Offal Good™ » Offal http://www.offalgood.com Chef Chris Cosentino's guide to all good guts. Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:20:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 Head 2 Tail 5.0 stages http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-2-tail-5-0-stages http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-2-tail-5-0-stages#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:20:01 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1543

This decision each year gets harder and harder. There was not one bad person in the bunch so it made this years decision even harder. I look forward to welcoming this years 2 new stages in my Kitchen. Thank you all for applying I wish everyone all the best, I wish I could accept more there is just not enough room.

the 2 stages are:

Elias Seda from Washington D.C  The Mini Bar

Andrew Ticer from Memphis, TN  Hogs & Hominy

Both of there essays are below with there names at the top of each.

Elias Seda’s essay below:

When I was growing up all I wanted was to make people happy through the power of food.

There was nothing more satisfying than watching people’s delight in sampling one of my culinary

creations.

Family gatherings were always a treat because I was able to watch all these great chefs work their

magic in the kitchen. My attraction to cooking was due to the respect these family cooks earned,

the knowledge they had acquired and the simplicity of their food. I was intrigued by the power they

wielded over people through their cooking and it inspired me to pursue my culinary career with hopes

that I could make people just as happy through my cooking.

After graduating from high school I took a year off from my studies because I had no idea what

to do with my life. With that free time I reflected back on my time cooking with family and how I was at

my happiest when I was working in the kitchen with them. So I decided to get a kitchen job, but I had no

experience as a cook so I started at the bottom as a dishwasher. It didn’t matter that I was just washing

dishes because I knew that as long as I found my way into a kitchen there would be an opportunity to

learn something about food and cooking. The next step to continue to feed my passion for cooking was

culinary school. It provided me with some of the beginning tools in becoming the best chef I could

possibly be. Around this time I was introduced to my future chef and friend Omar Rodriguez. He

provided me an opportunity to intern at Oyamel, a Jose Andres restaurant, in Washington, DC. I

instantly fell in love with Oyamel and I wanted to learn everything about Mexican cuisine. My goal as an

intern was to master what it took to be a great line cook and hopefully land myself a full time job at

Oyamel. After three months I landed myself a full time job and within a year I had achieved my goal of

learning all the stations on the line. Even with my success at Oyamel I still yearned to learn more about

cooking and wanted to continue to master my craft.

So the following year I tried out for one of the coveted cook positions at Minibar. My hard work

paid off and I was offered the opportunity be a part of Minibar’s culinary magic. The chefs at Minibar

were doing things with food that I never thought possible. Not only did they teach me new techniques

but they helped me develop my palate and provided me with a new perspective of what it meant to be a

chef. Despite everything I’ve learned within the past two & half years I still keep things in perspective

and I know I’m nowhere close to being the chef I want to be. I still consider myself a student of the

culinary arts and this is why I would love the opportunity to be a part of the Head to Tail dinner.

My family is filled with many great chefs such as my mother, grandmother and tio Dave.

Andy Ticer’s essay is below:

Rooter to the tooter

After hearing that this year is the tenth anniversary of Incanto’s head to tail dinner, I was impressed.  It’s hard to believe that it started that long ago. My business partner Michael Hudman and I have followed Chris Cosentino since our first dining experience at Incanto six years ago.  It was the first dinner we had state side that recalled to our memories our time in Italy, and ever since it has had a lasting impact on our lives. The dinner has even inspired our own version of a head to tail dinner, our Swine and Wine dinner here in Memphis, in it’s fifth year this February.  Looking back at how our restaurant has evolved, it’s amazing the impact that Chris has had on us, and the domino effect it has had on our community.  Its awe inspiring that an idea from someone in San Francisco could affect our city across the country.

The relationships born with our farmers out of whole animal utilization and from our vegetable farmers in the surrounding south have helped to shape our restaurant and Michael and I as cooks.  Every week our farmers deliver a whole pig, three whole lamb, and a forequarter of beef to our restaurants’ back door. They all come from a proper farm not two hours from our restaurant. If you stop and do the math over the past five years, it’s fucking awesome to know that we have done these things when it’s not convenient, more expensive, but it’s the right way to operate a restaurant. We stay true to our roots and where the food comes from. We know what the animals eat, the farmers, and how the farms are managed. We use Newman Farm heritage Berkshire Pork and Dorper Lamb, Claybrooks Farm Beef, vegetables from Woodson Ridge, Hanna Organics, and Delta Sol. We pride ourselves on using locally farmed products, utilized wholly with little waste.

