Melvin Bray

EN001

Mr. Ackney

February 24, 2013

Essay

How to Eat to Live

Food is an artistic pleasure to me simply because it is some many things that a seasoned chef or just an ordinary cook can do with food; such as preparing flavorful dishes, soups, sauces, and marinades for grilling or baking, or just setting up a buffet meal.  After all, every household needs a good cook.  What I would recommend to my readers, in particularly, parents, that they would take light cooking classes to enhance their kitchen skills and kitchen safety procedures.  Furthermore, having ten years of working experience with chefs, like Tom Meyer of the Old Ebbitt Grill Restaurant on 15^th & G, Streets, N.W., Washington, DC, who is also a C.I.A. graduate, the year unknown and Executive Chef Jean Louie of the Watergate located near Virginia, Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC.  These are just a few reputable chefs whom I have gained a strong sense of knowledge from.

          Mainly, I would like to focus on my view of how and why my experience became lengthy.  I used to work long days, arriving at pre-dawn hours at the Marriott on Pookhill Road in Bethesda, Maryland as a breakfast, banquet, and buffet chef.  I, also, worked the night at Shooter McGees’s Restaurant, located on Duke Street, Alexandria, Virginia as a night closing chef.  First of all, I worked every station in the kitchen, in which, in culinary terms is considered, the “back of the house”, and the dining area is considered the “front of the house”.  Moving forward, food stations change according to the menu.  Basically, considering the time of that day, for example, the breakfast menu changes for brunch, lunch, and dinner – that includes private parties as well.  Actually, I started from the dishwasher station and worked my way to the fryer station, pasta, grill/broiler station, sautéing, baking and desserts and some light ice carving.  The Old Ebbitt Grill was a very interesting place to work.  Working with a wide variety of ethnic groups, we had plenty of good days, as well as, bad days.  Good days simply means that everything ran smooth that whole entire day.  Bad days consisted of waiters and waitresses faulty mistakes such as, breaking dishes, confused orders for cooks to take and prepare in a timely fashion.  One of the kitchen rules is that customers, waiters, and waitresses are always right. (Yeah right)  Some of my most enjoyable times was when we did private parties.  A person could meet very interesting people from celebrities to just local talent in the area or just passing through town. 

          Also the kitchen staff was very interesting working with sous chefs like, Penny, better known as, skinny penny, Roger Kaplan, and overweight chef, Bruce.  They all displayed unique talents and contributed to supporting Tom Meyer’s direction in which he was going with this restaurant.  Artistically, it became more of a pleasure when myself and my cousin Vincent was working at the Holiday Inn of Georgetown under Chef Lois.  She gave me total control over the kitchen upon her leaving for the day.  I had schedules, in which, I would design big huge mirrors of fruit and vegetables for brunch and breakfast buffet for Saturday and Sunday morning. 

Lastly, I would like to focus on a different aspect of food.

I would like to recommend that someone in every household take basic cooking classes to enhance their cooking knowledge and skills, whereas we as people or consumers have to be more mindful of the types of places we shop for groceries such as, fruits, meats, vegetables, breads and dairy products.  For example, sodium nitrate, though used as a preservative for commercial hotdogs and lunchmeats, excessive consumption can cause cancer, also to mention that animal products supplies all 8 essential amino acids while vegetable sources do not supply all 8 amino acids and, thus, must be combined to provide all essential amino acids together at the same meal.  Prolonged consumption of poor diets can retard brain development, modify the chemical composition of the brain and produce long-term learning and behavioral defects.  It is imperative that (pork, bacon, sausage, and ham) be avoided at all costs.  Pork not only contains extremely high amounts of saturated fats, but it also has worms that cannot be destroyed by cooking.  Pigs and hogs are scavengers and God has mentioned in all revealed scriptures, the Koran and Torah not to eat pork.  So, in conclusion, be careful what you buy because you are what you eat.