On Saturday, December 5, 2009 I had two experiences that continue to make me ponder the relation of food to the present moment.

The day began with my seminary program holding a one day retreat for all of the students who will be graduating this academic year. After four years, I shall be graduating this May, Lord willing! The retreat began with the director of the program, Dr. Coe, giving a brief theology of time, emphasizing that we are creatures shaped by the past, living in the present, with a view toward the future.

Our lives are shaped by various seasons that the Lord gives us, like the seasons that Solomon talks about in Ecclesiastes: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to week and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance (Eccl. 3:1-8). Dr. Coe challenged us as graduates to begin to reflect on our time within the program to understand the seasons that the Lord has led us through these past years. He also warned us against the temptation to look to these past experiences and seasons as a way to control the future. Yes, there is a certain degree of reaping what I have sowed, but I must never think that I can control the future through my sowing and reaping.

After Solomon has talked about the different seasons of life, he writes, “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given the children of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccl. 3:9-11).

No matter how much I try, I cannot fully know the past, nor do I really have any idea of the future. While the past and the future are important, what is most important is the present, which is ever fleeting, but where I live. And in each new moment, I am given the opportunity to be alive to what God is doing in me, through me, and around me.

Solomon continues in Ecclesiastes: “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man” (Eccl. 3:12-13). Throughout Ecclesiastes, there are a total of five summary statements similar to this one, in which Solomon concludes that human life is about being open to the Holy Trinity in the present moment. These passages started me thinking, “Why does he equate eating and drinking as the activity for the present moment?”

That same night, I went out with Claire, my girlfriend, Ty and his wife, Heather, to Marche LA. The head chef at Marche LA is Gary Menes whom I worked for while at Palate Food + Wine. Since leaving Palate, Chef Gary and I have remained in contact, and when I heard that he had left Palate to run his own restaurant, I was eager to visit his restaurant. So for my birthday, my parents gave me a very generous gift to eat there with the people above. If you have the opportunity, I would strongly encourage you to try Marche LA and Chef Gary’s cooking.

When we arrived at the restaurant, I told our server to simply let Chef Gary give us what he desired. Soon the food started arriving, and kept arriving, from soup to vegetables to white truffle risotto (quite possibly the best thing I have ever eaten!) to fish to chicken to pork to beef to dessert. On our way home, I think Claire and I counted a total of 8 courses. I have never been treated with such care and generosity at a restaurant as I was that night. I left completely overwhelmed by his generosity and love to me (which has me meditating on receiving love, which is for another blog post).

As each course came, I was trying to be present to all of the flavors we were experiencing…pickled persimmons, cream of cauliflower soup with a hint of white truffles, perfectly roasted squash, seasonal vegetables presented in beautiful simplicity, experiencing the full fledged taste of white truffles for the first time in perfectly cooked and seasoned risotto, scallops and fish cooked well, pork that was melt in your mouth tender, a Spanish wine that was so smooth yet full of flavor, beef cooked to a perfect medium rare through the sous vide method, and desserts that seemed to send me into pure delight. All the while, enjoying the beauty of the company I was with.

And this is where I started seeing the connection between being alive to the present moment and the enjoyment of food.

Every bite of food is a fleeting moment of pleasure and delight—if I am lucky it will last maybe 15 seconds. In order to fully enjoy an eight course gastronomic delight, the chef must make the courses small enough so that his guests are not full after two courses, yet at the same time big enough where I, and the others with me, can fully take in all the flavors of each dish and remember them. And I as the guest must continually engage with each dish in order to fully taste it, which takes concentrated effort over an extended period of time. Sure we could have scarfed each dish down within seconds of it arriving, but that would have defeated the purpose and been an insult to the food and more importantly Chef Gary and his cooks.

And maybe this is why the author of Ecclesiastes brings together the enjoyment of food with being alive to the present moment. Like food, being open to God in the present moment requires a certain concentrated effort. It is easy to go through each moment and each day oblivious to the reality of the work of the Triune God, just like it is easy to go through a meal without ever being fully aware of all of the flavors. Being aware of God’s presence and work in this moment also requires training, just like enjoying an elaborate meal. I am not simply going to wake up one day and be able to sense God’s movement if I have not slowly trained myself how to discern his gentle stirrings throughout the day. Nor am I going to be able to walk into The French Laundry and enjoy Chef Keller’s cooking if my eating habits have mainly consisted of driving through a drive-thru, eating alone in my car on my way to the next thing on my schedule.

