Sit Back–Enjoy The Show–Nosh Venison Sliders

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights.

Over 250 Los Angeles chefs and restaurant industry professionals swarmed the W, Westwood (where Dakota  is executive chef) this week for a red carpet roll out of Dine LA 2012.  What’s this to do with my daughter-on-Top-Chef series?  Read on.

News cameras rolled and media photographers clicked and flashed their Nikons at the welcoming platform.

“Thank you Dine LA for inviting the W and allowing me to serve as your host chef for the Dine LA 2012 kickoff,” Dakota explained to the noisy and noshing foodie professionals.  Her quick welcome ended with “…enjoy the food tonight—especially my perfectly cooked venison sliders!”

Not everyone got the joke. But among those who laughed out loud were the Two Hot Tamales, also known as Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger,  both Top Chef Masters and guest judges for Top Chef, Season 9, Episode 4—the chili cook off that Dakota’s team survived.  Both chefs stood right in front of me—a kiss or hug distance away.  I thought to have my friend Christi shoot a photo of me with these celeb chefs, but it seemed so nerdy to ask.

Padma and the "Two Hot Tamales"

Anyway, the day Top Chef Texas, Episode 7 was set to broadcast, Dakota was in a total funk, as was I, because we knew how it ended—badly.  Rare venison spelled the end to Dakota’s Top Chef competition.  But something unexpected happened that December day that eased the pain of watching oneself or her daughter pack the knives and leave: A phone call from the Dine LA people asking Dakota to serve as Host Chef.   It’s a regional honor that confirmed Dakota’s talent. It was also the call that helped her put aside the feeling of being of Top Chef loser, along with that episode’s other elimination, Nyesha Arrington.

The post-show media and interviews seemed to want to pit Dakota against Nyesha.  Well, anything to bring interest in this crazy 24/7 news world.  But after I read some of the interviews, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.  You see, Dakota considers Nyesha one of her better buddies from the show.  And as serendipity would have it, both of these women grew up in the same area—a Mojave Desert valley just north of Los Angeles. 

Back to the Dine LA fandango.  The DJ kept the music bumping, vendors offered free libations, Dakota’s staff rushed out plenty of venison sliders and other delights.  While I balanced my wine and slurped up a fabulous cauliflower Panna cotta topped with lime and caviar, Dakota grabbed my arm.  “Mom, come meet Nyesha.”

Nyesha sat unobtrusively in a corner sofa. A crowd gathered around the talented chef (who was trying to eat a meal).  Dakota pulled me through the crowd.  “Nyesha, this is my mom!”  

Nyesha, Dakota, Charmaine

She wiped her mouth, stood up and said, “Wow, you can sure tell that you’re mother and daughter.” (Okay, that’s a huge flattery for this not-so-fit 63-year-old.) My return was, “And you are drop-dead gorgeous, lady.”  And Nyesha is.  She is also soft-spoken and easy to like.   And like Dakota, Nyesha has found this new celebrity a surprise.

The two chatted like girlfriends, not two chefs pitted against each other,  and talked about the latest Tweets about their other LA Top Chef cheftestant, Chris Crary, rumored  to possibly be dating a Hollywood starlet.  

And this is when this whole new chapter in our family’s life gets fun and I get to sit back and enjoy the show.

Friends & Family having fun on the Dine LA red carpet

A special thanks to Christi Moore who was mindful enough to

 bring her camera to this event!

429 Anti-Inflammatory Flames of Good

I took my first anti-inflammatory step into the fire of peace—or the search thereof—twenty months ago.[1] As of today, I am 429 steps deeper into my quest.

What has changed?  I let my hair show its natural color-gray;  I haven’t lost weight; I eat less meat, but maintain a fondness of good wines;  and I still cuss.  And, oh, yes, I discovered no peace in the writing of the greatest book of all times—my memoir.

Again, I missed a listing in “Top 10 Success Stories” in 2011.  But that was never my goal. My goal was and is to navigate my way through the less than charming political rhetoric, upside down views of religious beliefs, and philosophical greed.  No, I’m not an Occupy person—mainly because I don’t have enough energy or time to occupy much more than I already do. 

