Things at The Restaurant are going swimmingly. I’m still trailing (read: not getting paid), but I’m improving by leaps and bounds.

I wish I had time to take photos for you. The kitchen is small. One stove with eight burners for four cooks (we just got a CIA extern yesterday). Four cutting boards to work at. Five and half hours of prep. At least five and half hours of service. Then clean up. I wear whites that are three sizes too big for me.

I’ve been bringing my 8″ Berghof that was my mom’s chef knife. I think I may start bringing my 10″ Ludwig-Schiff instead. And I’ve been thinking about buying a slicer.

I worked the line on my first Friday service with much less help and better communication. Yesterday I dragged a little, which I am blaming on the server who didn’t give me my service-time coffee. I still need work on slicing the duck and fanning it for presentation.

We’ve been getting ramps and putting them in the risotto. I’ve never had them before. They are such a pretty, vibrant green with a potent garlic and leek flavor.

Alas, we are out of Miller Light, so we didn’t get end-of-shift beers yesterday. I got spoiled because for the first couple of weeks we were drinking Geary’s IPA.

The chef/owner made it certain to tell me that I did really well on Friday. I left feeling proud of myself, especially being able to grab plates from the salamander oven. I am quickly developing kitchen hands and have a callous/blister from hours of chopping root veg. I also have a huge crater on my right ring finger (I’ll spare you the visuals) from 375 degree oil. I went home after twelve hours of being in the kitchen and prepped food for my party the next day.

Lately, brunch has been a big bummer. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it should be one of the most revered meals of the week. You can choose breakfast food, lunch food, or something in between, plus, drinking is actually encouraged. It is more or less a perfect meal.

But lately, restaurants have had a massive amount of suck-age when it comes to this fantastic meal. If waiting 45 minutes for a meal with a blinding hangover headache doesn’t deter you, the fact that once seated, you’ll be given the check before you’re half way through you meal might. I thought at first it was just the trendy neighborhood I live in, where the combination of youth, drinking and disposable incomes translated into long lines and rushed service. Even with a rather large variety of restaurants to choose from, it was a mostly unpleasant experience. Recent forays into the city and and other parts of Brooklyn have unfortunately let me to believe that this is a prevalent phenomenon.

Once you finally get a seat, coffee, and alcoholic beverage of choice, looking at the brunch menu has become a little disappointing as well. It seems like most places are catering to the lower common taste denominator. Biscuits and gravy are good, but should they be so ubiquitous that even the Mexican joint serves them at brunch? And I’m a big fan of eggs Benedict, and admire creativity with the choice of “toppings” served with a poached egg, but how come this often translates into stinginess. Last Sunday I tried a French place in Carroll Gardens, and I won’t go into details, but calling what I had “eggs Benedict” was certainly a misnomer.

A few months ago, I started getting wise. Most brunch items are easy to make at home, and you can linger over your meal, without having someone hovering over you waiting to collect the check. Here are some tips to enjoy a brunch at home.

DRINKS: Of course, bloody Mary’s are the way to go, and most people are really partial to their favorite preparation, so I won’t go into how I prefer mine. Mimosa are also easy to make, as are Screwdrivers. But if you want to switch it up a bit, here are some ideas to try:

• White Port and Seltzer
• Lillet, Seltzer and a splash of Citron
• Faux Sangria, red wine and oj
• White wine, seltzer and a splash of pom juice

THE OVEN: Use the oven, the rule of thumb should be, the more people you serve, the more you should use your oven. Tray pans of potatoes (chunks tossed in spices and roasted are easy and delicious), bacon, sausage evenly cook decent amounts for a crowd. Eggs cooked in toast (or a large hollowed out foccocia), Swedish oven pancakes and french toast “casserole” are other ways that keep you from having to do made-to-order of these brunch staples.

LUNCH ITEMS: I usually like to make at least one lunch salad, sometimes two. A nice green salad with lots of herbs (parsley, mint, tarragon) cut into it. Cantaloupe with green onions, rice vinegar and slivered pepperoni. Non-mayonnaise macaroni salad works too.

The more options the merrier. And the best part about it is that you get to spend quality time with the people you’re brunching with, truly worth the effort.

So you probably already know about my love for the Fairway in Red Hook. But I got really mad at it last week.