Let me be clear on something though: I am not saying that being alive to the present moment means going to the best restaurants. I can savor the taste of simple things like a crisp Fuji apple or a bowl of chili or even a simple piece of chocolate. I do not believe it is so much what you eat, as how you eat it. And it seems to me that savoring the tastes of simple food might actually be more difficult than savoring the cooking of a great chef. The same holds true in God’s movements in my life. It is easy to notice God in the miracles of life, but do I notice him in my every day routine, especially at work as I interact with fellow employees?

Thanksgiving. If there is a feast that typifies American culture, then Thanksgiving is it. A table full of more food than should ever be eaten. A plate piled so high that the individual components become indistinguishable from one another and one is left with a bite simultaneously of turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, peas…you get the idea. Then after gorging ourselves all in a matter of a few short minutes to the point where it hurts to stand up, we loosen the belt buckle, stretch out on the couch and fall asleep to football.

Trust me, I have experienced this phenomenon myself. When I lived in China, Thanksgiving was an all day affair of eating. I remember one year in particular in which it was a small group of us and between five adults, there were five home-made pies! The following day, I stepped onto my scale to find that I had gained over five pounds, and if you know me, gaining a pound is hard work. (Let me also state that Thanksgivings in China were not simply marked by gluttony. The day truly was a celebration of feasting together with food, fellowship, laughter, and simply being with one another.)

But here is my question/issue in regards to Thanksgiving: Has Thanksgiving become such a gluttonous event that we, the American culture, now tend to equate feasting with stuffing our faces with food? And to take the question a step further, what effect does this have on our spiritual lives?

We as Americans might be at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding feasting, and eating in general, because we lack a national cuisine and a food culture that grounds our eating in something more than just physical nourishment or the latest fad. Michael Pollan discusses this point in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He argues that because America does not have culture of food, we are easily confused and tossed about by the latest scientific findings or the latest fad. Scientific findings or food fads have thus become our food orthodoxy, determining for us what we should or should not be eating. Therefore, we tend to look paradoxically at other cultures who seem to be eating rather unhealthy foods, yet remain healthier than we, most notably the French. He writes:

That orthodoxy [driven by scientific research] regards certain tasty foods as poisons (carbs now, fats then), failing to appreciate that how we eat, and even how we feel about eating may in the end be just as important as what we eat. The French eat all sorts of supposedly unhealthy food, but they do it according to a strict and stable set of rules: They eat small portions and don’t go back for seconds; they don’t snack; they seldom eat alone; and communal meals are long leisurely affairs. In other words, the French culture of food successfully negotiates the omnivore’s dilemma, allowing the French to enjoy their meals without ruining their health. (pp. 300-301)

Because we as a culture have nothing to anchor us, everything is up for grabs to the point where we rush to the nearest bookstore to buy the latest book on what the authors guarantee will revolutionize how we view food. Or, on somewhat the opposite extreme, we will make a meal out of a protein shake that is not even food. Michael Pollan continues, “Consuming these neo-pseudo-food alone in our cars we have become a nation of antinomian eaters, each of us struggling to work out our dietary salvation on our own” (p. 301).

If Michael Pollan is correct in his observation about the American food scene (and I think he is), we are a culture then that has no clue what it means to eat, let alone what it means to feast. I would argue that this has implications, especially for Christians, in regards to our spiritual life. Take for example Jesus’ words in The Gospel of John:

Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me (John 6:53-57).

I don’t know about you, but when I read these words, I am tempted to think that I want as much of Jesus as I can possibly get. Therefore, more books, more Bible studies, more classes, more prayer groups, more hours spent in ministry, and more spiritual disciplines will all lead to a richer experience of Jesus. To use the metaphor of the Thanksgiving plate: a plate piled so high with religious activities that I cram myself full of in hopes of an experience of God. These items can foster a richer experience of Jesus, but my temptation is to look to them to cultivate a feeling/experience of Jesus rather than simply be with my Savior. Through this, I can become a spiritual glutton through a lack of understanding just as I can become a glutton with food through a lack of knowledge of what it means to truly eat.

St. John of the Cross warns us against spiritual gluttony in his work The Dark Night, Book 1, chapter 6. His basic point is that all Christians, at one point or another, will turn to spiritual activities for the latest and greatest experience of God. He writes:

All their time is spent looking for satisfaction and spiritual consolation; they can never read enough spiritual books, and one minute they are meditating on one subject and the next on another, always hunting for some gratification in the things of God.

We are tempted to use spiritual tools to cultivate a feeling of God rather then use them as a means to be in a relationship with the personal Triune God. I will stuff myself full of what I think is Jesus thinking that this will satiate my spiritual hunger. And when something stops giving me that feeling, I will simply move on to the next thing, as there seems to be no shortage of options for Christians today.

