A peek in the kitchen at Primo

Chef Kelly let Lily take a whole bunch of pictures in the kitchen at Primo. She posted a handful of the artsy food shots on her photo blog. I'm posting some of the action shots she took here, as some of them came out great:

A view from the bakery

Cool extendable heat lamps

The hot line

Wood oven, with my Pearl Jam T-shirt blocking the way

Plating some food

Espresso ice cream float with zeppole

Chef Kelly

At all of the restaurants I've worked at so far, I've been bothered by the amount of food that gets throw away. If something is spoiled? Garbage. Customers left half their steak on their plate and don't want to take it home? Garbage. Most people who do not work at restaurants would be surprised at how much is wasted. At Primo, almost everything either consumed or recycled. Any food that doesn't end up in peoples' bellies is either fed to the pigs or composted for the garden. Recycling is big at Primo - all the cardboard boxes, all the plastic, glass, and tin containers get recycled - they even cut up old menus and use them instead of doilies or coasters! The concept of "use everything waste nothing" extends beyond material goods. Cooks in the kitchen hardly ever raise their voices - everybody communicates as quietly as possible so that the overall noise level in the kitchen is serene.

The food in Rockland is pretty good! I had a couple of great shrimp rolls at Rockland Cafe downtown, and a great steak sandwich with aioli and fried onions at The Black Bull, a bar where Primo folk go late at night after work. There is also a great (but expensive) specialty foods market, where Lily and I got some wild boar bacon, soppresata, some spices, and a chunk of Bra cheese. All in all it's a great little town for food.

-Wax

Getting the hang of it

Today was my third day at Primo, and I'm starting to feel a little less anxious and a little more comfortable. Today I worked the morning shift with Chef Kelly starting at 9:00. I was exhausted after working the afternoon-night shift the past two days, mostly because I haven't been working for the past few weeks, but today after work I feel completely energized...and hungry.

I'm still in the mouth-watering phase of wanting to eat every plate I see at the pass. I feel like after a while working at a restaurant, I get desensitized from the food. Even though everything still tastes great, working with the food day after day after day makes you crave it less and less. I'm pretty sure I won't even approach that phenomenon during my two weeks at Primo. Lily and I are going to eat at the bar in a few minutes.

I'm very impressed with how thoroughly Primo is cleaned on a nightly basis. Breaking down and cleaning up after service is a two hour process, as the whole line gets thoroughly scrubbed every night, including all stovetop burners, grill grates, and hoods. Chef likes it spotless when she comes in every morning, rightfully so.

Lily is staying busy by helping out in the gardens. Yesterday she harvested two bus tubs of favas (of which I ended up shelling most) and lots of garlic, which gets hung under the porch to cure for a few weeks. Almost all garlic you buy at the grocery store or use at a restaurant is cured, but yesterday we peeled some of the straggly bulbs that Lily helped harvest right away, before curing. Chef explained that the straggly stuff would go moldy if it cured, so it's best used right away. Fresh garlic has a wonderful aroma, and to me it tastes much better than the cured stuff. But then again, I haven't tasted Primo's cured garlic yet.

So far I've been doing a lot of prep work and then I've been observing and shadowing during service. Hopefully towards the end of my stage I'll get to work a station or two on the line for a couple nights. The system of fire sequence they have is very tight and logical, which is just one reason why I really want to work my way onto the line. So far Chef Kelly has been very accommodating with everything I've wanted to do in the kitchen, but we'll see. First I have to remember everyone's names!

-Wax

Arrived at Primo

Lily and I arrived at Primo in Rockland, Maine on Monday. The restaurant's gardens look beautiful, with flower beds in full bloom and vegetables ripe for harvest. Chef Kelly is letting us park the camper in the employee parking lot, where we can be hooked up to an outdoor electrical outlet. It's very nice to not have to pay for campsite fees during peak season here in Maine.

My first day working was yesterday. The kitchen is huge compared to La Morra, and it feels like a luxury to have so much counter space to work on. Last night while observing service, at one point they had three swordfish left but no more on the baby fennel bulbs that accompany the fish. They asked me to fetch a few baby bulbs, so I went out back to the garden and picked a few fennel bulbs out of the ground! A few minutes later I had them washed and fabricated, ready for the grill cook to use on his last few orders of sword. It's cool to see how quickly something can go from in the ground to on a plate.

Here are a couple pictures of the pigs and the garden:







As a side note, our herbs are growing like crazy now that they've settled into their pots. Space is tight though and they're competing fiercely, but all the herbs - basil, chives, marjoram, oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme - are looking very healthy. Here are a couple pictures:




-Wax

Welcome to Wax's food journal

In this blog, I'll be writing about road food around the country, restaurants I work at along our trip , and things I cook inside and outside our camper.

I have three main goals for this trip regarding food.

1) Eat some very good true American food, such as different styles of barbecue, Cajun/Creole and "California cuisine"
2) Work at some excellent restaurants, including one really good BBQ place
3) Cook good food for Lily and myself

Our first stop for road food (and only stop so far) was a pizza place in Acton, Ma called Sorrento's Pizza. They make excellent wood-burning brick oven pizza. We both got slices topped with tri-colored tortellini, pesto, and mozzarella. I must say it's probably one of the ten best slices of pizza I've had in my life. Pasta on pizza is great - our friends Keith and Sara brought us to another Sorrento's near New City, NY (these two aren't connected) a couple times where they served penne a'la vodka pizza, which even more weighty on the delicious scale.

A little while before we left for our trip, Lily and I planted basil, oregano, marjoram, chives, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in three small windowsill-type planters. We fitted the planters with hooks to rest on our ladder outside for sunlight, and when we are driving we stow them in the shower. It's so nice to have herbs ready at our disposal whenever we want them. We'll be cooking for ourselves a lot on this trip, and herbs are best eaten right after you pick them. Some of the herbs are already growing like crazy. Pictures will come soon.

Yesterday we bought half a whole ribeye at a grocery store for 54 bucks. Normally a 16 ounce portion of this is 40-50 bucks at a nice steakhouse. This 7 pounds of ribeye, at around $7.50/lb. Normally we won't be able to afford $7.50/lb for our protein on this trip, but hey, it's the 4th of July and in my mind there are three ways to celebrate: drink, blow stuff up, and grill steak. We brought a cryovac machine on the road with us so we can get whole chickens, ducks and small primal cuts of meat, butcher them, cryovac them, and store them in the fridge or freezer. This will in turn save us a whole lot of money, and we'll always be able to reach in the fridge or freezer for two portions of protein whenever we want without too much risk of anything going bad. We cryovac-ed 3 of the 4 huge steaks and froze them for later (we ate the last one with some herbed roasted potatoes and it was great).

-Wax