“What do you occupy?” one might ask.

My bullet point reply:

• Computer time researching/editing/writing/posting  429 stories for The Daily Prism
• Volunteering
•  Computer time researching/editing/writing/posting over 100 stories for Neptune 911
• Volunteering
• Internal research for crafting memoir
• Volunteering
• Finding relevant material for this blog
• Volunteering
• Piano practice, preparing healthy meals with a stringent budget, pulling weeds and planting seeds, walking, and thinking.

Between each bullet point pencil in: partnership with spouse, mothering, friendships and accommodating my cat’s demands.

I’m occupied.

“Then what are those 429 steps?” one continues questioning.

It’s the 429 points of evidence that there is more good in our world than what our broadcasters, news media, and pontificates would have us believe.  I took the first 215 steps on Facebook and Vibrant Nation posting the good things that everyday people do.  It was a bit laborious to count each post, so on January 3, 2011, I started The Daily Prism.  I’ve managed 264 posts (steps) since then.

It’s not a unique concept and I’m not the first to create such a blog.  In fact, I resourced like-blogs for my first 200 steps.  Slowly the doors opened and a flood of new resources landed in my search tool that linked one good to another.

This floodgate of what I now call “sparks of light from the prism” amaze me.  It is everywhere. I find good deeds in my newspaper’s letters to the editor, on Facebook, in books I’m given, and from random discoveries.   A heightened awareness of good seems to foster more good.  It also spins my Irish temper into an Irish toast.  What would once have given me cause to jump all over some nincompoop now coerce me into smiles and humor.

It’s weird.  For instance, over the New Year’s weekend, my part-time neighbors arrived, bringing their dog and another dog that created an unholy nuisance of barking each time my neighbors left the house.  The high-pitched yelp of the canine duo endlessly echoed throughout our quiet neighborhood.  Yes, I wanted to scream but I was short on energy and directed what I had on watching football.  Suddenly, spouse and I heard someone yelling for us from our driveway.  Spouse peered through the window. A woman, absolutely filled with rage, screamed at him because our neighbor’s dogs were barking. (At her antics, the dogs went into hyper-speed yaps that surely surpassed 100 decibels.)  Spouse tried to explain that there was nothing he could do, but she would not have it.  Fortunate for her, spouse’s team was on the verge of a much-needed touchdown. He shrugged his shoulders toward her and rushed back to the television to watch a six-point score.

Yesterday morning my neighbor came over with a most wonderful bottle of local wine.  “I’m really sorry about the dogs. We had no idea they were out of control,” he confessed as he handed the wine to spouse.  He asked if we knew who left a nasty note on his front door.  Spouse recounted the screaming woman story and said that  he had no idea who she was—but if that bit of ugly garnered a wonderful red wine in hand, apologies accepted.

Moral: Yelping pooches create unreasonable angry woman, we maintain peace and are gifted with us a tasty bottle of wine for dinner.  It’s all good.

Okay, this is a silly example of good begetting peace begetting good, but it did, nevertheless.

This small event represents a multitude of moments where I (and spouse) have reached for the flames of anti-inflammatory behavior with positive results.

My head is not buried in unspeakable places. I remain informed and read. (There is an apparent dearth of news-junky methadone available.) I don’t like some of what I learn.  But I’ve discovered that it is very temporary.

This stroll along Anti-Inflammatory Avenue has also introduced me to some remarkable other avenue strollers, like this brief encounter I posted last May on The Daily Prism: 

Yesterday I stood in gale force winds that pierced right through the visitors to Piedras Blancas Bluffs near San Simeon, Ca.–most dressed for summer beach weather.  A tiny, older woman flew from her car amazed at the sight of hundreds of northern elephant seals resting on the beach. She was as joyous as a child on Christmas morning.  I called her to come closer to the seals and that I’d explain the view.  Her husband, also demure, braced himself from the winds.  Her English was okay, her husband spoke none.  She translated my information for him. 

 Suddenly she broke away and dashed to a nearby young couple, not dressed for the weather, struggling to keep their baby from the winds and trying to get a photo of the three of them. 