But what if this is not what Jesus meant when He commanded us to eat his flesh? What if, dare I say it, the French have it right? That I am meant to linger for hours with the One whom I love, not engaged in a frenetic pace of life, always doing, always eating alone. But rather maybe I am meant to simply be in the presence of Him who gave his life for me, like two friends enjoying a bottle of wine and some cheese.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Christians began to think holistically and robustly about what it means to physically eat and the impact that would have on how we relate to God. And I wonder what would happen if we took a serious look at our spiritual gluttony and the impact that would have on our physical gluttony.

As a friend pointed out to me after I sent him a draft of this post, I do not discuss what feasting should actually look like. He does have a valid point—I don’t simply want to address what is wrong; I do want to point people to a better alternative. But I guess that discussion will have to wait for another blog post.

Some friends recently set me up on a blind-date. Usually I am not a big fan of blind-dates, but for whatever reason, I quickly agreed to the idea. It took a couple of weeks to find a time that worked for all of our schedules, but we finally set a date, in which we would all meet at this couple’s house for dinner and games.

I was asked to bring a dessert, so I immediately started the internal conversation with myself about what to bring. Obviously I was not going to pick up something, nor do brownies from a box, but neither was I going to go all out and make something extravagant (I can’t after all show all of my cards!). Originally, I settled on a cheesecake, namely an old fashioned cheesecake. Having made this and other cheesecakes dozens of times before, it would be easy enough for me to do, yet would still show some thought and care. Not to mention it was safe…chances for failure were close to zero.

But here is where things got interesting. The night before I was going to make the cheesecake, I was relaxing at my parents’ house, enjoying a bowl of chocolate malt crunch ice cream. About half way through the bowl, I had a stark revelation…these flavors would make an excellent cheesecake. All night I thought about how I could pull this off and as I thought about it more and more, I literally felt the Holy Spirit urging me to go ahead and try it. To create, to experiment, to risk, instead of sticking with the safe, easy old fashioned cheesecake.

Here is how I planned the cheesecake in my mind. The crust would be a combination of chocolate graham crackers and crushed Whoppers. The cheesecake itself would be flavored with chocolate malt and Hershey’s chocolate syrup (I did find recipes for chocolate malt cheesecake, but tweaked the recipe). I figured the Hershey’s syrup would provide a sweeter chocolate taste than say melted semi-sweet chocolate to mimic the flavor of the ice cream. I would top the cheesecake with a Kahlua-chocolate ganache. And finally, right before serving it I would top the cheesecake with crushed Whoppers. I did not think Whoppers inside the cheesecake would hold up to baking plus refrigeration, mainly because I was afraid that the Whoppers would get soggy.

I made the cheesecake, and was quite happy with how it all came out. The crust did not turn out as I had hoped—the Whoppers candied up during baking, so that it became really chewy, plus I added too much butter to the crust. It still tasted great, but it was not what I wanted.

As I thought about the cheesecake, and the process of creating a cheesecake without a recipe—my first by the way—I began to wonder if me making it had a deeper meaning than me just exercising my knowledge of food. I could have played it safe and stuck with the old fashioned cheesecake, and it would have been enjoyed by all. But I chose to not do this. I chose to risk making something that had the possibility of tasting great, instead of just good. I had a pretty good hunch that the cheesecake would turn out really well, having made enough cheesecakes and trusting my prior experience with flavors. There was still, however, the risk that the cheesecake would fail, and taste like shit (pardon my French). But it was a risk worth taking because the rewards were much more sweet.

Maybe I need to take this attitude more often. Throw away the recipes and risk. Those recipes were and are needed, as they provide the framework and structure for me to create a new cheesecake. But there comes a point where I need to trust my training and my experience to risk and show people who I really am, not only as a cook but as a person. I need to risk and show people what I am truly made of instead of playing it safe. Yes, at times my shit will come out, and yes, at times I will fail, and yes, people might not like what they see or taste, but the rewards are greater as people will know me and not just the safe, contained Andrew, which is not bad; it’s just not the full, flavorful Andrew that has lied buried for way too long.

Crazy how a simple cheesecake can turn into a deep metaphor that God uses to teach me about myself and life.

Oh…and by the way…the cheesecake and the date turned out really well. Neither is final; both are works in progress, but the process is exciting and fun, yet at the same time incredibly scary.

Sorry it has been such a long time since I have posted. It’s not that I have had a shortage of things to write about, but finding the time to blog has been a lot tougher than I expected.

But stay tuned as I hope to have a post up in the next day. What you ask?…well…you will just have to come back and check.