Breaking down the animals has become just as much a meditation to us as making fresh pasta.  We work with these animals, creating new and inventive ways to utilize it in its entirety, to respect the life that lies on our butcher block. Not only do we support our local farmers, but we also open the eyes of our customers. When we first put a pig cheek, a trotter, or a pastrami pig tongue on our menus, people wouldn’t dare order it. Now they demand it.  Through Chris’s example, not only are we better cooks, but our city has been educated, our farmers have been supported and we’ve contributed to the growing food movement in Memphis.

Incanto and Chris have had a lasting presence that inspire us to push ourselves, become more creative, and they motivate us to do our best work. One way that Michael and I believe that we can continue to grow as cooks and chefs is to constantly learn. We will never know everything there is to know in this business. It’s part of why I love to cook as much as I do.  There is always someone working harder, and learning more that pushes us to continue to try and be the best we can. It’s so important to us that our cooks know and respect continuing their own education in the kitchen, and we try to lead by example. I would love the opportunity to cook the tenth anniversary dinner. It doesn’t matter if you have ten restaurants or zero, there is always room to learn and to keep yourself grounded and humble, and I believe that I could learn new and better ways to think about full animal utilization from someone for whom I have a great amount of respect.

It would be my extreme pleasure to participate in the tenth annual dinner. I know that what I would learn would further my abilities as a cook and as a contributor to the support of our farming community. Thank you for considering my essay.

Sincerely,

Andrew N. Ticer

Hog & Hominy

 

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-2-tail-5-0-stages/feed 0 Head to Tail stage 5.0 http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-to-tail-stage-5-0 http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-to-tail-stage-5-0#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 05:00:51 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1531  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After each years head to tail I look back and say how can we top that, and each year its a challenge that I gladly  welcome. With the past 3 year we have brought in stages to spend a week cooking with the Incanto team, and it has been alot of fun and a great experience. Each stage has come and left their mark, thank you to Derek & Omar 1st year , Michael & Jonah 2nd year, Kylie & Michael 3rd year, Italo and Adam 4th year.  So to continue on in that spirit we shall do it again, its time for someone else to come and play.  This is all about sharing, inspired by the constant requests for knowledge about how to cook offal. Now’s your chance to learn. I will be accepting 2 volunteers to help with the event this year. You get to come into my kitchen and help cook 2 nights of head to tail dinners. You will work your ass off, have some fun and learn a ton, but there are rules to this game. This offer is open to professional cooks only. You will be an unpaid volunteer. You must commit to working in my kitchen for 5 days, from Friday, March 29th  through Wednesday april 3rd except for Tuesday, which you’ll have off to enjoy S.F. But usually i take us all out to eat and do something fun. You must submit your resume and a short essay on why you should be one of the chosen ones. This is a busy time and I don’t have time to be baby sitting. The Head to Tail dinner is a multi-course menu with a shit load of detailed work.

Here is the pay out; you get some t-shirts to take home and you will be able to sit down and enjoy the head to tail menu in the dinning room on the last night. And you have to write a story for me to share on this website after your time here to share with the world. hey Jonah I am still waiting for yours 2 years later.
Email your resume and brief essay to me at [email protected] by tuesday march 5th. I will make a final decision and contact the 2 lucky winners on march 6th to confim your participation. This gives you 3 weeks to make travel arrangements. Ultimately, this is a fun opportunity to be a part of a great team for a week and learn how to cook some innards.
]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/head-to-tail-stage-5-0/feed 0 Adams head to tail 2012 experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/adams-head-to-tail-2012-experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/adams-head-to-tail-2012-experience#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:37:50 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1522