“Here, I take your photo,” she said smiling as the wind nearly blew her away. She was irresistible and they handed her their camera.  ”Stand there, okay. I see you now,” she said looking through the camera’s screen. “Good photo! You enjoy,” she said returning their camera with a smile bigger than the rest of her.

We went back to talking about seals.  “This is good,” she said.  Her husband, I assumed, said, “Can we get out of this wind now?” 

She turned around and gave me a warm hug thanking me.  A buzz shot through my body and I knew I had just encountered one of those special souls who spread light where ever they go.

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[1] On May 20, 2010 I was near personal implosion from the BP oil disaster and other such unmindful errors and misbehavior by the powerful.  That same day the Dalai Lama spoke of temporary and man-made mischievous deeds, and that the world is better.  Suddenly my over-heated heart cooled as if a gentle white cloud encompassed me and removed my inflamed discomfort.

An Ugly Box With A Beautiful Gift

Sparkling ribbons and paper swathed this holiday season with excitement, expectation and surprise.  Tenderly, I removed each ribbon so that it could be reused–a sentimental and frugal habit. Then like my grandchildren, I ripped through the colorful wrap and held my breath anticipating the moment I would hold something special purchased or made for me by someone I love.

A gift card for my favorite clothier, grandchildren smiling in a framed photo, a box of French cookies, a book, fragrant lotions and a shiny scarf hid inside those boxes. They brightened these late December days.  But a dusty, faded and unadorned brown cardboard box I opened yesterday– that lag time between Christmas and New Year’s Day– was an unheralded gift.

Frankly, the box was ugly. Yellowed packing tape sealed the long and narrow container.  A Bekins moving tag adhered to the top.  That meant this box was packed, moved, and unopened since August 1988. Circled and written by my hand was  “Heeley” in red ink.

“I thought you might want to see what’s inside,” spouse encouraged last evening, after he unpacked the car from our stay in Santa Fe, where I stored the box.

Heeley was the last name of my godparents, Charlie and Marie.  They rescued me time after time.  The first rescue was after my mother’s untimely death in 1951. The second rescue came as a preteen when I escaped my nightmare life with my stepmother and father on a cold December night in 1960.

Charlie and Marie presented me with definition when confusion and dysfunction ruled my days.  Example: “You’re an Irish Catholic Democrat,” Charlie explained to me when I was age three.  I wore that with pride.  It was a title that helped me through the dark days after my father remarried in 1955 and I lived with him and his new wife.  She defined me as: “You’re a stupid whore.”  I knew stupid, but I didn’t know the word whore—but gleaned that it was something really bad. 

But enough of the ugly and back to this unheralded gift box.

I gingerly sliced through the layers of packing tape .  A white ceramic angel that attached to a wall and held holy water for making the Sign of the Cross rested on top of tarnished envelopes. A King Edward cigar box and a Whitman’s Sampler box, and a popsicle stick craft I entered and won a blue ribbon for at our local fair in 1961, rested next to the envelopes.  At the very bottom of the box were two framed 8×10 photos.  One was my high school graduation photo from 1966. The other photo was one I’ve searched for and had given up for lost.  It was the black and white photo of Charlie in his wool U.S. Navy uniform taken sometime during his World War II enlistment.  This was the first thing I remembered seeing  the day after my mother died when I woke up in Charlie and Marie’s bedroom.

I went for the envelopes next.  Postmarked “Burbank, Calif, Nov. 16, 1948,” this Official Business envelope from the Navy Department held a treasure of history.  It included a dozen Brownie camera shots from Charlie’s time as a Seabee In Tulagi in 1942.  He, with his fellow Seabees are posed in front of “a tank for hospital,”  “The mess hall and chow line…I’m in the picture but you’ll need a magnifying glass,” Charlie wrote,  and another of two sailors and Charlie that reads on the back, “The kid in the center goes to Mass with me all the time. His name is Geo. Michaud.  The other kid is Benny Mantier.”