I have always prided myself on being able to handle really strong coffee and really strong beer. I am sure that there is some correlation between my love for those two things. But I have a confession to make: I have finally met a beer that is bigger than I can even handle: the Bourbon County Brand Stout from Goose Island Brewery. Here is how the website describes the beer:

“I really wanted to do something special for our 1000^th batch at the original brewpub. Goose Island could have thrown a party. But we did something better. We brewed a beer. A really big batch of stout—so big, the malt was coming out of the top of the mash tun. After fermentation, we brought in some bourbon barrels that aged the stout. One hundred days later, Bourbon County Stout was born. A liquid as dark and dense as a black hole with thick foam the color of a bourbon barrel. The nose is an intense mix of charred oak, chocolate, vanilla, caramel and smoke. One sip has more flavor than your average case of beer. It overpowers anything in the room. People have even said it’s a great cigar beer. But I have yet to try a cigar that can stand up.” Greg Hall, Brewmaster

I don’t know if you are a fan of stouts, like I am, but if you are and if you like big beers that seriously kick you in the rear, then this is a beer you should try. It is aged 100 days in bourbon casks, which leads to 13% alcohol content. My buddy, Ty, and I enjoyed a bottle last night. As we poured it into our glasses, we knew this was a serious beer as it poured almost as thick as maple syrup. It was also darker than any beer I have tried. As I poured, I kept waiting for the head to develop, but this beer is so big that it does not even have a head on it. It smells of rich, deep dark chocolate and caramel, and the first few sips reminded me of Almond Roca (which added to my enjoyment of the beer as Almond Roca carries with it very fond childhood memories for me). After the first three sips, which rocked, I began to pick up more and more of the bourbon flavor. Also the dark chocolate notes become more and more pronounced. Also this is definitely a beer that must be sipped slowly and not drunk. It took me over 2 hours to finish. I probably should have stopped at half a glass, but there was something throughout the evening that kept calling me back to finish the beer.

The beer is available at the BevMo in Brea, CA. However, it is not cheap–a four-pack will set you back $20, but seeing how four ounces of this beer is all that I will want to drink in one sitting, a four pack will go a long way.

I could see pairing this beer with a great braised beef dish or as a dessert beer to highlight the almost candy-like texture and taste of it.

Enjoy!

As many of you know, I worked in the cheese room at Palate Food + Wine for a little while. I read up on cheeses. I put together a booklet of the cheeses we had on hand. I tasted cheeses constantly. And I smelled a lot of cheeses.

As I read about cheeses, particularly the ones that Palate carried, I was surprised to see some of the descriptions used for the odor of cheese. Some cheeses have an odor so strong that when I store them in my refrigerator, my fridge quickly smells like the cheese. As soon as I open the door, I am hit with the odor. Currently in my fridge is a wheel of Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese. I just hope that my roommate does not mind the powerful odor of the cheese.

Some cheeses should have a strong barnyardy odor, but a cheese should never smell like death, decay, dung or straight ammonia. For instance, Steven Jenkins in The Cheese Primer describes the French cheese Munster this way: “Munster has a very pronounced, powerful aroma, and I have never figured out how it is that a food that smells like rotting fruits and vegetables and barnyard animals can evoke hunger pangs in me” (83). Epoisses is another cheese with a very pungent odor, which is putting it nice.

The odors of food are important because when it comes to eating the nose does most of the work. The human mouth can only decipher five basic flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. The nose, however, can sort through close to 10,000 different odors. Therefore, despite my mouth’s limitation in detecting the flavor, my nose compensates as it is connected to the mouth through the retronasal passage.

Unfortunately as an American, I am at a disadvantage when it comes to appreciating odors. The American culture literally shuns anything that smells strong, pungent, or funky. Think about how much money is spent each year to make everything smell pleasant. Granted some odors should be masked…I love my deodorant, and I am pretty positive that almost everyone else appreciates that I wear deodorant. I also love lighting fragrant candles to make my room smell nice. But this desire to cover up odors that might be a little unpleasant means that when it comes to tasting cheeses, I have to get over my preconceived idea that a bad smell equals bad taste.

You might be thinking, “Why would I ever want to put something in my mouth that has an odor that strong and that off-putting? I will just stick to food that smells good, like strawberries.” You are entitled to your opinion, but think of all that you will be missing in life. Epoisses is one of the best cheeses in the world. In fact, the great food writer, Brillat-Savarin called it the king of the cheeses. And once you get past the stench of the cheese, what awaits you is, in the words of Max McCalman, “a lovely chorus of refined flavors, complex yet well rounded” (The Cheese Plate, 102). Later, he writes, “It’s amazing how it can smell so funky and yet taste so balanced” (185).

