Pickles & Pates

The other day while I was in a clothing store, I thought hey maybe I can become a clothing store manager.  Then I thought hey maybe I can get many part-time jobs while I have all this free time.  Why not expand my horizon eh?

So I think starting in February 2011 I would like to get 2 or 3 part-time jobs.  Hopefully food related.

Day 9: So I officially start shooting for Brooklyn Bread Press.  Started the day off by going straight to the Brooklyn Flea to take photos of Bob McClure of McClure’s pickles.  When I got there the girl behind the table told me Bob was at another market so I had to call him to find out where he was.  Luckily he was on his way back so I just strolled around the flea.  Of course the amount of people shopping and flea items quickly made me dizzy so I stood in the food section instead.  While I was standing there I bumped into my friend Cathy Erway.  Haven’t seen her since I took photos of her at Sixpoint for my project.  It was nice to catch up and she introduced me to Liz of Liddabit Sweets whom I told that my friends of Eastern District was selling her treats.

Finally Bob arrives and I started to take photos.  After I finished I asked him AND Liz if they be interested in helping me out with my photo project, of course after the holiday rush, and they both said yes.  Sweet!

Then it was off to Eastern District.  I gave them a jar of the pate I made the other day and I also picked up a bottle of Black Ops by Brooklyn Brewery.  We chatted a bit.  Then I was off.  I got home and started to work on the photos of Bob McClure.  While I was uploading the photos i made a late lunch of pickled daikon, tobasco spam with noodles in miso soup.  Don’t buy tobasco spam…..it is not that great.  After delivering the photos and finishing the bowl of the noodles I made my way to the Double Windsor to meet up with Matt, Phae, and Justin.  It was a great night, later Etta, Scott, Steph and Howie joined the party.  I was craving for broccoli so I made a quick stop at those cheap Chinese places and got a small chicken and broccoli over rice and ate it at Matt/Phae’s place.  Got home around 2?  I think.

Anyways, Justin and Matt were talking to me about headshots.  I’m still very unfamiliar with the whole “how much to charge people per hour” so Justin is going to help me out with that and write a business plan for me.

Day 10:  Today is all about cleaning up.  Spent a good amount of today deleting and transferring photos off 1 hd to another hd.  I cleaned out my drawers.  I like to keep things but wristbands of music festivals I’ve to, well that had to go.  What also went to the trash were pins, buttons, sleeping eye patch thing from Air France, business cards, receipts.  Feels good clean and throw things into the trash can.

Then I made 2 hash brown tacos for a late afternoon snack followed by a big ole nap.  Now I’m hungry.

Wow after just 1 week I’m sort of tired of updating this.  Is this even helpful?  True to the title of this blog, yesterday and today involved pickles and pates.

Day 6: I started off the day with making the 3rd tiramisu.  This one was for my friends over at Serious Eats.  They’ve been so kind to me and to the food blog, Eat To Blog, I thought I should give them a gift.  After making the tiramisu I sort of did nothing until 4pm.  Hopped onto the train to Park Slope and walked over to Brooklyn Pub where I was meeting Matt and Howie.  I was hoping to discuss some projects where we might work on now that I have joined Matt in unemployment.  He was interested in restarting Bear Claw our sketch comedy group.  I thought of a scenario for it…. 2 unemployed dudes walk into a bar…. GO.  I think we came up with some pretty good ideas.  I had another idea for a sketch so now I’m in charge of writing it.  Though I’m not very good at it.

Since Howie was there I also brought up the idea of maaaybe a quarterly Eat To Blog cookbook/magazine.  Now that I have time to shoot in my backyard during the day, so no more bad yellow indoor lights.  He was up for it, guess we’ll flush out more ideas in January.

I also thought about doing a food book.  Collect all my food photos from now till back when I started taking food photos, pick the ones I like and put them in a book.  Probably need to work on the idea.  Will people buy it?

