It’s been difficult to write lately; I’ve been too picky.  I’ve been to selective.  I have no time to be picky.  I’ve been trying too hard to come up with something emotionally sweeping, something simply fraught with import.  Fuck all that.  Writing for me should spout, flow from the fingers in a furious foray, shout out.  With words.  Fuck all that, too.  I need to throw a turd at the wall and hope it sticks, and doesn’t smell.  Everybody and his brother has a silly blog.  I think one that people read should be compelling and personal and raw and funny.  Sometimes offensive, yes.  Like humans.  Should it give information?  Sure.  Why not?  But what’s to prevent you, faithful reader of the blogosphere, from getting that information somewhere else?  The net is vast and boundless.  Information is truly everywhere, input available at any time and any place.  30 second clips and jpegs and words so many words swirl in a whirlwind none of these words will wind up heard.  Somewhere between Twitter and WordPress lies the perfect blog.  Random yet poingant, thoughtful or not.  Unique and engaging but quickly, please, I’ve got four tabs open.

Hello! I recently found your site online and have become somewhat obsessed. I’ve looked through all your plated desserts and they are beautiful! I am currently enrolled in culinary school as a prospective pastry chef and found your recipe for the chocolate whiskey cake! I am actually making this at school right now for our plated desserts in the restaurant on campus (inspired by your post.)  I just wanted to let you know that its genius. I switched out makers mark for Evan Williams (sour mash) and it tastes amazing!  So I guess I’m writing to thank you for having an awesome blog and such in depth directions and whatnot. not only do I get a giggle out of your words, but I’ve learned a lot! Keep it coming!

I stood behind Chef Jack and watched him address the crowd.  His words numbed me, the lights were warm and dazzling.  My body was worked and my brain was out of breath, the past weeks whirlwind had me winded.  Having been pitted against a punishing prep list, long days and busy nights, I end up here.  On a stage, people applauding; dessert service forks and tinkling wine glasses, laughter in my ears.  My mind flashed back onstage, the past year, month, week, moment.  My career’s skyrocket since meeting Jack and starting at Ten-01. Working, always working.  So many great dinners, so many memories.  Perez and I working Sunday before investor sponsored staff party. This whole day, prepping and plating; flashing in my mind.  We just kicked out the best dinner this group’s seen, over a thousand plates over five courses in 2 hours. I left the hall elated and grabbed an icy cold bottle of white and hit the showers.  That night, its was late night shots and darts with one of the best chefs I’ll meet, a friend and mentor. He believed in my talent and demanded my proper execution, encouraging and strong.  It was an easy parting for him and I; just farewell, both sure of our permanent friendship. Besides, I know he’ll never really get lost out there.  Our paths will cross again.

For New Year’s Eve I created Chocolate 3 ways form of Ibarra Hot Chocolate, Flourless cake with Basil Ice Cream, and Milk Chocolate Panna Cotta.  Last year I did Chocolate 4 ways, so next year it will probably be a Duo.  I don’t know if I’m getting more refined or more lazy.  In the post-holiday slow season I’ve been busy as hell trying to stay busy.  I received an email to make dessert for this years IPNC event, a 400 person catering mission.  I’ve been developing a new boozy chocolate candy line (above,) brainstorming a new dessert menu, and I’ve even started writing on the restaurant’s blog. This last bit is excites me.  I’ve got some great ideas to promote our food and drink, as well as write some cool pieces on my fellow awesome people; the staff at ten-01!  Once I work out some of the kinks in the wordpress theme, we’ll have how-to videos, hella pics, and lots of great writing by yours truly.  I’ll begin by creating bios for everyone.  When that person is mentioned in a post, I can link back to thier bio, and create a richer experience.  Anyhoo…my faithful readers needed fret, my work writing will be done at work, so I’ll see have plenty of time to continue publishing great content here at mrjeffmccarthy.com. For example, here’s a video of Perez breaking down a chicken while Chef heckles him.  At first I thought the video was ruined, but after watching it on YouTube a couple of times, it started to grow on me.  Stay tuned!!

IDEAS IN FOOD -The single most engaging food blog on the web.  The information and inspiration that this site provides is huge amenity to the food world.  The frequent updates from this husband and wife teams blog entice my tongue and stretch my perceptions of what can be done with food.  A recent post about short ribs still has me drooling.  Check out their ideas on Foie Gras and Hot Ice Cream. Chefs Aki and Alex write a web column for Popular Science, called Kitchen Alchemy, and can also be followed on Twitter.  They even appeared on Food Network.  Congratulations to these two brilliant Chefs on their new baby!!

eggbeater-  When you Google “Pastry Chef Blog” the first hit you get is eggbeater.  Shuna fish Lydon a gift to this planet.  Her words, so often, have spoken right to the heart of me; seen me.  I have also learned a ton from her.  Be sure to explore her recipes, read her posts on Chefdom, and Visit her Flickr page.  You can check her out on Twitter, as well.  From what I gather, she’s just moved to London, and is running a retail operation.  I feel Shuna…I think that’s why I enjoy reading her blog so much.

Line Cook- high up in the rankings for Google search “line cook,” you’ll find this great blog.  Intuitive musings about restaurant life, pictures of the good food at nopa in San Francisco, and just good reading.  On a personal level I don’t know much about Line Cook’s author, I think his name is Richie.  I know he owns a rabbit and writes this kick ass blog. He cooks delicious looking food.  His writing has made me pensively reflect on my career, and wax poetic about where it will lead. He has a knack for describing kitchen situations vividly, using cook jargon fluidly.  His post about pastry certainly struck a chord. I know Ruhlman, Shuna, and even Micheal Laiskonis all read, so your in good company.  Read into the archives, you’ll find a lot of good stuff. This blog is creating a buzz on the web, and I couldn’t be happier.  If you work in a kitchen, you should be reading this.