As I thought about the odiferous nature of cheese, I began seeing the connections between cheese and my Christian life. I have come to believe deeply that my life should always smell and look good. I do not like it when things smell bad or get messy. I wish my Christian life was like a perfectly ripened strawberry—lush, perfectly ripened, that smell that immediately draws my mind to the beauty of spring and summer, and the juice that drips down my chin—that’s the Christian life I like. As I observe American Christianity, it seems that I am not alone. This is what we all want and this is what we present to others, and I think we have gotten pretty good at it, unfortunately.

But as I have studied spiritual formation, I have begun to learn that this is rarely the case, as we live in a fallen, sinful world. Sure there are moments when the Christian life might come close to resembling the strawberry. Messiness and foul odors are part of the process that God uses in his infinite wisdom to mold me and shape me. Just like with cheese, however, there is a fine line. I am not talking about sin, which to use the analogy with cheese, smells of death, decay and dung. I am talking about situations, trials, thorns in the flesh, that the Lord introduces, those events, peoples, situations, whatever they may be, that smell “bad” to me, just like some cheese might smell “bad.” However, if I can get past my preconceived ideas and deep beliefs of what smells good and bad, then I might discover that what awaits me is similar to Epoisses: “a lovely chorus of refined flavors, complex yet well rounded.”

Unlike with cheese, where the payoff comes as soon as the cheese enters my mouth, I may never fully know that chorus of refined flavors, but I will continue to learn to trust.

So I encourage you to buy some good “stinky” cheese and wine to enjoy with friends and talk about those “stinky” elements in your life right now.

People are always intrigued when they see the cheese room at Palate Food + Wine, probably because it is such a rarity in restaurants in Los Angeles. The room has big windows and a glass door so people are able to see all the cheeses, and often they will open the door, take a big whiff, and say, “I just wanted to smell the cheeses.” Or they will stop and take a picture of the room.

Recently, Jo Stougaard of the food blog My Last Bite came and dined (you can read her review here). While there she took some pictures of me at work, and she graciously emailed them to me.

Thanks Jo!

As a little update: Because of a person leaving, there has been some reshuffling of people. This means that I am now in garde manger. In garde manger, I help with plating cold appetizers, including the Porkfolio plate of various salamis and prosciuttos, the housemade pickles, potted mason jars, including pork rillettes, and salads. I am sad to leave the cheese room as I was enjoying learning about some of the great cheeses of the world, and passing along that information to the diners, but I am excited to have the opportunity to do more.

So the next time you visit Palate, you will not see me in the cheese room, but rather in the garde manger room.

It has been too long since I have blogged. Part of the reason has been that my life has just been changing quicker than I can keep of, let alone make sense of. So here is my best shot at filling in/reflecting on the past six months.

It only six months ago that I signed up for culinary school. I looked back at my blog entries, and saw that I posted on June 8, 2008 that I officially signed up for classes. On the night of August 17, I posted my preliminary thoughts about what the start of culinary school meant. I knew that starting culinary school was a huge step of faith for me, opening new places in my heart that had yet to be explored. Sure they had been scratched, but now I had a sense that they would lead to something even bigger.

At the time I described this step as walking into a pitch black room. I don’t know if this room is still pitch black or if the Lord has turned on the lights too quickly that I am now blinded. Or maybe He is simply illuminating the steps as I walk and as needed. At times the steps have been ones that have led to valleys where I cried and wept (the week that I totaled my car) and at times the steps have been to the highest mountains where my dreams came true (getting a job at Palate Food + Wine), both events happening within a month of each other.

On November 1, I was heading to Ty’s house to watch the Lakers game. At the time I was living in an apartment where to leave I always had to turn onto a very busy street which at times can be an almost blind turn. For this reason I was usually über-careful. For some reason on this night, for whatever reason, I did not see the car, and as I pulled out to make a left-hand turn, the car slammed into me. Praise the Lord that neither I nor the other driver was hurt. But now I left to pick up the pieces and sort through this accident and all that it stirred within me. My life was already so chaotic that I told the Lord that this was all too much. People came around me and walked with me through this time, and the Lord cared for me in ways that I needed as well, like providing a great new car.

To top it all off my birthday was that week, November 5 to be exact. On November 8, my parents took me to Palate Food + Wine for my birthday, a restaurant that I had been looking forward to visit for a really long time, considering it’s the top new restaurant in Los Angeles. What I failed to mention in my write-up of Palate is that when Brett Doherty came over and talked with me, he gave me his business card and told me to call him if I needed help finding a job or if I was ever interested in working at Palate. November 12, I am on the phone with Brett Doherty and by the end of our conversation, he asks me to send him my résumé to look into the possibility of me working part-time at Palate.

