So it's official. I am a student at the Culinary Institute of America. This will probably be the last xanga entry about the subject for awhile. But I'll still post from time to time food entries when I get the chance to. My Lu Rou Fan recipe is still pretty popular. It's now 1st link! (Just search "lu rou taiwan recipe" or some other variation thereof.) I now get so much traffic that I'm making thousands of dollars off ad revenue.


Yeah, right. I wish.

But I like to think I probably get a couple hundred hits a month--and this makes me happy. Why? Because it affirms what I chose to do. Namely, cooking for people. That one comment left on my entry by joyofelf has really given me motivation to keep on this path.

I digress. Anyway, I thought I'd commemorate my 1st week at the CIA with the essay that got me here. Remember how I said to some of you that the acceptance rate is 90%? Well apparently I was lying. The actual acceptance rate as I later found out was 42%. The national average for university acceptance rate is supposedly 72% (according to President Tim Ryan).

I still think I'm right in a way though. I think that the significant amount of applicants start an application but never finish or do not turn in the necessary documentation. One of the major documentations is proof that you have worked in the industry for at least 6 months before coming. I'd venture to say that a large majority (~80%) who have completed their application on time and turn in necessary documents will become accepted. But that doesn't take away from the prestige of the CIA. In fact, the fact that most people don't follow through and get cut means that only the ones with the determination and passion get accepted. And that's very cool.

Alright, I digress again. So here's the essay that got me in. Read it. Be inspired. Go do what you love, or love what you do. I certainly do.

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           Working in one of the largest and busiest kitchens in Austin, I learned and experienced many different things. Waking up at the crack of dawn to a near empty kitchen and planning the day’s list of things to do. Furiously putting out food during a rush amongst the cacophony of impatient voices, barked orders, and incessant buzzing of that infernal ticket machine. Meticulously placing spears of asparagus on plate after plate for a banquet of a thousand people richer than I’ll ever be. And once, quite memorably, finding my knife in a 4-foot block of solid ice in one of the most elaborate pranks pulled by my coworkers. The one thing all these experiences had in common was that I enjoyed them (most of the time).

During my stay I met many cooks and chefs who all had their two cents to give about the industry. It ranged from a passionate “I love my job! I can’t think of doing anything else!” to an ominous “You’re still young—get out while you still can...” I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think both those thoughts at some point when I was working. Indeed, I had delayed my matriculation to medical school for a year to work there and to find out if the culinary world was where I was supposed to be.

In the end, I couldn’t decide and I wound up going to medical school. However, I found myself becoming buried under textbooks only to discover I had very little interest in medicine. With each passing day, my motivation eroded to the point where I could no longer study. I soon became miserable and unhappy, yet I still stayed fearing the consequences of leaving a secure future and a six-digit salary. I was trapped by my indecision: doctor or chef?

Fifteen months later I finally left medical school to apply to the Culinary Institute of America.

What was the turning point? Was it a late-night TV special on famous restaurants? Was it an inspirational book about becoming a chef? Was it a call from the kitchen? No, the turning point came when my parents came to visit from China after I had completed my first year in medical school: They took a good look at me and said, “Tim, you look miserable—you need to do what makes you happy.”

All my friends could have told me that, but for my parents—immigrants who know what it’s like to have little and to struggle, who come from a culture that values security over dreams, who were my strongest advocates for staying in medical school—for them to actually admit that…well, I knew that I needed to make a change.

It took a long time to get to this point, but I feel there is no better time than now to start a career in food. What do I want to do exactly? Restaurant chef? Food writer? Event caterer? I honestly don’t know, but it’s got to have something to do with making food and giving it to someone because at the end of the day, that’s what makes me happy.

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Step 1. Quit medical school to apply for culinary school.

Step 2. Think about what you just did and freak out.

Step 3. Once you have come to terms that you have no idea what is going to happen next, think about culinary schools to attend.

Step 4. Realize you have no idea what schools are out there except for the one culinary school you once started an incomplete online application for when you had a mental breakdown the night before the MCAT and decided that was going to be Plan B...What was the name of that school?--oh right, the Culinary Institute of America.

Step 5. Find out that your online application is still on file after all those years. Sweet.

Step 6. While getting your shit together, realize that the only obstacle to your application is a letter of recommendation from that chef guy you worked for all those years ago.

Step 7. Call the place you used to work at and have the new chef tell you the old chef no longer works there and has left no forwarding or new contact information. Fantastic--thanks a lot you bastard.

Step 8. After about an hour of futile attempts to find your chef's current employer and number from browsing about a hundred google search hits, contemplate hiring a bounty hunter to track him down.