We did spend about 4hrs at Brooklyn Pub, I had consumed fries with gravy, onion rings, a burger with chips and 2 beers.  Then in the cold we walked to Korzo and consumed 2 pitchers of beer.  After that we called it a night.

Day 7: Exactly a week ago I was let go from FUSE TV.  I was the last of the web team to leave after being there for 4 years.

Yesterday morning I had a slow start.  I was planning to leave the apt around 11:45 to deliver the tiramisu to Serious Eats HQ but I ended up getting there around 1pm.  Robyn said I should stay for the ham tasting.  I do love ham very much but I sat there waiting and waiting.  Finally I left around 2pm.  I got home and went straight to the butcher on Smith St to get a 3lb pork butt and a pound of chicken liver.  Instead I got 3.4lb pork butt for around $13 and half a pound of livers.  I gotta remember to not go there for livers, they never seem to have fresh ones.  The pork butt I decided to throw whatever stuff I had in the fridge into the pot with it.  Chicken stock, rice wine and whole pickled shallots.  I also coated the whole butt with miso/rice wine paste.  Then I cooked it in the oven at 350degree for 3.5hrs.  It came out perfect and tender and easily shreddable.  Mo got hot wings, Kathy got a bottle of very tasty white wine and made rice and Steph brought tortillas, cilantro and shredded veg.  We made pork tacos with the pickled onions and some Kewpie mayo.  So much food, I was so full but there was still tiramisu.

While we were eating dinner I transferred 190GB worth of photos from my 250GB external hd to my 500GB external hd so that I can make the 250GB hd the time machine.

Day 8:  Did not start out slow this morning.  Walked over to One Girl Cookies to get my coffee and started to organize the 2 hds I have.  I’m very bad at keeping and backing up my photos.  I seem have the same photos in multiple places so hopefully soon I’ll have everything organized.  I also posted photos I shot for Edible Brooklyn of Don Paco Lopez Bakery back in October, good stuff.  When that was done I started work on the chicken liver to make pate.  I’m experimenting with different flavors so I had these livers soaked in ####### for a day.  I fried the livers in loads of butter and then poured everything in the pan into the food processor.  That’s when I realized I don’t have heavy cream.  Ah well.  I added about half a stick of butter and gave it a spin.  I tasted it and definitely tasted the ####### at the end.  After putting the pate into jars I topped them off with melted butter.

Back in front of the computer I got an email from Brooklyn Bread Press asking me to do a shoot this Saturday so I guess I officially shoot for them, yes!  Then I decided to email the 1 contact I have at Time Out NY to see if they need or want a photographer.  No reply yet.  Then I called Shamus of Brooklyn Brine regarding my photo project.  He seem pretty busy and I quickly asked him if it was okay to shoot on Tuesday.  He said to touch base on Monday.  Will do.

After that.  Well.  It was getting dark and I wanted to listen to music so I put on my headphones.  It was a very nice feeling to listen to music in the dark but then somehow I got a little depressed and anti-social.  Maybe it finally hit me that now I can’t rely on my paychecks anymore and that I’m close 33 and I feel like a loser.  I don’t know.  I’ve been listening to music for 5hrs now and just realized I didn’t drink 1 drop of water today.  Though I did somewhere in that 5hrs signed up for Freelance Union.

Day 5: Today was my 1st day since last Thursday that I’ve taken the train out to the city.  I made a bunch of tiramisu and gave 1 to my Schnitzel & Things friends.  After that I stopped by the Treats Truck to pick up few sugar cookies for my photo project.  Then I was curious about the new Sunrise Market and walked over to 41st and 5th Ave.  After that I took the F train back to Brooklyn where I went and got a hamburger and a slice of pizza for my photo project.  After shooting all the stuff for the project, I took my laundry to the laundromat.  No more waking up early on Saturday or Sunday mornings to do the laundry.  Yay?  While my clothes were being dried, I walked over to One Girl Cookies and got myself a large coffee, I am 2 days away from being the mayor.

