Garlic Scape Jam 5/31

Today was the first day of my first full week of work. My first task on this first day of my first full week of work was to complete a dish that I had started on my very first day of work. If you read the post from my first day of work, you should remember the the dish that I am referring to, the kimchi. This isn't your run of the mill fermented Korean vegetable dish though, this kimchi was made with all local ingredients including bok choi, turnips, and nappa cabbage.

David and I were clearing out space in the fridge for the kimchi, and David noticed that there were a good amount of outdated ingredients and containers of items that were almost completely used up. So, David had me clean out these items, throw their contents in the trash, and clean the containers. This allowed me an opportunity to get a good look at all the interesting things we keep in the fridge. Some of the more intriguing items were pickled shrimp, blackberry jus, and beer mustard. Interesting indeed.

If you read the post about my 2nd day of work, you should remember that I was a little bummed that someone else was going to be finishing the jam that I had spent 5 hours cutting garlic scapes for. Well, as I was putting the freshly jarred kimchi in the fridge, I noticed that the garlic scapes were still there. Upon further investigation of the walk-in, a also noticed a large tub of purple-looking liquid with "Ben's" followed by some illegible scribble on it. Apparently, after Friday service, someone just stored my jam and no one bothered to complete it over the weekend. I GET TO FINNISH MY JAM! I was pretty excited.
Jam on the stove.

The tricky part about the jam actually came during the jarring process. I had to try to get an even amount of scapes and liquid into 14 separate jars. Needless to say, I didn't get it on the first try. Some jars had a lot of scapes and a little liquid, while others had the exact oposite (lots of liquid and a little scapes). I had to make sure that all the jars were at least close to uniform, so I was now dealing with a very tricky and very sticky puzzle. I was moving liquid from this jar to that jar and scapes from that other jar to that jar over there. It was very complicated, but eventually I got close enough.

As some of you may know, everything has to be labeled and dated in a professional kitchen to keep track of new and old ingredients and to know what is what. Typically, and as is the case at Restaurant Eugene, people just use tape and write on the tape. So, as I was writing the same label over and over 14 times for my jam (Garlic Scape Jam 5/31), I began to feel like I was promoting some sort of weird music festival.

My next task was to sort out the good and bad leaves of arugula, which we would be using later in the week to make a pesto.

As David informed me, "We only want the good ones. No yellow leaves or spots. If there is a yellow leaf of arugula in the mix, then the pesto might not hold together." With instructions like these, it was difficult to find leaves of arugula that meet the criteria.
If you had a little bit of yellow around the edges, you go in the compost bin. If you had one small brown spot, into the compost bin. If you look slightly wilted, into the compost bin.
We use only the best leaves of arugula for our pesto!

After all of this, it was time for family meal, which was at Holeman and Finch Public House this time. When I showed up at H&F, one of the chefs there (who often hangs out in the Restaurant Eugene kitchen in the mornings) saw me and said, "I didn't know that we fed the interns." To which I replied, "You don't. Shhh, don't tell." Everyone seemed to get a laugh out of that.

When I got back to my station at Restaurant Eugene with the wonderful-looking plate of food that you see above, the Sous Chef (Jason) asked, "They Didn't put out a meat? Only pasta and salad?" "No, they had pans of meatloaf." I said, pointing to the brown square on my plate. Jason gave me a confused look and tasted a piece. "That's chocolate toffee cake." Apparently, there was a pan of this cake and a pan of the similar-looking meat right next to it on the counter. The pan with the meat was almost gone, so I decided to take a piece from the other pan of what I thought was the same meat dish. Oh well, the cake was absolutely delicious!

Till next time,

Ben

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