Step 9. After realizing that legitimate bounty hunters only go after criminals, call the place back again with the slim hope that there is someone still there that will help you out.

Step 10. Ask the new chef if there is anyone there that may know where the old chef is. "Hmmm, 'fraid not...oh wait min! There may be someone. His name is J*** R******." (Mentally cuss in excitement.) Oh really? Please put him on.

Step 11. After awkward small talk, have him agree to pass the word to the old chef that you are looking for him. He says he'll try. (Yeah, right).

Step 12. Pass the next several days doing nothing and realize getting into the CIA may be more difficult than you thought it would be.

Step 13. Receive a random call while eating a foot long sub from Subway. Make sure you're in mid-bite when  you answer the phone and say as sloppily as possible without the use of your tongue "Helajsifwnooh?...<swallow> ...yeah, this is Tim...(oh shit!)...uh, yeah, how are you chef?"

Step 14. Letter secured, hit the submit button and pray.

Step 15. Three weeks later, receive another random call at the Korean Supermarket while ordering some meat. "Yes I'm calling on behalf of the CIA. Congratulations, Tim, you've been accepted to the CIA in Hyde Park, NY. You will be receiving a letter shortly...Any questions?"

"Yeah, when do I start?"

I'M IN, YO!

MARCH 2008,
 

Drunkard's Noodles (Pad Kee Mao)


Holy Thai Basil, Pad Kee Mao is the best hang-over cure there is. Salty, sweet, savory, sour and spicy. It'll wake up your taste buds for sure. Holy Basil is the secret here--if you can get it, don't substitute with the more familiar sweet basil (usually used in Italian cooking). You can get it at your general Asian grocery store. But if you can't, that's still no reason not to try it--sweet basil is marginally acceptable. Also, be careful when cooking the rice noodles. It's really easy to overcook them and then you get soft, clump, mushy noodles. Not good at all. It'll just make you throw up again--just like last night.

I got this recipe from this New York Times article. It may not be totally authentic, but I tried it out and it's quite similar to the Pad Kee Mao I've had at Madam Mam's in Austin (mmmm...Madam Mam's). Works for me.

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Drunkard’s Noodles (Pad Kee Mao)

New York Times

Time: 35 minutes

 

FOR THE SAUCE:

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoon palm sugar or brown sugar

1 tablespoon mirin (if no mirin, just substitute any rice cooking wine, or 1tbsp rice vinegar)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon Maggi or Golden Mountain sauce (or soy sauce)

1 teaspoon sambal (Thai chili-garlic paste) or hot red pepper flakes

Juice of half a lime

 

For the noodles:

7 ounces (about half a package) wide rice noodles OR Half pound linguine noodles

3 tablespoons peanut or canola oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 thai chili peppers (preferably 1 red and 1 green), seeded and thinly sliced

3 large scallions, bulb ends thinly sliced, green tops cut into 2-inch pieces

8 ounces skinless boneless chicken breast or thigh, cubed

8 oz sliced mushroom

1 bunch (1-2 oz) ounce fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped

1/2 to 1 ounce fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

Half a lime, cut into wedges, for serving.

 

1. For sauce: In a small bowl, combine oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar, mirin, rice vinegar, Maggi, sambal and lime juice. Mix well and set aside.

2. For the noodles: Soak noodles in cold water for 15 minutes. Using scissors, cut into 8 in long sticks. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender but still firm, about 3 minutes. Drain most of water from pot, adding just enough cool water so that noodles stay warm but do not continue to cook.

3. Place a large wok or skillet over high heat. When pan is hot, add oil. Add garlic, jalapeños and sliced scallion bulbs, and sauté to let flavors infuse oil, about 1 minute. Add mushrooms and cook water out. Add chicken and and stir-fry until chicken is opaque and beginning to brown, 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Add basil, cilantro and scallion tops. Drain noodles and add to pan. Add sauce, and toss until cooked through to a doneness you prefer (I like my noodles with bite and chewiness) mixed and well-heated, 1 to 2 minutes. Add more water if noodles start to look dry, and oil if starting to stick together and clump. Serve hot, with lime wedges for squeezing over noodles.

Yield: 2 to 3 servings.

Good luck!

A reflective essay I wrote for med school:

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Has your first year of medical school changed your thoughts about why you wish to become a doctor and what kind of doctor you wish to be?

        At the White Coat Ceremony, I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. The white coat had no meaning: it was just a piece of cloth and made from cheap materials (most likely in China, I thought to myself). I know it should carry symbolic meaning, representing all the values in the medical profession. But when I put the coat on, I felt nothing. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I felt a small flash yet ominous feeling of panic. The coat felt like any other coat, and here I was among hundreds of other students (some of which I heard myself giving cool, nonchalant attitudes about the ceremony itself) all looking somewhat reverent of the oath we were repeating word for word off a piece of paper.