photo courtesy of: Michael Harlan Turkell

Dear Chef, Incanto Crew, and all future Head to Tail stage applicants,
There is an endless number of words I can use to describe my week at what might very well be the most interesting restaurant in the country, Incanto.  I hope to use a few of them to both reflect on my time at the restaurant, as well as give all future applicants a better idea of what the experience may entail if they are fortunate enough to be selected.  Before I begin though I would like to say thank you to Chef Chris, Chef Manny, and the entire Incanto crew for inviting me into your world for a few short days, and that I am incredibly grateful for both the experience and our time together.  You were all unbelievably gracious hosts as well as phenomenal cooks and I consider it a privilege to have been a part of the team even if only for a week.  Thank you for that.  Now onto the experience.
First off I must say the stage was intense.  I’m not going to lie and say that there weren’t points where I did not feel as though I was in over my head.  Flying across the country to an unfamiliar city, to work in an unfamiliar kitchen, doing unfamiliar food was certainly more difficult than I had imagined it would be.  It is a tremendous amount of pressure entering a kitchen and representing not only yourself, but all of the people you have worked for over the years.  My first two days I could barely hold my knife straight.  It took me until service the first night of the dinner before I was able to finally get out of my head and just cook.  This was all exacerbated by the fact Incanto is a vigorous place to work.  There are no throw away items on the menu at Incanto.  All of the food is executed at a tremendously high level and as Chef wrote on his blog to describe the experience: “there is a shit ton of detailed work to be done.”  This was certainly the case.  I may have flown 6 hours from New York to northern California, but this was in no way a vacation.  There were sinks of tripe to be cleaned, thousands of fava beans to be shelled, and gallons of consommé to be clarified.  My fellow stage Italo and I were there 15 hours a day, and there was constantly something to be done.  This is by no means a complaint, but rather the reality.
For those future applicants, if you are reading this and are concerned about taking your vacation days and spending crazy amounts of money to fly out to California to work harder than you probably do at your normal job don’t be.  As a restaurant, Incanto is an inspirational place to work even if only for a few days.  I don’t know if there are any other restaurants in the world where food is looked at and viewed the way it is there.  Yes the nose to tail cooking is the main draw but there are so many great things going on in the Incanto kitchen.  The restaurant makes almost everything imaginable in house.  There are the basics like preserves and jams and pickles, but there is so much more.  They dehydrate and grind their own spices and chiles.  Make their own bread.  Their own garum.  Salt and cure egg yolks.  I swear to god there was a fish drying from the ceiling.  Also everything at the restaurant gets used.  Almost nothing is thrown out.  Herb stems go into confit oil. Confit oil gets used to cook with.  Incanto is a model for sustainability.  Every ingredient is treated with the utmost respect from the most expensive protein down to a single stem of mint.  Nearly every product there offers one hundred percent yield.   It is through these practices that even with using almost exclusively sustainable and organic products the restaurant is able to operate with a ridiculously low food cost.  It is amazing to witness and something all cooks and chefs should not only learn how to do, but strive every day to do better.
Now speaking of learning.  This brings me to what I feel is the word that best describes my stage at Incanto – educational.  There is so much to learn at this restaurant, and everyone there is more than willing to teach.  From cooking spleen, to making pasta out of pig skin, dehydrating and puffing beef tendons, and even making panna cotta out of foie gras you will learn a lot.  I know I certainly did.  The chefs at Incanto make it a point that when you work there you are actively learning.  Education often seems like the number one priority.  This extends even beyond food and cooking.  It may mean taking ten minutes out of the busiest day to watch a video about a Japanese man making coffee for tsunami survivors, or taking twenty minutes out of the day to go down the street to browse the cookbook Mecca that is Omnivore Books.  It was a constant theme running through the restaurant that even though we were busy and there was work to be done, we should always be learning something.  Even our day off included lunch with Harold McGee and a trip to the market to check out the different products you won’t find just anywhere.
Perhaps the most important thing I took away from my stage at Incanto though was the memories of a once in a lifetime experience, and if you are reading this still wondering what to expect if you are selected for the stage I offer you this information.  You will have the opportunity to work side by side with an unbelievably brilliant and knowledgeable chef, and a team of cooks as talented as you are likely to encounter anywhere in the country.  You will make extraordinary friends.  You will cook great food and also eat exceptionally well.  And you will work.  Hard.  And when it is over you will want to do it again and again.  Once again I’m incredibly thankful for this experience, and I encourage anyone who is a serious cook to apply.  If you are reading this and have already been accepted I offer you my congratulations and this parting advice.  Work hard.  Work clean.  Cook with confidence.  Have fun.  And mostly importantly even if you’ve done something a million times before,  always read your labels and double/triple check your math.
Thank you Incanto crew and good luck to all applicants.  I look forward to the opportunity to work with you in the future.
Sincerely,
Adam R. Wile
Brooklyn, New York
]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/adams-head-to-tail-2012-experience/feed 0 Italo’s head to tail 2012 experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/italos-head-to-tail-2012-experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/italos-head-to-tail-2012-experience#comments Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:31:17 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1517

photo courtesy of: michael harlan turkell

I need to start off by saying thank you to everyone in the kitchen and front of house for welcoming me into your world for a week.

