The Chef Apprentice

When I started this apprenticeship in April, many of my friends and colleagues posed an obvious question: "Do you plan to pursue a restaurant career?"

At the time, I wasn't entirely sure. All I knew is that I wanted to take my life in an adventurous direction, and see where it would lead.

As I had hoped, it led to nearly six months of culinary discovery. It led to an extraordinary group of chefs and cooks at Oliveto, whose energy and creativity were an inspiration.

Yet even with the lure of the kitchen, there were aspects of my old life I missed.

Civic engagement, chasing down facts, holding politicians accountable - these are the reasons I got into journalism. I missed the buzz of a newsroom that is hot on a big story, and the collaboration involved with turning out a fine piece of writing.

Now the mystery has been solved. Starting at the end of the month, I'll be The Bee's new editorial page editor. The paper made the announcement on Friday.

As you might expect, the prospect of a chef apprentice becoming an opinions chef is just too delicious for some readers to resist. As one of them wrote me in an email, "Your stint as an apprentice cook will have you well prepared for this tough job...Once you cook up an idea for an editorial, you'll 'grille' your subjects, add a dash of eloquence and set the table for change."

Undoubtedly, that won't be last such joke I'll hear during this kitchen transition. ("Out of the frying pan, into the fire," etc.) All I ask is that you get them out of your system as quickly as possible.

So what will become of this blog and my column?

I regret to say, they will be coming a conclusion - but not immediately.

For the next few weeks, I'll be posting some remaining tips and musings, culled from my laptop and various notebooks.

I also hope to try out a few more Oliveto recipes in my home kitchen, so I can leave you with some food - and some food for thought.

So continue reading, and keep cooking. I intend to do so.

For me, cooking is great profession, but it is also the ultimate way to express yourself and unwind after a long day. As the food writer Marcella Hazen has noted, cooking is an art form, and you get to eat it too.

My recent KQED post on how the Oliveto staff is responding to food critic Michael Bauer's recent negative review has created a bit of buzz in the Bay Area.

Paolo at Eater SF called my piece "a thoughtful post mortem," and questioned why Bauer devoted a mere 450 words to his review.

John Birdsall of SF Foodie writes that I "struggled to parse Michael Bauer's recent star-stripping of Oakland's Oliveto."

I did? Actually, I didn't spend much time parsing Bauer's prose. I just struggled to understand how he could write such a completely one-sided smackdown.

Adam Martin of Grubstreet San Francisco filed the most interesting response, with a post entitled "Oliveto Review Rebuttal Calls Out Bauer's Methods."

In his piece, Martin delves into the question of whether food critics have too much power. (In my mind, they clearly do, but only because eaters put so much trust in them. You wouldn't depend on a single newspaper editorial to influence how you vote. Why would you depend on a single review to determine where you eat?)

As Martin writes:

While critics do need to be careful when handing out bad reviews, one question we had about the Oliveto take-down was the language: A two-star review of Donato on August 16 read like an encouraging pep talk ("Every flaw was easily fixable"), while Oliveto's felt more like a eulogy ("Once the leader of the pack, Oliveto now trails"). It's true that these two restaurants have different histories and are in different price ranges, but still, we'd like to see some consistency.

There are also several lively comments at bottom of my original KQED blog post. Many of them bash Oliveto, suggesting the restaurant has some repair work to do with previous customers. But one commenter, Eric Christenson, detailed why he thinks Oliveto's food has improved under Chef Paul Canales.

The execution and consistency of the dishes has improved. Paul's travels and the inspiration from various Italian regional influences matched with locally produced ingredients are readily apparent. For those who have not seen and soon tasted the current Tomato menu I would say you have missed on some very fine cooking. For those who have not seen the progression of Oliveto's cooking because they did not have the opportunity, I'm sorry for you.

Amen. 

As expected, defenders of the Holy House of BBQ have taken aim against my recent heresy arguing for oven roasting of ribs, instead of use of a grill or barbecue.

Several readers claimed my method would result in dry ribs. "Horrible way to cook ribs," said one anonymous commenter. "At least Stuart doesn't boil them first," said another.

No problem, dudes. If you don't want to try my dry rub and over-roasting method, stick with your own. It's a free country.

All I know is that my recipe has produced consistently moist, flavorful, country-style ribs that get devoured at parties.

The "anony-mice" are missing out. The photo to the right shows what they missing.

One of the best parts of this gig is hearing from food lovers so daring they'd try a recipe I suggested.

And they continue to do so.

Dave from Sacramento wrote me a week ago, wondering if he could use a mandolin instead of a knife to make a shaved asparagus salad. That dish was featured in this column and a blog entry a few weeks ago.

"Why not?," I replied.

So Dave used the 1/8 inch setting on his mandolin, and then dressed the asparagus shavings with lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.

"My wife thought the results were delicious," he wrote, and he even sent along a photo, which you can see above.

Bill from Carmichael was interested in the pork sausage I helped make with the restaurant's chefs, described in a recent column and a longer blog post.

"What I liked about it was that they varied their ingredients to make a slight twist on a standard recipe," Bill wrote. He also offered what he called "one of the best sausage sites on the internet," which you can find here.

Jock from Sacramento said he also enjoyed the sausage column, and not just because I used it to make fun of state legislators.