Resting inside the Whitman’s box was a collection of Charlie’s wartime devotional books, including a Paulist Press “Novena for Peace and Victory,” and a Catholic Prayer Book with a note from President Franklin D. Roosevelt  who stated on March 6, 1941, “As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve….”

Another envelope holds Charlie’s Honorable Discharge papers dated September 19, 1945. 

But the deeper I went into the box I discovered even older books of prayer that Charlie kept from his school days in St. Louis: his grade school catechism from 1921, and his 1925 “Manual of Catholic Devotions,” given to him upon receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. 

The cigar box secured more religious booklets, devotionals, and Charlie’s religious medals, and a broken rosary.

All these mementos revived the gift of faith and hope that Charlie portrayed and gave to me.

Finally, I opened Charlie’s Memorial Book.  Reading the March 9, 1980 newspaper headline, “Charles Heeley, civic, political leader, dies,” returned me to the sad day when his heart quit.  He died in the medical center that he helped establish in 1953.  The obituary listed Charlie’s accomplishments:  founder and first president of the Lancaster Democratic Club; State Assembly candidate; campaign manager for several state politicians; first director of the Feather River Project; founder and charter member of the local Grange; and member of a half-dozen civic organizations.

The obit didn’t list Charlie’s early career as a dancer and his dream of designing interiors.  It didn’t list how he encouraged his troubled god-daughter to explore creativity and imagination.  It didn’t list his heartfelt compassion for others and his respect and love of life.

But it did list me as his daughter and my two children as his granddaughters—even though he was not my birth father who lived 20 years beyond Charlie’s 1980 death.

Yesterday I understood how I became who and what I am.  It was an amazing gift in an ugly box filled with beauty and love.

It’s Trite, But Winning Top Chef Isn’t “Everything”

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights. 

Check for updates at bottom of post.

“June Gloom” also known as a “thick marine layer” that typically hangs over California’s coast during June, lasted most of the summer.  It was the kind of summer when I wore fleece instead of gauze while Dakota, in the hellish heat of Texas while filming this season’s Top Chef, wore a navy blue jacket in an even hotter kitchen.

I know how Dakota loves foggy days, belaying some of her Irish roots.  She was heavily on my mind as my foggy, cool July mismatched her over-heated days in a competitive Top Chef kitchen.  She was on her sister’s mind as well.

“Mom, I’m freaking out,” began her older sister calling from her office in Santa Fe.  “Last night I had the most miserable nightmare about Dakota. It felt real.”

“OMG! I did too!” I concurred.  “I dreamed that Dakota took a bucket of sand and threw it in the faces of the other chefs and then got kicked off the show.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling that something’s wrong,” her sister admitted.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” I tried to comfort.  “She’s been gone a long time and we just wanna hear her voice.”

A few days later the fog cleared and it was warm enough to sit in the sun.  It felt delicious.  The phone rang, I rushed to answer. I hoped it was Dakota.  It wasn’t , but the message was devastating: the judges told her, “Please pack your knives and leave.”

My stomach turned and tears filled my eyes.  I worried about Dakota.  How did this make her feel?  What happened?  Would she get over this? I fretted until we saw her later in August.

Her first words were, “I’m okay with it, Mama.  I wanted to go further, but I ran out of steam.”

“Did you get sick from the heat or something?”

“The heat sucked.  But Top Chef is a game—a reality game show where chefs move to win.  I learned that I’m not very competitive…and I did under cook the meat. Damn it!” Dakota, outfitted in her just-out-of-Texas gear laughed and grimaced at the same time.

And this made me think about how I raised my daughters.  I demonstrated a work ethic, which they have each reproduced.  The work ethic included education, determination, and quality product.  But I didn’t teach gamesmanship, because I’m not a great game player.  I’m pretty much what you see is what you get.  If you don’t like what I offer, I’ll find someone who does.

I see this echoed in both daughters. 

Dakota’s biggest lament, “I wish I was a little less emotional!”

“Dakota,” I began, “Emotion is what makes you an artist.  It’s what you are.  Without feelings—deep feelings—you don’t have the soul to create. So, you didn’t make it as far as you wanted, the fact is, you did ‘make it’ by winning a position on the show.  That’s pretty darn prestigious and a trophy in your corner that recognizes your talent.”

