EatLikeAChef - My fascination with food

Well, I said in my last “letter” that I didn’t think I could take the mind-numbingness of an entry-level service industry job for long, and I lasted about 3 months. I learned a lot about cheese and had great access to fresh bread, fancy candies and fantastic salamis. Didn’t help my diet much, but expect to hear a lot about cheese from me in the near future. Chris got a great job working for a company (Aeshen - www.aeshen.com) that consults for Microsoft, Intel, and others (including, abstractly, the Afghan Army). He works from home, which makes the kitties very happy. The combo of having a good job but still being able to enjoy the comforts of home suits Chris well. He’ll have to do some traveling, mainly to job sites in the NW, so there will be some change of scenery. I’m able now to take my time to find a good job, rather than just the first thing that comes along. After getting offered the first three jobs I applied for when I first got here, I think I had an unrealistic expectation of how easy it would be now that I’ve reentered the market. Still waiting for that most important call back for something that I actually want to do. Cross your fingers for luck, please.

We’ve had a lot of fun living here - so many interesting things to do. We’ve been to several street/art festivals where the streets have been closed down for the weekend. We probably try a new brew pub or restaurant on a weekly basis. There was a great zydeco festival (really a blues fest but we stayed all day at the zydeco stage) on 7/1, and this weekend finds a brewmaster’s festival down by the riverfront. You know we are in the right part of the country when there are almost 100 local-ish brewers all with something different on tap. I volunteered to work a tap on Friday, and got stuck serving Dick’s Best Bitter from Centralia, WA. Tasty enough, but I heard my share of “hilarious” comments about the name.

From this point on, I’ll try to make my posts more food topical, although I still have plenty to say about Portland. Hopefully I’ll keep it interesting. Creating a web page/log centering around myself seems awfully self-indulgent, but I’ve been assured that I have “valuable” opinions, especially with regards to food related info (heh). I miss you guys!

So it’s been just over a month here, and I still really like Portland. This morning is the first day that it hasn’t been quite beautiful and sunny when I woke up. Definitely cloudy and gray today, but not raining at the moment. Probably going to wait until I head out for the bus. I officially took the Assistant Cheese Monger Job..something about the evil you know being better than the evil of a call center. I found some amazing shoes that have a spring for a heel that make the problems I was having with tendonitis in my heel much less of an issue. I’m just waiting for the moment when I can spring up over tall buildings to safety and leave those around me wondering what the hell happened…

I’m enjoying the fact that I can take the bus to work and back each day, especially with gas prices so high. The people watching is fun, the walks to the bus station always invigorating, the only down side is all the extra time it takes vs. just heading out last minute to get to work. At the end of every day, Elephant’s staffs out any leftover bread, and I haven’t gotten over that novelty, so I’m always coming home from work with a bag stuffed full of sourdough and foccacia. I’m using it as a ploy to meet our neighbors and try to sweeten them up for a potential cat sitting scenerio next month (Twangfest). EVERYONE around here seems to have cats, healthy & happy cats thank goodness. This is a very pet-friendly city. There are easily 4 pet stores (one is naturopathic) within a few blocks of our house, plus two self-serve pet bathhouses. Won’t be taking the cats there anytime soon, but it’s nice to be surrounded by pet love.

I’m learning a lot about cheese, altho the deli chick quit the first week I started, so I’ve been spending most of my time dishing up salads from the cold case. Talk about a Grins flashback. I laugh all the time when the staff at Elephant’s talks about being “busy”…they have no idea. Seriously, they have no idea. This is a walk in the park compared to a lunch rush at Grins. I hope that they’ll hire a new deli girl soon, tho, my brain is going numb quickly with any lack of stimulation. The food is the same every day, so I don’t get any pleasure there. I want to be off tasting cheeses with customers and discussing the “grassiness vs. the mushroom and the blooming rind vs. the washed”. I have my eyes open for other opportunities, both at this business at at other companies. The world is my oyster and Portland is the pearl. Or something like that.

I’m sort of in Bizarro world when it comes to my schedule - after so many years of early risings at Grins, I now go into work at noon Sunday through Thurs and work until around 9pm. Perfect for a social life, if I could just get used to the physicality of my job and not be so sore at the end of the day. Each week it gets better. It’s kind of funny to be staying up later than Chris for a change. I’m actually going to concerts, even on a “school night”, and not feeling the worse for it the next day.

Ok, as you can tell from the opening paragraphs, I started this email about a month ago. It’s been two months now in the Rose City, and it’s been raining a bit more. I’m really enjoying the weather, tho…we are about to go into JUNE and it still is dropping to the low 50s at night. If it takes some rain to make it so, bring it on. I’m still cheesing it - Elephant’s has embraced me and all my “fresh” ideas, and we’ve been doing a lot of cheese promotion and rearranging of the cheese way of doing things. Still don’t think I”ll last too long here, but while I’m here I might as well have fun.