Life, the Universe, and Stuff

Yesterday I had the privilege to spend a day working with Bekah and Nacho, the owners of Lewisburg's best restaurant (Reba and Pancho's). We put together a Brazilian menu, covering traditional dishes from a few different states, but mostly centered on seafood. Twenty two people were invited to dine; many of them helped out in various ways. My brother André was a caipirinha consultant. Mike Prince was a great sous chef. Steve Stumbris, Margot Vigeant, Dee Casteel, Denise Prince, and my wife helped to plate and to serve dishes. Lisa was also unbelievably awesome in keeping me in the right schedule and reminding me of what I needed to do next. If it weren't for her, I certainly would have goofed something up.

Bekah and Nacho taught me a lot about the restaurant business, all the way from timing the dishes to food safety. Nacho, who can make the most delicious, fantastic food, showed me quite a few of his tricks and taught me to scale up the cooking. Mi hermano, if someday I can cook like you, I'll be the next morbidly obese man in America. Bekah was a nice boss directing me around and lovingly keeping me in line. (By the way, are you noticing a pattern here? Something along the lines of me needing women to keep me in line? I don't mean to get Freudian, but I think it all started with mom.) Most importantly, these two wonderful friends taught me to stay cool in the kitchen and to have fun. Now that I have an idea of how hard these two work, I can appreciate even more the gift of their friendly smiles when they come to greet us in the dining room.

Having watched a good share of Top Chef (actually, I should admit to having watched every episode ever aired), I had only a very rough idea of what was expected of me. Reality TV has gotten my mind so warped that I felt like I was on an elimination challenge. Bekah and Nacho told me to just have fun, but it is an intimidating task to prepare food industrial-style. I made one dessert two days early. I made sauce for chocolate cake at midnight just as I cooked black beans for soup in our handicapped range at home. I learned to make friends with the people at the grocery store so that they would get me fresh herbs from the back of the store. "Learn to develop relationships with the people who sell your ingredients." Wait... didn't I hear that in some Food TV show instead? It may have been Mario Batali who said it. In any case, cooking for this crowd was a blast. It seems that they enjoyed the food and had a nice time.

I could see myself cooking for a living. Thinking realistically, I know that not everyone who would pay to eat my food would be a friend eager to give encouragement with the cheering and clapping of hands that I had last night. In order to make a living from cooking, I certainly would need to learn much, much more than what Nacho could have taught me in a day. I would also need to learn to relax, or else my body wouldn't be able to withstand the constant high levels of adrenaline. Then again, there is also that pesky dayjob that I enjoy so much. So I lived someone else's life for a day and it was great fun.

Margot is trying to make me famous or something. She wrote some nice words about our party in her blog, which also has some images you don't see on this page.