A few days into my stage Manny asked me if I was having fun, and I answered him in the only way I could truly sum up how I was feeling. I said “This restaurant is like Disneyland for cooks!” It is truly a cooks dream. A beautiful kitchen, a friendly crew, and all of the fun products a cook could ever ask for. The produce is amazing, the offal beyond fresh, and working never felt like work. Chris told me, “We’re all just here to have fun.” I have honestly never had more fun in a kitchen while working so hard. The hours start early and end late, but by the end of the week it all seemed too have gone by too quickly. And what you take with you at the end cannot be learned in any book.

Anyone who considers themselves a chef, or even a cook, needs to experience Incanto first hand. They epitomize what it is to truly cook, to let a product be and not to manipulate it. Just coax it along and help it shine. And any cooks who are thinking about applying for next year’s dinner, DO IT! To not send them your essay would be doing yourself a great injustice.

My time at Incanto was second to none. I have never learned so much in such a short time. And not just recipes and techniques but what it truly is to be a cook. We as cooks have a job, which is prepare food. Pretty obvious there. But what most seem to forget about is that we have a duty to honor the products we are using. Take nothing for granted. I have never seen a kitchen that respects food as much as Incanto. And with zero pretention may I add. When you have pulled mint from the ground essentially you have killed it just as much as when you knock a hog on the head. Now you owe it to that piece of mint and that hog that they were not killed in vain, and that none of it will go to waste. And Incanto was an amazing example of this philosophy.

I honestly had the time of my life and I can’t begin to thank Chef and the rest of the crew enough for the amazing opportunity to work and learn alongside them. I look forward to next year’s head to tail and my next trip to Incanto.

Thank you

-Italo

 

 

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/italos-head-to-tail-2012-experience/feed 0 2012 Head 2 Tail stage winners!! http://www.offalgood.com/blogroll/2012-head-2-tail-stage-winners http://www.offalgood.com/blogroll/2012-head-2-tail-stage-winners#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:33:16 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1513

working out the plating

Another  difficult year to choose the 2 stages for this years head to tail!! We had a great mix of very talented chefs form all over the country as well as Canada. As well as some amazing essays as well as some really bad ones, but that being said I feel we did a great job choosing our 2 stages for this year. So now the hard part is over lets let the fun begin. I have included their names and essays for you to read after the break. Thank you everyone for your time and effort in your essays, it is a very hard decision to make, all who applied were really great. keep cooking offal !!

Italo Marino from Mt Pleasant, South Carolina

I first fell in love with offal at thirteen. I come from a very large and very old world Sicilian family. And every year, for generations now, all of the men in the family get together for what they call “tripe-fest.” It’s been a family tradition since my grandfather was a child, and when they moved to America they’ve kept the tradition alive. All of us meet at one of the uncles’ houses and everyone brings something. Whether it is a case of wine, a box of cigars, or some homemade lemoncello, everyone contributes. It’s a day for drinking and eating and catching up with family u may only see once a year.

 

And the meal is an all offal feast. Three kinds of tripe, headcheese, grilled beef heart and pork liver skewers, chicken and duck liver mousse, brains, sweetbreads, kidneys wrapped in caul fat, all sorts of sausages and a few simple salads. But the day I fell in love with offal it wasn’t my uncles tripe, which is still the best I’ve been able to find anywhere, but it was a simply braised pigs trotter that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was nothing more than a foot simmered in a basic tomato sauce, but this was it! There was practically no meat to be found anywhere on that foot and I didn’t miss it at all. The skin was so tender, which held in all of the delicious gelatin and cartilage and all the lovely bits that are hidden in a trotter. All the old timers thought it was great. The first year I had been invited and I’m sitting behind a pile of picked over bones. I must have had half a dozen or so.