This was no small thing for me. In the week leading up to my visit there, I kept dreaming about the possibility of being offered a job to work there, but would always tell myself, “Andrew, don’t get your hopes up, as those kinds of things don’t happen to you.” But here the Lord is giving me a deep longing of mine.

On December 3, I received a call from Palate that they have a part-time opening in the cheese room, and that they would like me to come down for an interview on Friday, December 5. I left Palate Food + Wine that Friday with a job, starting on December 20. The plan was for me to work Thursday through Saturday nights, which would allow me to still continue in culinary school and in my seminary program. It was not going to be easy, but I thought I could manage that crazy of a schedule until I was done with culinary school.

About a week and a half into the job, Chef Gary Menes, the chef who hired me, asked if I would consider coming on full-time, which would mean taking a leave of absence from culinary school. What in the world was happening? I still felt like I had a ton to learn from culinary school, yet how could I pass up the opportunity to learn on the job at a top restaurant in Los Angeles? The more that I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense to drop out of culinary school and work full time. While I am not making a lot of money at all, at least I am not having to take out thousands of dollars in loans each month to live. So on Monday, January 5, 2009, I dropped out of culinary school.

Culinary school had been a great needed first step for me. Through attending, even for the short time, I realized that in some way, I am supposed to be involved with food. I also realized that I was good at cooking. Up until recently I would tell people that I simply follow recipes. Cooking is not that hard…just follow the recipe. I still believe that, but I also realize that the Lord has gifted me in certain areas of cooking. My chef instructors constantly told me that and it was evidenced by my scores and grades.

As a result of realizing my giftedness with food and cooking, I have also become more comfortable with myself, which only makes sense. I feel like I am developing into a full person. I am beginning to know myself as truly me and not what others think I should be or what I think others want me to be.

My head is still reeling from all that has taken place. I am still scared as I continue to walk in this new avenue of my life, but I am also excited to see what else develops. It definitely has not been an easy past six months, but I also would not trade it for anything. But this I know: I feel confident that I am where God wants me and will wait expectantly to see what doors He opens next.

On Saturday, November 8, my family and I celebrated my birthday by visiting Palate Food + Wine in Glendale, CA. I had been wanting to visit this restaurant for awhile, as people have been raving about it since it opened in the Spring 2008. Here is a sampling: Jonathan Gold’s review, LA Times’ review and EatingLA’s review.

If you are looking for a quick review, here it is: stop what you are doing, call Palate and go. You may have to wait a month, but it will only allow you to get more and more excited about what awaits you.

Palate is run by Octavio Becerra, who for years worked for the Patina Group, and was mentored by the great former Patina chef Joachim Splichal. I have never been to Patina, so I cannot compare how Octavio’s personal take on food compares with Joachim Splichal’s, but needless to say Octavio clearly knows what he is doing, as the food that I tasted on Saturday night was absolutely amazing. Having read quite a few reviews, I went in with incredibly high expectations, and not only did Palate meet the expectations, they far exceeded them. Octavio was not actually in the kitchen on Saturday night, as he was taking the weekend off to take his family camping, and the food was still incredible, which is a testament to the people that Octavio has hired and the culture that he has already created in his kitchen.

What I loved most about Palate is that the food is completely unpretentious. It is simple in a very good way, where the ingredients speak for themselves. The plating is wonderfully basic, so you know exactly what you are eating. The ingredients are fresh. I love the fact that on the website you can see exactly where Palate is buying their ingredients from. Palate has that warm, cozy feel somewhat akin to being invited into someone’s home and kitchen for an exquisite meal.

The staff at Palate was incredibly friendly and nice, and went out of their way to make sure I had a memorable experience. I had called Palate a few weeks ago to ask if I could meet Octavio, telling them that I am in culinary school. As soon as I stepped into the restaurant and told the hostess my name, she apologized profusely because Octavio had decided to take the weekend off to go camping with his family. During the course of the evening, Francois Renaud, the general manager, came over to the table to apologize again, and asked me about culinary school. To top it all off Brett Doherty, Octavio’s partner, if I remember correctly also came over and talked to me and asked if he could be of assistance to me. Those instances are what make Palate special to me—making sure each guest is having the highest quality experience possible.

As soon as we were seated, we were greeted with a plate of freshly baked bread, plus fresh butter that is made in house. The fact that the butter is made in house should clue you in to the attention to detail that informs everything that Palate does.

In regards to the wine, Palate offers a good selection of wines from smaller wineries with a heavy emphasis on European wines. I prefer a good bottle of red wine over white, any day, week or month. And since Palate’s cuisine features lighter flavors (i.e., no strong beef dishes), I had already made up my mind that a bottle of burgundy would be ideal, plus a 2005 Burgundy might top my list of favorite wines right now. And it really was perfectly suited for the cuisine.