And now that I’ve watched the other cheftestants pack their knives, I don’t think one is less talented than the other.  Maybe some remaining cheftestants hired coaches to show them how to play.  Maybe not.  Maybe some trained to keep their physical energy up.  Maybe not.  Maybe some play better in front of a production team.  Maybe not. 

Dakota and the other 14 who packed their knives are in good company.  Anne Burrell was on the Daily Show on Monday. Here’s what she has to say about packing her chef’s knives when recently  bumped off of  Iron Chefs Super Chefs, “…it’s very difficult…it’s personal…”  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-12-2011/anne-burrell

Yeah, it would be cool to get that Season 9 Top Chef pin on your toque.  And it’s easy to make the trite statement that “winning isn’t everything,” because we all admit that winning is super cool.  Yet, really, winning isn’t everything.  “Everything” encompasses much more than a temporary award that brings momentary fame.   The chutzpah to audition for the show is a winner.  Cruising through all those interviews and tests is amazing.  Watching each chef perform and create is inspiring (except for the rattlesnake dish).

What my oversized television screen showed me  was the daughter I raised to be herself–with no excuses.  That’s winning.

 

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Dakota explains the story to TV Guide.  “I was hurt by Nyeesha’s comments”

 

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From TV Ology:  Dakota Stays Positive Despite Elimination

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All Top Chef Podcast:  http://www.alltopchef.com/

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From TV Insider:  Top Chef Dakota: I Went Out In A Ball of Fury

 

 

 

Top Chef Texas–Dakota’s Sauce Sinks and Gazpacho Flies

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights. 

Ah, it’s holiday time in LA.  Lit like drunken fireflies, 50-foot yachts cruise the harbors at night.  Steaming sweet tamales delight the air above a Los Posadas procession on  Olvera Street.  Scientology Santa greets menorah lighting Santa in Hollywood. Ice skating hotel guests, in shorts and tank tops, slip, spin and slide on synthetic ice in the 70-degree sun over the pool at the W, Westwood.

This is where we took a quick lunch with Dakota on Monday.

I ordered the pumpkin bisque soup that I’ve craved since posting the W’s Thanksgiving menu on a recent blog. With Episode 6 of Top Chef Texas, set to broadcast in two more days, I  asked, “So, baby girl, any changes going on since all this Top Chef business?”

Our server, visibly nervous serving the executive chef and her parents, quivered when he placed the bisque before me.  Dakota’s face changed from daughter to boss.  “I don’t see the maple syrup on the soup,” she dryly stated to the server.  (“Why me?” I sensed him kicking himself in the arse realizing a screw-up and right in front of Chef!)

Dakota switched back to daughter.  “Yeah. We’re incredibly busy and booked solid at the restaurant. And get this, last night I went out for dinner after work, and people  stopped me and asked if I was Dakota on Top Chef!”

That’s so LA. Everyone wants to know a celebrity.

“Sounds to me,” I prefaced after nearly licking the last of the pumpkin bisque from the bowl (it was that good), “like the heat, stress, and exhaustion of the summer in Texas was worth it.”

“Definitely.  It’s not so much the celebrity as it is to watch and feel the changes both professionally and personally,”  Dakota admitted.

Watching last night’s  sixth episode of Top Chef I knew that by the time this episode was filmed, Dakota, as the rest of the cheftestants, were long into this production–and for many, out of their comfort element.

 Dakota alluded to this when she answered a  reporter’s question for the online magazine, Rage. “What has been the toughest part of this process (of filming Top Chef)? “  Dakota: Realizing that I am not as “tough” as I thought I was. Having been put into bizarre and unusual circumstances really puts you in tune with yourself. It’s a completely different world.  I am used to being the one who makes the decisions and having the final say on everything…there, well…not so much.