 

I had the good fortune to be able to work in three amazing Michelin starred restaurants while living in New York. Now that I have moved out of the city I luckily found a position under a young chef as excited about food as I. The highlight of my week is when we get our pork delivery from Keegan Filion Farm. But the best part is not only the beautiful grass fed pork, beef, and poultry, but each week they bring us a box of mixed offal. They give it to us for free because none of their other clients want anything to do with them.

 

Each week it’s something different. Sometimes it’s a couple of pig heads, liver and tails. Other times it’s a case of 40 pigs feet and beef hearts. But each week we get to take these products and work them into specials for our restaurant or our Italian restaurant next door. Testa, guanciale, smoked hearts, liver sausage, all sorts of things that test us on a daily basis. And every now and then when I serve a one of my special I cant help but think about that simply braised trotter on a paper plate sitting on a picnic table all those years ago.

 

AdamR. Wile from Brooklyn, NY

 

Chef,
Although I am sure you will be reviewing a great deal of applications I am submitting this essay to make the case why I believe I should be chosen as one of the stages for this year’s Head to Tail dinner.  First I must say that growing up in Queens New York I have never visited Incanto.  This however has not stopped me from becoming a huge fan of the restaurant and the type of food you prepare.  I follow you closely on twitter and am often awed by the dishes and ideas you post.  I believe in the philosophy of using the whole animal, and as a cook have tried to work in restaurants that believe in that philosophy as well.  It is one of the main reasons I was drawn to the kitchens of Momofuku and Fatty ‘Cue.  Both these restaurants are at the forefront of the New York dining scene when it comes to sustainability, and both restaurants afforded me the opportunity to work with parts of the animal not often seen on menus.  Still when it comes to head to tail eating I can’t help but feel both of these restaurants could have gone further, moving beyond the more popular though still untraditional parts of the animal and showing people just how delicious all parts of it can be.
“That animal gave its life for you…  Don’t waste any,” I remember a cook at Momofuku saying to me as I was bone-ing out pork shoulders one afternoon.  I was very aware.  It reminded me of the lessons my uncle passed onto me as he was teaching me how to slaughter roosters at his farm in upstate New York when I was younger.  It’s something that has stuck with me ever since.  Animals which have given their lives must be treated with respect, and part of that respect is not wasting any useable piece of them.  To do so is to waste life.  There is a quote from Fergus Henderson I like to remember along the same lines; “Once you knock an animal on the head it is only polite to eat the whole animal.”  This seems simple and fair enough, but I believe in it deeply.  I feel what stops many people from acting on this idea, myself included, is a lack of knowledge.  There may be no better kitchen in the world right now to truly learn how to cook offal and innards than at Incanto.
Clearly as cooks and chefs our responsibility to sustainability goes beyond just the meat we cook with, but also the produce and the vegetables we use as well.  This idea led me to turn my tiny Queens backyard into a full on organic garden which my sous chef affectionately referred to as Wild Wile Farms.  Growing everything from my own Mizuna to Shishito peppers to French Breakfast radishes has given me a deeper respect for the work and time that goes into growing delicious fresh food and has furthered that same notion of “Don’t waste any.”  I know California and San Francisco in particular offer local and seasonal produce rivaled by very few places in the world.  It would be extraordinary to have the opportunity to be able to work with some of these products if I was selected.
With Fatty Cue Brooklyn recently shutting its doors for renovations I am in the unique position to be able to pack my bags and head to San Francisco for this incredible opportunity.  It would be an honor to be selected.  I feel as though I have so much to learn and would take this experience with me far beyond my cooking career.  Thank you for your consideration and best of luck with the decision making process.
Sincerely,
Adam Wile

 

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blogroll/2012-head-2-tail-stage-winners/feed 0 Do you have the guts to cook guts 4.0? http://www.offalgood.com/blog/do-you-have-the-guts-to-cook-guts-4-0 http://www.offalgood.com/blog/do-you-have-the-guts-to-cook-guts-4-0#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:00:58 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1505

