Salty art

This is by far the coolest thing I have ever made in a kitchen, and it's not even edible. It's a salt sculpture! To make them, we mixed salt, cornstarch and water, poured this into a mold and microwaved it for a couple of seconds. My partner and I made about 35 of these dragons in orange and yellow.

The chef saw how much fun we were having so he brought out his other kids for us to play with.

Screwed, almost

I can't believe how close I came to getting screwed. I went yesterday to the posh hotel, which I shall call The Golden Fan, where I was going to do my apprenticeship. Lo and behold, I was told that my file had been placed in the "did not pursue" category. I broke out in a cold sweat despite the glacial air conditioning. I was about to be thrown out on a limb - after having quit my job I had visions of myself moving into a tent made of discarded election posters (national elections had just ended) and selling gruel (with puréed newspapers as extender) to survive while waiting for another internship opening.

The hiring manager must've seen the desperation in my face threatening to erupt any moment and ending with me jumping up and down like a deranged monkey on her paper-cluttered desk. So rather than risk having her filing system upset by some bushy-haired baboon, she decided to hand me my endorsement papers. Off I went to be "interviewed" by the sous chef, with said "interview" consisting of a five-second head-to-toe size-up and a grudging "I'll borrow her for the Thai banquet" mumbled to the HR assistant escorting me. I knew the sous chef doubted my grit. I would've been skeptical too - someone aspiring to work in the kitchen does not usually set foot in it in a prissy lace-trimmed camisole, a knitted robe-like wrap and pointy patent leather ballerina flats. All the toques looked at me too, and I could barely suppress the impulse to slink under the grease trap.

After that minor humiliation, we strolled over to Laundry to make provisions for me to borrow one of their chef's jackets. Wearing your school jacket is fine if you work away in one of the Golden Fan's cavernous hidden kitchens, but not if you hold fort at a station that puts you in contact with guests.

And then, that was that. I ascended the stairwell back to the front of the staff entrance, wiped the cold fear-sweat from my brows, hobbled away from the premises, and searched for a dark corner where I could put my knees together in an upright fetal position, and rocked and rocked until I lost consciousness and awoke to find that I had killed and eaten my pet Madagascar hissing cockroach.

Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan

Reading 'Cooking Dirty', Jason Sheehan's memoir of his rise from plongeur to (non-celebrity, but that doesn't matter) chef, is giving me the creeps. Mom, I promise not to do drugs and cook at the same time! Maybe I'll do one or the other, but not simultaneously, nyahaha!

Nah. You know me. I've always been the good girl.

Seriously, his stories of drugs, filthy kitchens, juvenile pranks, assault, meaningless sexual encounters on top of bakers' prep tables, hands dipped in 400 degree deep fryer oil and putrid locker rooms are enough for me to momentarily contemplate putting my tail between my legs and begging for my cushy office job back. Except anatomically, I do not possess a tail. And my pride would cause me to slit my wrists than go cowering back to my glamorized role as keyboard pusher who picks up after Big Media Company's other news desks.

And I love making food too much. And I'm not a quitter.

A bad case of performance anxiety

Here it is, my perfectly poached egg (you can also just make out Gisslen, peeking at you from the upper edges of the skimmer). Look at its soft ovoid roundness begging to be cradled in your palm and cooed to. This was at home, in my one-burner kitchen. I was practicing for egg cookery lab in Level 4.

I failed miserably in school the next day. My egg looked like roadkill. In fact, putrifying run-over animals would have looked 50 times more appetizing next to the disaster I ended up with. Poaching eggs demands sureness of hand, even an arrogant, unwavering belief in oneself and one's ability to make a collection of gloopy proteins coalesce by means of vinegar, just the right temp and unerring stirring.

"Si Tita Ruth! Si Tita Ruth!"

"It's Aunt Ruth [Reichl]! It's Aunt Ruth!" you might have heard a (mildly) mad-looking woman exclaim this at your friendly neighborhood Powerbooks sometime between 6 and 8 pm on Friday night while doing a silly little shimmy. Ruth Reichl and I are not related. but lately I've taken to calling friends and most everyone I feel an affinity with kuya (big brother), ate (big sister), tita (auntie), tito (uncle), lolo (grandpa) or lola (grandma).

Anyway. Ruth Reichl. She's my goddess, my food journalism mother. She's what I hope to become in the event I attain a measure of authority and respectability in my new profession. Of course, now that Gourmet has folded, I'll never be validated by getting published there one day.

But, enough about my writing ambitions. What I really wanted to say is that I'm thrilled to find a slew of food writing in my favorite bookstore. Garlic and Sapphires, one of Reichl's memoirs, was the very first one I spotted, but it wasn't long before I started salivating at the smorgasbord on the shelves:

1. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

2. Cooking Dirty by Jason Sheehan.

3. It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time by Moira Hodgson.

4. Tender At The Bone by Ruth Reichl.

5. Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl.

6. Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl.

7. I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci.

8. Born Round by Frank Bruni.

9. Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard.

10. Sacre Cordon Bleu by Michael Booth.

11. My Life in France by Julia Child.

12. Cleaving by Julie Powell.