The quickfire challenge was creative use of a designated mother sauce. Chef Dean Fearing,  Dakota’s early career executive chef, judged the cheftestant’s mother sauces.  “My least favorite (pause), Dakota.  I didn’t like the peach in the bechamel…”

 Oh peachy! He placed her on the bottom of the quickfire challenge.  When the camera pulls off of her, she leaned behind the taller contestant in front of her–she was not a happy camper.

I can’t fathom how one cooks 200 steaks at one time and make each one perfectly medium rare.  Fortunately Dakota went the first course route where she and her team served gazpacho.  It passed. 

Gazpacho and Dakota are long time friends.  Whew. Dakota and other cheftestant, Heather, however, are not friends.  Dakota called her a bully.  Here’s what one blogger wrote, “Dakota called Heather a bully and said she would be the first one she would boot from the island. Eek. -”

I dread each episode in fear of hearing Padma tell my daughter to pack her knives and go.  We made it through another episode…

***

 Last week Dakota’s Banana Bread Pudding, Banana Mousse and Banana Date Milkshake was a favorite.  Click this for the recipe:  Dakota’s Banana Bread Pudding

My Top Chef Cheftestant Kid Plays With Food

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights. 

 

Early in Dakota’s career she worked under the chef de cuisine at The Mansion at Turtle Creek in Dallas.  There she met and observed celebrity chef Dean Fearing. This was a natural transition from her time with chef Mark Miller and his chef de cuisine,  Jeff Drew , at Santa Fe’s iconic Coyote Cafe.

She gave her new position her all until a swank competitor lured her to his Dallas restaurant and offered her the title of sous chef.  For the first time,  the restaurant owner printed her name and title on the stylish menu featuring French-inspired meals.

This was a double-edged dilemma for me: Her career had traction; but she was now deep in the heart of Texas—far from our northern New Mexico log home. 

Our family tradition of the entire family attending each member’s birthday dinner was one of my favored times. But this time, one seat would be empty at my birthday dinner table.  I handled it well. (That’s a lie.  I sulked for the entire week prior.)

“Why don’t we just have some soup by the fireplace, a cake for two, and forget about the big deal of birthdays,” I suggested to spouse.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“I think it’s something I’m going to have to get used to and I may as well start it this year,” I whimpered.

Spouse placated me through my birthday date.  We drove home from work and he promised that he’d supply a dinner and we’d have a great time, “…even if Dakota can’t be there,” he interjected.

It’s dark early on my winter birthday, and lights glowed from our cabin windows when we pulled into the driveway.

“Did we leave the lights on?”  I asked.

He said nothing.  I made my way from the vehicle and immediately smelled a little bit of heaven– garlic sautéing in olive oil wafting from our cabin’s vents.

“She’s here!  I just know it. Dakota’s here!” I yelled, holding back joyful tears.

I rushed through the front door. She stood at the range and  flipped haricort verts in my All Clad skillet while a beef wellington baked in the oven.  “Surprise! Happy Birthday, Mom,” she greeted.

I savored that moment watching last night’s Top Chef, Season 9, Episode 5, especially when Dakota explained to the camera how she had once sped her way through San Antonio, got an expensive speeding ticket, and kept on speeding through Texas, because her speeding across Texas was my second thought when I realized Dakota made a hasty trip to cook that surprise birthday dinner.

So when the Texas State Trooper halted the Top Chef cheftestant parade to Dallas on a lonely country road, Dakota didn’t have to face the law, but a nasty quickfire challenge instead.

Sweat glistened from the chefs’ skin as they tried to make sense of canned survival food that is marginally edible even in a survival situation–and prepare it in an open air kitchen under the hot Texas sun.

Hot how was it? One of my Texan friends, Mitzi Johnson Marx from Temple, defined last summer’s heat, “HOTTER THAN A JUNE BRIDE IN A FEATHER BED!”  Yes, she shouted it.

Dakota confided, “I opened up the knapsack and had no idea what to do with that stuff.  This one got me for sure.”

Survival food behind them, the cheftestants headed on to the lifestyle of the rich and want to be famous of Dallas for a progressive party. Dakota gets the bad news that she’s on the dessert team. “I’m not a pastry chef,” she will tell you.