menu meeting

After each years head to tail I look back and say how can we top that, and each year its a challenge that I gladly  welcome. With the past 3 year we have brought in stages to spend a week cooking with the Incanto team, and it has been alot of fun and a great experience. Each stage has come and left their mark, thank you to Derek & Omar 1st year , Michael & Jonah 2nd year, Kylie & Michael 3rd year.  So to continue on in that spirit we shall do it again, its time for someone else to come and play.  This is all about sharing, inspired by the constant requests for knowledge about how to cook offal. Now’s your chance to learn. I will be accepting 2 volunteers to help with the event this year. You get to come into my kitchen and help cook 2 nights of head to tail dinners. You will work your ass off, have some fun and learn a ton, but there are rules to this game. This offer is open to professional cooks only. You will be an unpaid volunteer. You must commit to working in my kitchen for 5 days, from Friday, March 23rd  through Wednesday the 28th except for Tuesday, which you’ll have off to recover. But usually i take us all out to eat and do something fun. You must submit your resume and a short essay on why you should be one of the chosen ones. This is a busy time and I don’t have time to be baby sitting. The Head to Tail dinner is a multi-course menu with a shit load of detailed work..

Here is the pay out; you get all 4 of my t-shirts to take home and you will be able to sit down and enjoy the head to tail menu in the dinning room on the last night. And you have to write a story for me to share on this website after your time here to share with the world. hey Jonah I am still waiting for yours.

working out the plating
working out the plating

Email your resume and brief essay to me at [email protected] by friday February 20th th. I will make a final decision and contact the 2 lucky winners on February 24th to confim your participation. This gives you 4 weeks to make travel arrangements. Ultimately, this is a fun opportunity to be a part of a great team for a week and learn how to cook some innards.

team photo

 

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/do-you-have-the-guts-to-cook-guts-4-0/feed 2 Eat my heart on The Feast! http://www.offalgood.com/press/eat-my-heart-on-the-feast http://www.offalgood.com/press/eat-my-heart-on-the-feast#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:35:42 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1301

View more videos at: http://www.thefeast.com.

This is a video I did for The Feast for valentines day, its a bit old but I thought I would share it anyways.I cant get enough of the heart tartare, but with the foie gras it’s over the top.

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/press/eat-my-heart-on-the-feast/feed 2 Kylie chimes in on her H2T experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/kylie-chimes-in-on-her-h2t-experience http://www.offalgood.com/blog/kylie-chimes-in-on-her-h2t-experience#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 07:24:59 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1345 plating the lamb kidney dish. photo by Michael Turkell

plating the lamb kidney dish. photo by Michael Turkell

It was our pleasure to have Kylie as our guest in the kitchen for this years head to tail. Her essay is spot on, thanks again for all your help.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Hi Chef and crew of Incanto!

It’s hard to believe that a month and then some has past since I had to honor of taking part in your nose to tail dinner.  Thank you for inviting me into your lives and giving me such an unbelievable experience.

I took many things away from my time with you. But after some serious reflection, I think what I was most impressed with was the absolute camaraderie that we as cooks (and restaurant people in general), have the privilege to enjoy on a day-to-day basis.

I knew coming into the experience that the food would be great and that I would learn new techniques and tricks and skills and tips in the kitchen.  But I did not expect to discover what it really is that creates a successful working restaurant machine; that is, above all, teamwork.

This was my first stage and, nerves aside, I was anxious walking into Incanto, solely because I didn’t know what to expect from it’s inhabitants.  But from the first second I set foot in your kitchen, it was evident that we cooks are all one unique sub species of human.   We have our own language, our own jokes and definitely our own sense of humor.  We take things seriously in a way that really proves our devotion and passion and, most importantly, respect for our craft.  I was inspired in this way, by every one of you, at every turn.

I think as cooks, we can be overly eager to prove ourselves to each other.  I will openly admit to being guilty of this.  It was a welcome and humbling experience to turn this off, in a sense, and just absorb and embrace the things that were happening around me.  For this reason, I will continue to search out new stages and experiences which may make me uncomfortable at first, but will establish lessons that I couldn’t possibly gain without the drive to constantly learn about food, where it comes from and what it brings to every person in our world.

Thanks again.  And please, pass on high fives to all the beautiful people of Incanto!

Regards,

K.Y. Gelee

]]> http://www.offalgood.com/blog/kylie-chimes-in-on-her-h2t-experience/feed 0 Stage winners for head to tail http://www.offalgood.com/events/stage-winners-for-head-to-tail http://www.offalgood.com/events/stage-winners-for-head-to-tail#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:33:39 +0000 Chris http://www.offalgood.com/?p=1322 _MHT0761

This year was very difficult to choose the 2 stages for this years head to tail!! We had a great mix of very talented chefs form all over the country as well as Canada. As well as some amazing essays as well as some really bad ones, but that being said I feel we did a great job choosing our 2 stages for this year. So now the hard part is over lets let the fun begin. I have included their names and essays for you to read after the break. Thank you everyone for your time and effort in your essays, it is a very hard decision to make, all who applied were really great. keep cooking guts!!