        As I mindlessly repeated the words of the oath, I desperately wanted those words to come alive and breathe some new purpose and life into my own, that somehow the act of speaking would make it so like the Spirit of God did in Genesis, “I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity…” And it was good.

        Instead the words echoed off the hard walls back to me just as empty as when they first left my lips, drowned in the cacophony of hundreds of other voices that seemed so much fuller than my own.

        This might have been the first event that foreshadowed my first year of medical school. If I could describe my first year of medical school in one word, it would be paradox. The year has been both unbelievably fast and an insufferably long.  What I have learned in books is important in diagnosing yet become almost useless when it comes to actually interacting with patients. Medical school needs both a passion for the profession and compassion for your patients but it’s also about following the rules (even the most trivial ones) to the T and earning those points to make good grades. I both want to be here and not be here.
   
        Compared to last year, I am very conflicted about how I feel about the medicine. Not about whether or not it has become a detached, heartless business rather than a compassionate, noble profession. Not whether or not medical school is too tough for me. Not any of those things. I am conflicted whether or not I belong here. Honestly, I looked at this prompt, and I could not immediately answer in the positive in spite of what most medical students who have worked so hard to be here would say.
   
        In my personal statement from two years ago, I mentioned that I had a “love for medicine” cultivated by shadowing a pediatrician who obviously loved his job and wanted to be there.  When I finally arrived at medical school I had gone through a year off, working in a kitchen, traveling Europe, seriously reconsidering whether or not medical school was the right place for me. I came in with an optimistic attitude, thinking, “I came this far. I passed all the tests. There must have been something about medicine to have driven me this far. I will probably find it again.”

        But a year came and went and I still had no answer. Just cycles of depression, procrastination, stress, and exams. Endless blurs of empty activities and streaks of medical text is the best I could describe that year. This isn’t to say that I performed poorly. Despite my fruitless searches for motivation, purpose and meaning in medical school, I still did well (at least by my standards)—I received “High Pass” in all but one of my courses (PHD was a bitch and a very bad time in my life). But what did it all mean to me? A pat on the back? A congratulatory “Good job, Tim!”? A satisfaction of having at least a passable amount of medical knowledge, supposedly to be used at a later date for the benefit of the sick? I felt none of these each time I looked at my hard-earned, empty HPs.

        I have been a professional student for 20 years. Being a student that long I guess just enabled me to put myself on autopilot—I can only imagine that’s what a seasoned athlete or soldier does when he is put on a court or battlefield after years of training and learning protocols and rules. In my studies, my mind was there, but my heart was far away. I perfunctorily studied and performed my duties and responsibilities well as a medical student should, but I was always maintained a certain distance, a detachment.
   
        Now that I think about it, isn’t that what a good doctor should be able to do? To perform his or her duties as a medical caregiver according to the professional guidelines of the day despite whatever he or she personally feels? A professional doctor should be able to leave whatever baggage he may have at home and still put on the coat and hat of professionalism and greet each patient with at least a confident handshake and sincere-sounding “How can I help you today?”  To not get too involved with your patients, to separate yourself to a certain degree from your work, is this not a healthy attitude to have as a doctor?  It would seem this is the only point I can currently identify with in the medical field.

        A whole year since entering medical school, and exactly what about it that drew me to it in the first place still eludes me. I mean I know what I wrote in my personal statement:  

“…it had begun with my fascination with the biological sciences, which fostered a deep respect for those who could understand the vast, complicated knowledge of the body and apply it practically to help the sick.…science and humanity--the two things I wanted to have in my career.”

   
        It was strange to read those sentences again. Something I personally wrote and sincerely felt at the time, yet now it seemed like a stranger had written them, proof that school has completely changed me. Actually, that’s not true. School hasn’t changed me as much as it has pounded and crashed and eroded away like ocean waves on rock reason after reason of why I should be here. Each medical paragraph I read, each exam I take, each clinic site I visit, each time I find myself wishing I was somewhere else. What does this mean? Should I stay or go? Hell if I know. All I know is that I have lost all interest, save for the professional student in me that relentlessly and perfunctorily drives me to complete my duties as one and make good grades because, practically speaking, being a student is the only profession I know.

        I realize no one is forcing me to stay in medical school. I really do. But if I quit, what else have I got going for me? Culinary school? Working 12 hrs a day, 6 days a week, no holidays or weekends with no or minimal benefits? Having no life outside the kitchen and giving at least 10 years slaving away? And all for nothing but the slim hope that I will one day become a successful chef owner of my restaurant? Am I willing to give up a guaranteed job, a stable career, a 6 digit salary, a 40 hour week as a possible ophthalmologist to pursue a dream? Would you?
  

