kitchen Angst!

I have always enjoyed growing my own herbs, tomatoes, and even vegetables at times, even for the restaurant. I have often designed my specials around what I harvested that day! While I was working in Minneapolis, MN. at the Loring cafe I grew my own purple potatoes right out front in our outdoor seating area! I also had my little herb garden there as well. Every day I would go out and take 10 minutes weeding, tending to the garden and thinking about what I wanted to fix for a special. I would dig up enough potatoes for the night, clip my herbs and answer all the questions asked of me by the patrons sitting near by! There were always a lot of questions, people found it oddly amazing that I grew my own potatoes, and most of them were intrigued enough to return for dinner and enjoy my creation, bragging to their friends that they had seen me dig the potatoes out of the ground just hours ago! This was dinner as theater, at it’s finest!! I did hate it when they would request me at the table, I always tried to pretend I was to busy, but the server  would usually insist I go! My S.A.D. really doesn’t kick in as bad when I’m in my cooking costume so I could manage okay, but I still hated going out in the dinning room!

Now to my leading question! I had someone recently make a snide comment about how chefs all grow their own herbs and veggies, like it was some kind of social statement that we were better than the average man!

I said: No, we just like fresh produce and love seeing the dish through from start to finish!

They replied: sounds pompous to me! The herbs in the market aren’t fresh enough for you?

No, I responded: There too expensive! Herbs are nothing more than tasty weeds, why not grow your own?

As you can see I didn’t make a friend that day, however I just might have put someone in their place on proper etiquette.

In this day and age anything we can do to save some money is well worth the time and effort I say! Grow your own and save that money for something else!

Frugal Wins!!!

James