Michael Aaron Freidman from washington D.C.

My grandmother loved to laugh. During holiday meals at my parents’ home in New Jersey, she found solace in the fact that two things would inevitably occur: she would concoct something delicious rooted in her Eastern European cooking style, and she would squeeze a chuckle or two out of her grandsons while slaving over the stove. And thus, my first interaction with cooking occurred on a wintery Hanukkah night when Mammy tried to attack me with a braised beef tongue she’d picked up from the delicatessen earlier that day.

I’m not going to go on and discuss how that definitive moment in my life spurred me on to pursue a career in cooking. I chased other dreams in college and eventually, out of a sort of rebellion against the straight-and-narrow road before me, diverted down the path lined with blades, burns, and fiery passion. That passion has built throughout my short career, and continues to burn within me every moment I flip through a cookbook, walk through a market or sharpen a knife. As I continued to learn and grow as a cook, I began to build an appreciation for our craft; the tradition intertwined in each braise, the history enveloped in every bite.

As cooks, we are bound by the past. We rely on traditional ratios, formats and recipes as a base to physically create something that we will share with others. Tradition anchors the foundation of everything we yearn to build, as well as everything we hope to pass along to future generations. This essential idea resides at the core of my passion for our craft, and will continue to drive me toward more adventures and excitement in the culinary world.

It would be a privilege to work in Incanto’s kitchen and act a part in the process leading up to the annual Head to Tail dinner. To be involved in the restaurant’s tradition is a true honor, and something not to be taken lightly. In many ways, I believe Chef Cosentino conducts this event every year in honor of the animal, but also in respect of the culinary customs that have fallen out of favor throughout the years. Because of this, I am even more drawn to his kitchen and his cause.

I miss my Mammy and think of her often. She was a wonderful cook – her hands wielded powers beyond my culinary talents. She rolled rugelach with ease and roasted brisket to perfection. She passed along many traditions to her daughters, and in turn, her grandsons. I called my mother a couple weeks ago, searching for my grandmother’s recipe for a heavenly jellyroll she would make from time to time. My mother told me that Mammy took that one with her to the grave. In a way, I felt a sense of relief that her recipe got lost somewhere in time – I know I would never make it as well as she did.

Kylie Evans from Montreal Canada

February 9, 2011

Hello, Chef and crew at Incanto!

My name is Kylie. I’m a farm girl. I grew up in a farming family near the small rural community of Beulah, Manitoba, Canada. And I’m positive that this has a direct relation to why I’m writing you this letter.

I have found myself on the line, working the pans station at DNA Restaurant in Montreal, QC. Ten years ago if someone would have told me that they “cooked pans”, I probably would have gave them a glazy blank stare and changed the subject. That was before I dropped out of what I was “supposed” to be doing after high school, and enrolled in the Culinary Arts program at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was the best move I ever made.

Growing up the way I did, food was always more than just about eating. We filled our freezer with beef from our pasture, which we could see through our kitchen window. Another freezer shared pork from a neighbor across the way, with the chickens that my mom expertly raised every summer. The cold room had bags of potatoes, carrots and onions from the garden every year. And I STILL challenge anyone to make better homemade salsa or refrigerator pickles then my mom. From almost as far back as I can remember it was part of my farming role to help dig/peel potatoes, or to make sandwiches to take out to the field for the guy’s lunch.

What scares me is when I tell people these things, and they get that same glazy blank stare.

So now, I’ve taken that respect for food, which I believe was bred into me, and I’ve turned it into a career that I never could have dreamed of. I love what I do. I find new lessons and challenges every day in the kitchen. And as I’m advancing and growing as a cook, I’m realizing that my ultimate goal is to be able to learn and preserve so many of those forgotten techniques and skills – and to be able to pass them along to anyone who is willing to listen.

I honestly feel that participating in your nose to tail dinner at Incanto would be a great catalyst for doing just that.

Thank you, and regards to you and your team.

Kylie Evans

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