Issue 6 - The Restaurant Industry and Ice Cream
With a side of steak in a briefcase
It’s Issue 6 AKA the St. Paddy’s Day edition (St. Patty’s Day as it is commonly typed is actually incorrect)
As with all my newsletters I’ll be sharing:
1 Food related deep dive
2 Recipes you need to try
3 Interesting food pieces that caught my eye
If you haven’t already, subscribe to my newsletter and give it a share on Twitter
AND OFF WE GO
Deep Dive
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures of the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
This is the book that put Bourdain on the map and jumpstarted his career as a food write
If you haven’t already read Kitchen Confidential (or listened to the audiobook read fantastically by Bourdain) you need to add it to the top of your reading list
I knew I wasn’t cut out for the restaurant industry, but I didn’t know just how not ready I was for it. Ridiculously long hours, painstaking work, claustrophobic and dirty kitchens are only the surface of some of the ordeals Bourdain talks about in the restaurant world.
While the book is fantastic in general, the best parts are when you are in Bourdain’s stream of conscious and hearing his thoughts about serving dinner. Listening to Bourdain’s reading in the Audiobook version puts the listener directly in his brain during these sections. As he’s reading there is almost no break for breaths and the thoughts never seem to end.
I can hold my own in the kitchen, but home cooking could never prepare me for the thought chefs put behind the ingredients, the personnel, the issues between staff, the menu, the specials of the day, the spoiled food, issues with suppliers and the number of burners at each station.
Cooking dinner for myself every night is an accomplishment in itself for most - now imagine cooking 300 meals in the span of several hours. Then imagine doing that in a cramped kitchen, with line cooks moving, carrying and bumping you, with waiters messing up orders and customers being difficult. That is the life of a chef, and that’s a life I think I’d prefer to enjoy from the front of the house.
2 Recipes
In celebration of St. Paddy’s Day both recipes will involve traditional holiday dishes
What kind of St. Paddy’s day doesn’t start with an Irish Coffee. While some recipes call for just adding Bailey’s to coffee, there’s more to the drink than just that
3 Fascinating Food Finds
A Steak in a Briefcase
The Story Behind Ben And Jerry’s Ice Cream by @sangeet_kar
Two 27-year-old misfits decided to turn all they learned from a $5 course into a business. Result? They built one of the most loved brands in the US. Here's how they used a new kind of marketing to do it 👇 = thread =
A great story about how one of the most popular food companies of my lifetime came to be
Even though Ben had anosmia (smell-blindness), what might have been considered a disadvantage for a food entrepreneur became a distinguishing factor in their ice cream. Due to his lack of smell, Ben’s sense of taste was severely limited but by adding textures such a cookie dough to their ice cream he could actually enjoy the ice cream. These unique flavor and texture combinations made Ben and Jerry’s ice cream stand out even more
An appreciation post for people’s creativity and ingenuity. Who doesn’t want to watch a sauna fill up with steam as their cup noodles cook?
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