The produce is awful. Associated Supermarket awful. It’s not just getting organic fuji apples that were mealy and leeks that were stringy, it’s that most of the perishable produce was visibly not fresh. Most supermarkets will sell fruit and veg that is unripe, knowing that most people only go grocery shopping once a week and the stuff has to last for a few days. Most of Fairway’s fruit and veg is ready to eat. You better take it home and eat it all that day because it won’t keep for more than a day or two (Kinda like that Chris Rock bit about meat from the ghetto supermarkets). I know that markets in Chinatown do this, that’s why I can get a pound of ginger root for $1 or a carton of mangoes for $4. But that’s Chinatown, I expect more from a supermarket that can offer me twenty different kinds of artisanal blue cheese as well as family packs of chicken thighs for $1.99/lb and has a view of the Statue of Liberty.

I don’t know why the Fairway produce sucks. Maybe they don’t keep it cold enough. Maybe they don’t have a mini-sprinkler system that mists it every so often. Maybe they just get one huge delivery every once in awhile as opposed to little deliveries often. Maybe they just don’t care. Maybe no one has complained.

But it makes me all like this little emoticon `,:(

(I think that emoticon, that I just invented [patent pending], is a good alternative to “WTF?!”)

Every time my mother comes to visit, she brings me whatever is currently in her kitchen that she is not using. The fact that she cooks pretty much every meal and I cook about four times a week is lost on her. Any utensil, gadget or ingredient that isn’t currently getting work in her house gets shipped off to Brooklyn. Although its a sweet gesture, its pretty amusing that I own a salad spinner, a potato ricer, a fish spatula and a pizza cutter. *

This is why I happen to have a random collection of vegetables I would not typically buy for myself in my kitchen this morning. Two red peppers, four over-ripe tomatoes and a bunch of rosemary. I am typically not a fan of red or green peppers and had kept them for a week not really knowing what to do with them. Since I am a big fan of soup, I decided to use my most valuable kitchen implement - the great immersion blender - and make them into a soup.

This was simple, quick, and delicious. It made just enough soup for two people and can be seasoned in a variety of ways.

Red Pepper and Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 red peppers
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• spices (more on this)
• 2 splashes Tabasco,
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream,
• salt and pepper to taste

Method: Coarsely chop the peppers, tomatoes, onion and garlic. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter and oil in a large pot. Add vegetables and cook, stirring frequently so not to burn. When tomatoes and peppers start to “melt” and express juices, add chicken broth, tomato paste and spices.{SPICES - you can use a bunch of different spices with these flavors. Today I used 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika and a few sprigs of rosemary. But fennel pollen/fennel seeds, tarragon or hot paprika would work too. Whatever you have in the house, just try and keep it to one note.}

Bring to a boil and then lower hear. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.

{FLAVOR CUBES - Often you get weird leftover ingredients. Like mashed potatoes or in this case tomato paste. There is a reason I bring up these two particular ingredients. Usually recipes (annoyingly) call for only a tablespoon of tomato paste, and it typically comes in 6 ounce cans. Take an ice cube try and line it plastic wrap. Fill as many “cubes” as you can with tomato paste. Freeze, and when frozen, store in a ziplock bag. When another recipes call for just a tablespoon of tomato paste you can use a tomato paste cube from the freezer. In this recipe I used two mashed potato cubes I had in the freezer for some added texture. Flavor cubes work with just about any puree or liquid.}

Once simmered, add salt and pepper to taste and use an immersion blender to puree the ingredients together. I like my soups to have a little body so don’t puree them completely smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, too bad for you. You’re going to have to suck it up and move the soup in small batches to a regular blender, which is tricky with hot soup. Next time you’re out splurge and buy a damn immersion blender. You could get a cheap one for under $20. Once blended, stir in heavy cream and the other tablespoon of butter.

Often finishing a dish with cream and butter is a crutch for poor cooks, but in this case I think it really adds to the soup.

Enjoy!

*It should be noted that I buy my own useless kitchen gadgets as well, like the pocket-pie/ravioli/pirogi/calzone makers I purchased almost a year ago and still have yet to use, especially when I know if I actually wanted to make any of those things I could just seal them closed with a common fork. So maybe that’s why she assumes I want the other barely useful items…

Peter Meehan from the New York Times has a big food boner for Fette Sau. I liked it more than my friends, but granted, I don’t know BBQ as well as they do. Meehan recommends the ribs, so maybe he knows even less about BBQ than I do.

I’ve probably spoiled you, posting multiple times a day. I am busy this week, with three shifts at The Restaurant, two day trips to Long Island, one dinner at L’École, StreetWars, and a housewarming party (which is still on for Saturday, so bring grillables, booze and treats for Pokey).

So in the mean time, please post comments about what foods and drinks you have been consuming. For reals, I’m interested.

Or read this blog: The Impulsive Buy. It’s hilarious.