I was meeting Howie and others for dinner at Tabla at 8:30pm.  Before that I edited the photos for the photo project and uploaded them so I can get them printed.  Then the 2nd time of the day I took the F train back out to the city for dinner.

Still thinking about work but did not check the website.  Talked to Martin a bit about stuff.  Still hoping to learn the guitar.  Need to think of ideas/collaborations with Matt for our meeting tomorrow.

Day 4: Ah Monday.  Or well it is Monday but sure doesn’t feel like it.  It is hard, though, to not think about who is doing your job and also why couldn’t they let me go AFTER the holiday party?! Boo!

The 1st thing I did this morning was filed for unemployment.  Surprisingly easy and somewhat quick.  Then it was off to the post office to mail the thing back to the ex-company.

The big plan for today was to make some tiramisu.  Last time I made it was in February for Eat to Blog’s birthday party.  I walked into Trader Joe’s and it made me realized another good thing about being unemployed.  I can go to Trader Joe’s whenever I want and don’t have to bother with the crazy lines and crowd.  I picked up 3 boxes of lady fingers, 6 tubs or 3lbs of mascarpone cheese, 24 eggs, dark roast coffee and a chocolate bar, total came out to be $30.

For lunch I went to Popeye’s.  Yes, why not?  The chicken was good but the biscuit tasted a bit artificial.  I was able to squeeze in a little photo taking for my photo project out in the backyard.

Then I spent the afternoon making tiramisu.  I filled 2 8inch pans and now they’re chilling in the fridge.

Dinner was leftovers.  There are way too many containers in the fridge so dinner was whatever was in the fridge.

Tomorrow is laundry day and dinner at Tabla in the city.

Still on the list of things to accomplish: Guitar, Helmet Guy and photo projects.

Being laid off isn’t a pretty thing but it does give you a new look at life.  All the free time I have now to do what I’ve putting to the side or to concentrate what I really want to do with my life.  I guess I shouldn’t feel so lost when everyone around me aren’t worried for me nor were they sad that I got laid off.  There were lots of congratulating.

I told myself that I do not want to slack off while I have this much free time because well severance benefits can only last so long.

Anyways I like to keep track of everything I’m doing while I’m unemployed and also all the things I LIKE to do while I’m unemployed.

So far Day 0: Drank a lot, ate 15 fried dumplings and then chicken & broccoli with rice and a side of french fries.

Day 1: Regained access to my nyu email account. Deleted about 24k emails.  Shot photos for NY Mag and had lunch with Phae.  Started work on photo project.  Turned an external hard drive into Time Machine.  Emailed someone about a freelance gig.

Day 2: Had brunch with Steph and hung out at Ian’s.  Bought stuff to make lamb ragu pasta for dinner.  Freelance gig emailed me back and asked if I was free Sunday,today, for a trial run.  Dinner was successful and dessert was caramelized apples with a pancake batter, baked and served with ice cream.  Fino brought a friend.

Day 3: Woke up this morning and got the assignment.  Really outside my comfort zone.  Had to go shoot photos at the Brooklyn Flea of 15 people.  I HATE going up to random strangers and ask them but that was what I did today for about an hour then I was off to Williamsburg to the Artists and Fleas and pretty much do the same thing.  Though I had to find 3 shoppers and asked them what they bought.  After that I turned in the photos along with the caption and then off to pie dinner with Matt at Four & Twenty Blackbirds.  It was epic.  A salad, beef and stout pie and fresh cranberry with sage pie.  Drank waaaaay too much beer provided by Kelso.  Home now and started this blog.

For the future.  Work on my behind the scenes photo project, I still need a name for it.  Reboot Helmet Guy.  Learn the guitar.  Blog more.  Work on some sketch comedy with Matt.  Would like to help Martin promote Element Editions.  Apply for this Digital Space Coordinator job.  Find more freelance gig.  Meet more people!  Make more pate.