Dumplings are the shit. Especially when they are freshly hand-made and turned into pot-stickers. Try wolfing down 30 of these suckers with some homemade soy dipping sauce with red chile peppers and I guarantee you'll be satieted and satisfied. If you aren't, then you're a whiny bitch, because pot-stickers ALWAYS hit the spot.

It does take some effort to make them, but not too much that they aren't worth it. The secret is to recruit others to help make wraps or stuff dumplings. (Call it a party and they'll come.) My favorite part of the pot sticker is the skin. I can forgive filling because there's so many different types, but the wrap should always taste the same and have the right texture, thickness, chewiness and consistency no matter the filling. I personally like my pot-stickers to have a thinner wrap because it leads to more crisp then chewy on the bottom. You have to find the right balance though because if the skin is too thin it will fall apart and stick to the pan when pan-frying.

For the stuffing: pork is the standard, though I hear it's popular for Cantonese people to use a shrimp stuffing. Try to get fatty ground pork from the Chinese supermarket as the mixture will be more moist and juicy when cooked. Nothing worse than biting into a dumpling and finding the filling crumbling into dry bits of meat floating around in your dipping sauce. Sick.  Anyway, invite some people over and experiment and have fun with it.

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Pot-stickers

For Dough:
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup near boiling water
Yield: 12-15 wraps

Determine how many wraps you want and proportion corrrectly. Put flour and salt in a large bowl, add near boiling hot water in small amounts at a time. Mix it well, add flour when it’s too soft, (there is nothing you can do if it’s too hard, so you’d rather add more water than flour in the beginning). Knead for about 10-15 minutes, until all flour is incorporated and becomes a smooth elastic ball. Cover it with a wet paper towel and wait at least for 1/2 – 2 hours (depend on the temperature, wait for more time when colder). The dough will become more smooth and elastic.

For the stuffing:
1 lb fatty ground pork
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp salt
Optional: 2 tsp rice cooking wine
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 cups chopped chinese leek (jiu cai) OR finely chopped nappa cabbage,
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 egg
1/2 cup water or stock
Yield: ~ 60 dumplings

Dice the leek or Chinese cabbage. If using cabbage, add a tbsp of salt and let it sit for 1 hour to draw water out. Then squeeze as much water out with paper towels or with a cheese cloth. Let stand and dry out a bit. You want to have about 1:1 ratio of vegetable  to pork. In large bowl, add soy, wine, ginger, garlic, egg, sesame oil, and vegtables to ground pork. Stir with chopsticks or something similar in one direction for about 200 circular strokes.The mixture should come together and have a paste like quality. Cook a tester in a pan. Adjust seasonings. Remember to under season a bit if you plan on using a soy dipping sauce, otherwise it will be too salty. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Making the dumplings:
It really helps to have a partner help stuff the dumplings while the other rolls out the wraps. Roll out dough into a 1" diameter-thick log and cut into pieces 1/2" in length. On a floured surface and rolling pin, flatten into circles 3" in diameter. Flour each wrap to prevent from sticking to each other. Put a tsp amount of meat mixture into the middle of each circle. Fold the wrapper in half to form a half moon shape. Starting on one end fold/pinch the wrapper tightly together. Proceed with this fold/pinch method until the dumpling is completely sealed. I like to have about 5-6 folds per dumpling. Rest the dumplings with the folded edges straight up and a flat bottom.  If the edges are too dry or caked with dry flour, wet your fingers in a bowl of water and wet the edges to be pressed first.

Cooking the pot-stickers: In a hot saute pan coated well with oil, arrange pot stickers flat side down and cook on med-hi heat until the bottom is beginning to brown. Have pan cover ready and add 1 cup of chicken stock or water, cover immediately. Watch out as the liquid and oil will splatter! The stock will steam the pot stickers. Check them in 5 minutes as more stock may be needed. Keep close eye on liquid level or the bottoms will burn very quickly. I don't know how many times I let my attention wander off and come back with burnt bottoms! Be vigilant! It's only 5 min. Once the dumplings are firm and fully cooked the stock will evaporate, and when there is only oil left again, the bottoms will crisp-up again quickly to a golden brown within a minute or so. Remove dumplings with a flat spatula. If bottoms stick too much, try adding a little liquid and deglazing the bottom over med heat to loosen the pot-stickers (hence, the name).

For the dipping sauce:
3 tbsp thin soy sauce
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 thinly sliced scallions
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tsp red chile peppers in oil (found in asian grocery)

Combine all and serve in a small bowl.

Good luck!