We started with a plate of porkfolio, as Palate cures their own meats. The meats were good, but I have to confess that I do not know enough about these meats to give a well informed opinion. I found the prosciutto to be the best. Palate also does mason jars filled with different spreads. We tried the potted duck rillettes. The duck was cooked until amazingly fork tender, and had great flavor. When you visit, a mason jar is a definite must. Palate is all about the pork, and they usually have a mason jar filled with pork, which would probably be better than the duck.

The food is meant to share, so we ordered six different salads and passed (there were seven of us total). We tried the soup, celery root (not a huge celery fan). The persimmon, prosciutto, wild arugula, cider vinaigrette was amazing – the combination of the sweetness of the persimmon, the salty richness of the prosciutto, and the peppery bite of arugula were a perfect combination (pictured to the left). The roasted beet salad also had a great flavor to it, being paired with goat cheese. Beth, my older sister, tried the roasted carrot salad with yogurt cheese, wild arugula and chick peas. I did not try a bite, but she seemed to really enjoy it.

But it was Palate’s main courses that shone. I ordered the crispy sweetbreads, mainly because I had never had them, and wanted to try them. Just so we are clear, crispy sweetbreads involve no bread and no sweetness. They are rather the thymus gland from veal. I enjoyed the taste, but preferred other dishes to the sweetbreads. I also ordered the braised oxtail that was incredibly tender and moist (pictured on the left). The meat melted in your mouth, yet had an incredibly rich flavor. The oxtail was topped with the marrow that had been fried, so that it was crispy on the outside, yet custardy smooth inside (genius!).

My dad ordered the pork trotters, just a nicer word for feet (pictured). I do not know what magic they performed on the pork, but it was even more tender than the oxtail. And then the taste: smoky ham goodness. I have told people, think of the best smoked ham you can think of then amplify it, and top it off with a tenderness that took the dish from outstanding to just straight ridiculous.

My brother-in-law ordered the pork belly (pictured below), which has gotten the most outstanding reviews from people. I only had one bite, so it is tough to make a really informed opinion, but with the pork trotters being so good, I don’t think it is fair to compare.

Anna, my youngest sister, ordered the duck, which was the one dish that somewhat disappointed me, but I think it is a difference in preference of preparation. Duck has an incredibly thick piece of fat in between the skin and the meat. Most preparations call for rendering that duck fat; however, Palate decided not to render it. While I love fat, duck fat is very chewy, unlike the pork fat that melted in my mouth. The duck was still cooked perfectly. I am sure that Octavio has a great reason for preparing the duck the way he does, which I would love to hear.

Deborah, my middle sister, ordered the yellow snapper. And my mom ordered the Pacific black sea bass. I only had a bite from each, but the fish was again perfectly cooked. It was moist and tender and fresh.

For dessert, Palate offers three items; however, cheese is their real specialty. As a family then we ordered one of each of the desserts (if you go, make sure to get the chocolate pudding—amazing). Beth, my oldest sister, Deborah, the middle one, and I all split a cheese platter. They have two of my favorite cheeses: Epoisses and St. Agur Bleu, so I stuck with those, while our waitress put together a platter for Deborah and Beth consisting of a cow’s cheese, a sheep’s cheese, and a goat cheese. Our waitress also picked out a beautiful sweet French red wine for my cheeses that paired beautifully.

Palate is every bit as good as others have said. If you are looking for a memorable evening to spend with friends or family, I would highly recommend Palate Food + Wine, but just be sure to call at least a month ahead to get reservations as it might be the most talked about restaurant in Los Angeles right now.

One of the most enjoyable techniques that I have learned thus far in culinary school is making risotto. I had never made risotto before, as I had thought of it as a difficult dish to make. In talking to others, there does seem to be this aura surrounding risotto where people think of it as a dish only trained chefs can make. In actuality, while more difficult than making steamed rice and rice pilaf, risotto is not that difficult if you understand a few simple steps.

First a little about risotto. Risotto is an Italian rice dish made with Arborio rice (available at Trader Joe’s and most grocery stores in the rice section); it is not a pasta dish. The objective in making risotto is to have the end product be creamy; the risotto should be able to fall upon itself—you should not be able to hold a form or a shape. The creamy texture is not achieved through the addition of cream or any dairy, but rather through the gelatinization of the starches in the rice through gentle heating, stirring and the addition of liquid.

There are five general steps in making risotto.

1. Soffrito—this is the fat and flavor for the dish (usually through sweating onion or other aromatics in butter).
2. Riso—here you would pearl or sauté the rice (you just want to heat the rice through).
3. Vino—here you add wine and reduce au sec, meaning almost dry.
4. Brodo—then you start adding hot stock or broth in increments (use low sodium so that you can control the amount of salt yourself), each time adding enough to cover the rice, stirring until the liquid is absorbed. (Some people say that you have to constantly stir the rice, which is what makes the dish a little more intensive.) You want to cook the risotto until the rice is al dente, like you would cook pasta. What this means is that the grains are cooked until they are still firm, not mushy, but not crunchy. The individual grains should still have a bite to them, but they should not have a chalky texture to them.
5. Condimenti—when the rice is almost done cooking, you add the remaining flavors that would define the risotto, including grated parmesan cheese (most risottos that I have seen include parmesan cheese in them). For instance if you were making a risotto con fungi (mushrooms), you would add the mushrooms and the parmesan cheese at this point. You would also season with salt and pepper. Serve the risotto immediately as it does not keep well.

After making risotto a few times in class, I wanted to experiment with different flavors in risotto. One of my favorite flavor combinations is bleu cheese and chipotles in adobo sauce. The sharpness and earthiness of bleu cheese pairs beautifully with the smokiness and spiciness of chipotles. So I decided to try a chipotle bleu cheese risotto.

My biggest question was how to add the chipotle flavor without overwhelming people with too much spice. My goal was to have enough so that people will know that it is there, but not too much where it is too spicy to enjoy. I talked with one of my chef instructors about it, and he suggested simply adding the adobo sauce to the stock or broth. As I began to simmer the broth, I added the adobo sauce. I thought I had added too much up front, so I poured out some of the broth and diluted with water. What I did not account for is the spice being tamed down once it was added to the rice, so I added more adobo sauce towards the end of cooking. I guess this is better than having too spicy of a risotto.

The other question I had was what type of bleu cheese to use: Maytag, Danish, Stilton (English) or Roquefort (French)? I went to Trader Joe’s to see what they had, and they had the Stilton, Danish, and Roquefort, so I bought all three in order to taste all of them, including dipping them in the adobo sauce to know how each cheese would pair. I was cooking with Debbie Schuster, one of my major partners in food explorations.

We first tried the bleu cheese by themselves. The Stilton had a flavor like a mild cheddar but with the added pungency of bleu cheese. It had a dull flavor, lacking sharpness. Debbie like the Stilton best by itself, but with the adobo sauce, the cheese did not contrast with the sauce and was almost overpowered by it.

Next came the Danish Bleu Cheese, also known as Danablu cheese. This cheese had a nice sharpness to it. It was also creamier than the Stilton. It really fell right between the Stilton and the Roquefort. I actually did not try this one with the adobo.

Finally we tasted the Roquefort. This was my favorite, as it was sharp, bright yet still earthy, bold, and somewhat just nasty, everything a bleu cheese should be. It was also the creamiest of the three. And with the adobo, the sharpness of the Roquefort came through beautifully, so that we tasted the best of both the cheese and the adobo. So we decided on using the Roquefort.

I made the risotto, and towards the end started adding the cheese and a little more adobo. I knew a little would go a long way, so I started small with both. Obviously both Roquefort and adobo sauce are bold flavors, so I knew that I was going to have a bold risotto, but I was hoping to not overwhelm the guests. I also added some sautéed mushrooms and a little shaved parmesan cheese. The end product was exactly what I had hoped for: both the adobo and the Roquefort came through on the palate without overwhelming. It was just enough spice to let one know that it was there, but not enough that prevented one from eating a full portion.

I wish I could give you a full break down of the recipe, but I did not measure how much adobo sauce I used or cheese. But here is a rough break down to serve about six people.

• ½ large onion, small dice
• 4 TBSP unsalted butter
• 2 cups Arborio rice
• 6 oz white wine
• 7 cups low-sodium broth or stock, flavored with maybe 2-3 tsp adobo sauce (you won’t use it all, but better to have too much than too little)
• Roquefort to taste
• Adobo sauce to taste
• Grated parmesan cheese to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Sautéed mushrooms

I served the risotto with Abadia Retuerta 2004 Seleccion Especial, a Spanish red wine made from 75% Tempranillo, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Merlot. I knew that a Spanish red would be perfect with this risotto, as Spanish reds can stand up to some heat, plus they have a some earthy tones to them which I thought would complement the bleu cheese. I thought it paired really nicely with the dish.

I am finding that as I continue to learn more and more at culinary school my confidence to experiment and create continues to grow. A year ago I never would have had the confidence to create my own recipe, but by learning techniques at school and trusting my knowledge, I am discovering that I have the ability to create.