When I was a small lad, I would sit in the kitchen and watch as my mother would grind chunks of the pork by hand and stuff the meat into hog casings through a funnel resembling a small, much abused trumpet. My job changed over the years from pricking the air pockets with a small needle at her direction, to tossing an occasional slice of onion into the grinder, to cranking the grinder handle myself.

Ah, yes. I'm glad someone can remember the days when families made food by hand, with kids and parents spending time together in the kitchen. Jock clearly is dating himself. When were you born, dude, in the 1920s?

Just kidding. 

Christine from Sacramento had this comment about the weekly columns. (She says she is not a regular reader of the blog.)

It's fun to read about you, an accomplished journalist, pursuing an interest you (and many of us) enjoy. I can imagine myself in your shoes--you're taking this adventure on my behalf...

My suggestion is to keep writing about the very unique food Oliveto creates or interesting techniques. Also, throw in some information we might be able to use at home (like unusual/fresh/in season produce we haven't considered).

Thank you, Christine. I will keep writing about Oliveto techniques and seasonal produce.

And if anyone else out there has comments or questions about recipes or the life of a restaurant galley slave, please send them along. You can comment below or email me at sleavenworth@sacbee.com.

My previous entry on preparing monkfish liver provoked a few responses.

Some readers wanted to know what the final dish looked like. I don't have a great photo (the chefs dug into this "tester" plate before I could get my camera focused) but the photo to the right gives you a general sense.

The sauce was dark and tangy, and the fava beans and frisee provided a nice contrast, in color and texture, to the sauteed livers.

One reader, Sancho, wondered if monkfish could be farm raised, presumably as a way to meet market demand without further pressure on wild fish.

The answer is no. According to a fact sheet updated this month by the National Marine Fisheries Service, "There is currently no commercial aquaculture of monkfish in the U.S."

I will continue my investigations on the status of monkfish. It could be my qualms on the commercial trade of this fish are misplaced. Perhaps not. I'll keep you posted.

The Chef Apprentice continues to receive a delicious array of responses from readers who are tracking my kitchen (mis)adventures.

One reader, Tim from Marysville, has invited me to work as a pit master at the International Pit Barbecue Cookers Association state championship contest, to be held June 5-7 in Penn Valley.

Should I do it?

Saddleshoos, author of A Rockridge Life, is jealous of my apprenticeship and has set up a poll to see if her readers are also jealous. Josh Morgan, author of Don't Eat The Shrimp, highlights my blog as some of "the interesting online content at The Bee." (Thanks, Josh.)

Steven Karoly, a Sierra camp cook who writes 'Round the Chuckbox, says "It's nice to read a blog where the author writes with the style and technique of a journalist, but has the heart of a cook." (Thanks, Steve!)

And then there are the skeptics. Tucker Shaw, food writer for the Denver Post, says my first posting was "soaked in optimism." (Whaaa? Wasn't that the post where I sliced into my thumb within my first half hour?)

Paolo, a blogger at SFeater, described my apprenticeship as an "experiment/stunt." (He's half right. It is an experiment, but not a stunt.)

And I have one big name reader in New York. After I wrote on item about "On the Line," the book co-written by Eric Ripert, chef at Le Bernardin, I received a nice email note from Ripert, thanking me for the blog item.

"Indeed you are so right. Chefs love cookbooks!," Ripert wrote. "A few years ago I brought my entire collection into the restaurant and we created a little 'library' in our offices."

That's a class act - further proof that not all chefs are the ogres depicted in "Kitchen Confidential."

But there I go again - soaking in optimism.

In my opening installment that described my first day at Oliveto, Chef Paul Canales used his small French paring knife to 'turn' a potato, and then he handed it to me to do the same on a whole bucket of spuds.

That prompted several readers to ask: Why turn a potato? Why not use a peeler? What is the advantage of turning and paring it with a sharp knife, potential risking a thumb?

It's a reasonable question, and one I was asked again today by Jeffrey Callison on his radio show, "Insight," on Capitol Public Radio. (Find the archive of the interview here.)

The answer is fairly easy. If you are working with a big russet potato, which may be used for dicing or slicing, a potato peeler is fine. But if you are working with a smaller new potato, such as Yukon Gold, you might want to turn it and pare it, particularly if you want to shape all of the spuds into uniform shapes so they cook in a consistent manner.

Chef Canales also had this to add: "On the day you came in, I needed someone to turn some potatoes. So you were there, and I needed potatoes, so I had you turn a few."

So there. It wasn't just an exercise in hazing, or a brutal audition, as some have surmised. The chef needed some spuds. And as we have learned in the kitchen, the chef is always right. Always. 

Photo by The Bee's Carl Costas of me "turning" a potato.

Since launching the Chef Apprentice blog a week ago, readers and amateur chefs have sent me a number of touching responses.

"Some of us are living a dream through you."

"I'm doing this whole process vicariously through your experience."

"You are on a journey that will both inspire and fulfill a cook's need for adventure."

I also received questions. One of the best came from Otis, a retired commercial truck driver from Fresno, who sent me an email entitled, "Can I be a chef 2?"

In a subsequent email, Otis told me he's taking culinary classes at his city college and likes Cajun cuisine and food with Asian influences. He wants to know where to start.

"My question to you is: Can I become apprentice chef in training like you?" Otis wrote in an email. "If so, where at?  And to whom do I communicate this interest to?"

I was so taken aback by this question that I decided to pose it to Paul Canales, the executive chef of Oliveto. Here's Paul's advice: