down, in a baking pan and roast until tender but still firm, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, start the risotto by bringing the broth just to a simmer in a small pot over medium high heat. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy 3-quart pot over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add butternut squash and cook for 3 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until grains are fragrant. Add wine and stir constantly until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth to rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is almost completely absorbed. Continue adding broth, 1/2 cup at a time, making sure that most of the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Continue until rice is almost tender, but still firm to the bite, about 20 to 25 minutes total. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the sage and season with salt.

Meanwhile, put pine nuts into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Stir in thyme, remaining 1/2 teaspoon sage and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

When acorn squash is cooked, remove from oven. Reduce heat to 300°F. Carefully turn squash over and fill each cavity with about 1/2 cup of the risotto. Gently press about 2 tablespoons of the pine nut mixture on top of the risotto in each squash half. Return squash to oven and bake until topping begins to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to plates and serve.

Risky Behavior

My home kitchen is tight. There's barely enough room for me, let another another cook. Still, I love cooking with others in my tight kitchen. At my best, I groove around others, slinking my way to the sink and back to the stove in a swift, graceful dance. On the actual dance floor, I'm a disaster. In the kitchen, I'm an evil Baryshnikov.

This is how Anthony Bourdain describes the kitchen dance: "If you're a saute man, your grill man is your dance partner, and chances are, you're spending the majority of your time working in a hot, uncomfortable confined, submarine-like space with him. You're both working around open-flame, boiling liquids, and plenty of blunt objects at close hand--and you both carry knives, lots of knives. So you had better get along."

I've pretty much loved every bastard I've worked with in the kitchen. I'd better, because I'm no fighter. I don't stab. A lot of guys I've worked with in professional kitchens were stabbers. I'm talking about the kind of guys who actually like to stab things and people. I remember John, a saute man, who stabbed his own pinkie clean off in the middle of a busy, Friday afternoon lunch shift. He bled profusely. He was pale, clearly freaked. I scooped up the bit of pinkie and rushed him to the hospital. On the way into the hospital, he stopped.

Do you think I have time to bust a smoke? he said.

So we stood there as John, losing blood, smoked.

I love that guy. I love the sense of chaos and criminality he brought to the kitchen. He was back at work that night, his pinkie bandaged, working the line.

The home kitchen, of course, is more calm. That's why I do everything I can to increase the sense of chaos. Perhaps this is why I don't get along with my wife in the kitchen. She's a measured cook, precise and willing. She creates beautiful, loving dishes, full of tenderness. When I'm not involved at all, she creates transcendent risotto, immaculate roast chicken, the best beef burgundy. I, however, mess with her mojo. If I'm around, things fall apart. I'm her terror.

I'm the type of cook who likes to fuck with people and food. Sure, I put love into my cooking; it's just that my love expresses itself in risk. I like smoke. I love fire. Blood turns me on. I love cranking the music up really high, darting back and forth, sweating, cursing, spitting, and getting naked, if it's hot enough. Mostly, I love when I take a piece of food, compare it to a body part, and then do offensive things with it.

And still, it all ends up tasty.

This past Friday, my kitchen buddy Mikey came over.

Mikey also revels in chaos. Mikey brought over Rodrigo y Gabriela: we pumped it up and danced. We were cooking for my wife and my buddy, JJ. It was a festive night. The celebration was simple: we celebrated food and each other. Mikey made quinoa chowder, slow-cooked baked beans, and Cajun cat-fish. I made an epic sweeta potato mash and BBQ chicken on the grill (with homemade BBQ sauce.)

The entire night I was evilly waiting to cook the catfish. I knew the catfish would destroy us. And it did. Mikey threw it in a cast-iron pan and the kitchen, the apartment, hell, the entire town, filled with noxious smoke. We coughed and sneezed and complained. Mikey just stood right over the pan, as if his own dying demanded his full attention.

Within minutes, he was utterly destroyed.

The meal was outstanding. Everyone loved everything, except the chicken. I willfully undercooked it. The others refused to eat the chicken, but I ate it, with absolute braggadocio, as if I were tempting the gods to obliterate me.

I ate two chicken legs--the center of both, a bit pale, teasing opulent rawness. To me, chicken legs tastes best just at 160 degrees--the center might be a bit undercooked, but the rest is a sort of divine specialty. It's the best chicken will ever taste. Also, it does strange things to you. I ate it and felt virile, alive, vampiric.

Epic Sweeta Potato Mash with Coconut Milk

Mikey uses the word "epic" a lot. If something defies expectation it is epic. He also uses the word "ridick" (as in ridiculous.) These sweet potatoes could also be considered ridick.

And oh, by the way, "Sweeta" is how my acupuncturist refers to sweet potatoes. She's a brilliant, caring lady from China. She tells me, "No more sweeta potato!" I'm not sure why.


4 medium sweeta potatoes, washed
1/4 cup coconut milk (full fat is best)
1 teaspoon sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Adjust an oven rack to the center position. Preheat oven to 4oo degrees. Arrange sweet potatoes on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Bake until a knife tip slides easily into the flesh, 60-70 minutes. (Sometimes, sweet potatoes can take up to 90 minutes or more to cook, depending on the size.)

Meanwhile, warm the coconut milk in a medium saucepan over low heat. Season the coconut milk with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

When sweet potatoes are cool, slip the skins off and place into saucepan with coconut milk. Mash the sweet potatoes in the saucepan. Season with extra salt and pepper.

Alternately, for an exquisitely creamy texture, pass the sweet potatoes through the holes of a food mill directly into the coconut milk and mash.

Serves 4-6

Food is an Attitude

To me, food is an attitude. When I consider food, I take a stance, sometimes political, often metaphorical. I buy free-range chicken, for example, because I support the idea of chickens roaming freely. I eat free-range chicken, on the bone, on the other hand, because my lust for life calls for the juiciest meats (free-range chickens are always more juicy...)

Firmly rooted in my food attitudes, I express who I am, not only as a consumer, but a human being. In this expression, like most humans, I am incredibly stubborn and idiosyncratic. I have my opinions and, quite naturally, I am a firm advocate of my opinions.

For example:

I have never understood people who can't cook. Maybe, I often think, they do not know how to eat. (Actually, come to think of it, I've met many people, including many chefs, who don't know how to eat. But that's neither here nor there…)

But to not cook seems to me to be a terrible shortcoming, a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who does not eat meat. He would quietly become sadder, and, little by little, he would lose his virility. (Trust me, I know this to be true...)

Also, I have never understood the type who refuses to lick his plate. Some people actually say plate-licking is offensive. This is offensive. Really, what type of repressive regime disapproves of something as simple and humble as plate-licking? What's so wrong with slurping up the tastiest juices. To not lick your plate also seems to me to be a terrible shortcoming. The person who does not lick his plate is like the person who refuses to dance. Most often, you find him in the corner, moping, utterly repressed and balding. (I know this to be true too...)

Finally, I have never understood the person who refuses to eat meat from the bone. What, exactly, are these people refusing? Life itself, it seems to me. In bones we discover the root of flavor, the very essence of our animal love for meat. In men, I find this attribute inexcusable. I can only compare the man who does not eat meat from the bone to the castrati, forever doomed to beauty and unmanliness.

We all have our own vehement food attitudes. One person prefers rare meat. The other prefers meat well done. (The latter, to me, is a criminal; eating meat well done is an inexcusable offense.)

I was a vegetarian for eight years. Now I'm half-man, half-carnivorous animal. Here's what Anthony Bourdain has to say about vegetarians:

"Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. it's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold."

I first read this when I was a vegetarian and I have to admit it gave me pause. It's pure vehemence. Back then, I was repulsed by it. Now, as a meat eater, I relish it.

It's healthy to love food vehemently and to express that love with passion. We are human when we compel with love.

So, why don't you compel? Tell us: what are your food attitudes? Please share--the more vehement the better.

Post your attitudes below, as a comment, or e-mail them to me: sethpollins@hotmail.com

We'll post another blog soon listing your food attitudes.

Feel free to send pictures, drawings, or hunks of meat--whatever.

Just please: be vehement and honest! Imagine yourself drinking beer on a plaza, arguing stridently....Get all worked up!