David Lebovitz-  I have benefited greatly from this blog, as well as the man’s book The Perfect Scoop.  His down to earth approach to writing and great recipes have given me great ideas.  His Salted Caramel Ice Cream is one of my favorite recipes of all time.  I’ve used it as a base for both raspberry and apple.  He loves eating as much as I do I think, and writes about it often.  He also lives in Paris, of which I am jealous.  His site contains an extensive recipe section, blurbs about his books, and of course tons of great interesting content. He’s also tweeting like crazy, and who isn’t these days?

Ruhlman-  The dog-eared copies of his book The Soul of Chef are passed around among cooks everywhere, seen almost as frequently as Kitchen Confidential. He sometimes judges Iron Chef America, was one of the judges of Next Iron Chef.  He went on to write The French Laundry Cookbook with TK, and book with Eric Ripert from Le Bernardin. He has also written one of the most definitve volumes on Charcutertie, the art of cured meats.  He latest book with TK, the eye-popping Under Pressure, I covet highly.  As you might imagine, a blog written by this guy has got to be good.  And it is.  Frequently updated and packed with great recipes, insights, and pictures,  it’s well worth the bookmark.

Michael Laiskonis- Last but not least, the blog of one of my personal heroes, the pastry chef at world reknowned Le Bernardin in New York, Micheal Laiskonis.  His posts are always well written and packed with information and insight, as well as glimpses of whats it’s like at Le Bernardin.  His desserts are amazing, and when he posts a recipe, I always pore over it repeatedly, trying to glean what it is to be a world class pastry chef.  I have a special file on my computer for his recipes.  Apparently, he was thinking of quitting the blog, but instead started a second one. His blog is a benchmark for Chef’s everywhere.  Great photos, exceptional writing, profound insight and luminous inspiration.

So there’s my list peeps, hope you enjoyed it.  Now go back to reading Reddit.  Or Digg, if your one of those types.

We lived in limbo for a few days, concerned about our kitchen. The broken water pipe had been connected to the restaurants heat system, which we really needed to open.  The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and would soon prove to be one of Portland history’s most devastating storms. On Thursday around noon, after a morning of nail biting and pacing, my buddy Nate called me; “Let’s go night riding at Ski Bowl!”  I had no excuse, he was offering me a free lift ticket. I called Perez to see if he wanted in, I knew he was going just as stir crazy as I was. The city of Portland had shut down; chain-slapping buses spun sporadicly in the falling fluff.  We knew the mountain had been dumped on.  We rallied around 4 pm to embark on a two and a half hour journey in Nate’s 78 VW Bus.  We chained up around Rhododendron; the roads were getting nastier the higer up we got.  Perez was periodically recieving phone calls from our bosses, keeping us posted about the restaurant.  After much back and forth, we learned that we’d be closed until next week.  Our concerns lifted, an icy updraft, when we saw the lights of Ski Bowl. Heavy snowfall blanketed the mountain, and we were soon strapped in and smiling. We drank PBRs as we ascended the lift, smiling and swinging.  We raged the gnar for three hours or so, carving powder and bally-hooing to each other as we mached by.  I missed the mountain life.  Everything makes sense when you can carve powder turns.  We finished our beers in the parking lot and headed home.  The weekend went by slowly.  The skies were gray the roads were gray and the snow that covered everything was gray.  I felt the walls closing in; I lost myself in the web.  I annoyed my dogs with guitar and no walks.  I happily braved Tri-met to meet Chef and Perez on Sunday at the restaurant. I was prepping Tabla desserts and they were cleaning out the walk-in.  We crammed all we could into our freezers, but a good amount of food was about to spoil.  Not surprisingly,  Perez and I immediately volunteered to cook and eat the food.  It would be a crime of the highest order not to.  A damn shame.  We packed up what we could, and grabbing beer near 4th, caught a bus to my place.  We hit the grocery to augment our booty.  We drank and cooked and cranked music. We thrashed my little kitchen and dirtied every pot, pan and dish.  We even fired up Old Blue. My fiancee was out of town so it seemed the thing to do. We cooked and ate, carrying on and finally enjoying a bit of this down time…by cooking.  It made life feel semi-normal.  Through all the bedlam, the food was there for us.  We got back into the restaurant early in the week and re-prepped everything we had lost. Teddy put our kitchen back together.  Christmas day came and went. The rains finally came and washed away the slush and snow, the city awoke.  People mingled in the streets, then filled the seats in the dining room.  Smiling servers ferried food to grinning guests.  A storm had come, and in it’s wake a sharper image, clarity. I felt as if the people around me were looking at each other a bit different, feeling a warmer glow. I felt an in-the-trenches level oneness, a communal happiness to be back at work. Sometimes shit happens, and all you can do is dive in and swim.

If you aren’t reading IDEAS IN FOOD, my faithful readers, You should be.  I look forward to their frequent blog posts.  Food Porn in it’s purest form.  Innovation through science.  Pictured here is chicken skin crusted skate with rhubarb mustard, shrimp spaetzle, arugula and fresh bergamot.  Chicken skin crusted!?!  And what the hell is bergamot?  Seriously, Cheers to you Ideas In Food Chefs.  I want to eat your blog.  How could I not?  32 preparations of Foie Gras?  And what about Hot Ice Cream?  Amazing stuff here guys.  Best food in the Blogosphere.  Look at this Torchon!!