But my kid still plays with her food, especially when it comes to dessert.  And Dakota serves the society queens her wickedly gooey bread pudding, which has helped expand my waistline in the past, with a shot glass (made from dates) filled with a milk shake.

Padma drinks her shot, and one of the dinner party guests says Dakota’s bread pudding “is worth every calorie.”

I fret that the stuffy judges won’t appreciate Dakota’s whimsy when they call her to the judges’ table.  But they got it, loved it and called her dish nostalgic and comforting.

Once again, I exhaled and glad I didn’t fully discourage the lanky kid with frizzy hair and a future chef to not play with her food. 

 

 

Cowboy Up & Ride This Rodeo Called Top Chef, Dear Daughter.

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights. 

The rodeo theme for last night’s Top Chef Season 9, episode 4, was the perfect allegory for these talented contestants:  Pull up you boots and hang on, because it’s going to be one heck of a ride. And like a rodeo cowboy, these chefs hope they draw the perfect metaphorical bull that gives them the best eight-second ride.

I’ve concluded after watching many seasons of Top Chef that it’s often the luck of the draw that includes making a decision that competes with a heartless eight-second   buzzer.  And that even the first chef who must pack his/her knives and go home, does not reflect the quality of that chef’s work and talent.  (I joined the cry-fest when Chef Keith Rhodes packed his knives last week.) In other words, these chefs are not all hat and no cattle.  They have the hat (toque) and can round-up and make tasty just about anything off the ranch—including a few rattlesnakes.

So when Bravo TV announced this week’s Top Chef competition included a hot chile quickfire and a rodeo chili cook-off,  I whooped and hollered.  After all, Dakota Weiss (my daughter and one of this season’s cheftestants)  broke in her cooking skills at Mark Miller’s Coyote Café in Santa Fe. Miller was the one who distinguished one chile from the other in his The Great Chile Book. Dakota knows chile.

Habaneros, as we now know from the recent spate of news from the recent pepper spraying on UC Davis students, rates between 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville units of heat—this was Dakota’s pepper of choice.  No surprise.  But the ghost pepper, the mega-hot of the ultra-hot chiles, brought some blazing luck to the only chef who risked  preparing an eatable dish that used  the hottest pepper on earth (says Guinness Book of Records).

“I didn’t win this one, and my dish landed in the middle of the judges’ choice,” Dakota said. 

The chili cook-off gave Dakota a temporary back at the ranch kind of comfort. “I was excited about the chili cook-off–I mean, Mom, how many ways have you made chili when I was a kid?  Always yummy.”

(Thank you, very much, dear daughter.)

Dakota cowboyed up and sweated out  the next 36 hours  with her “red team” to create a rodeo fan favorite chili. Yes–she stayed up the entire 36-hours.

 Like the pepper quickfire, she rode in the middle with votes.

But as her mother, Dakota’s concerns before the competition began, echoes at the end of each broadcast.

“Mom, I  feel  way out of my league.”

“No, no, no,” I corrected.  “You would not be there if you were out of your league.”

“Well, there are some absolutely amazing chefs in this competition.”

“As are you.  And remember, Top Chef is a reality game show.  Let me repeat, GAME SHOW.  It’s how you play the game.”

Meanwhile as my google search reined in reviews and blogs about Episode 3, I learned the venomous side of playing this game.   

Rakes wrote a few blogs—rake being cowboy slang for a loose, disorderly vicious person. Their take on Dakota included phrases like, “hyped up all the time,”  “drug user” “older than 35,” and “always ready to cry.”

Now, if these rakes actually knew Dakota they would understand a few things.  I’ll list them.

“Hyped up.”  Yup. That’s right and exactly like her mother and her sister.  We are high energy women and challenged  to contain our energy and excitement.

“Drug user.” Wrong. In the nasty blog I wrote about cocaine users, I could have by-lined Dakota’s name as the author.

“Older than 35.” Yup.  Make that 35 and a half.

“Always ready to cry.” Yup.  That girl has heart and soul.  Sit my daughters and I in front of an emotional film, we’re a mess;  sling  us a good joke, and the tears roll;  piss us off and grab  your slickers for the flood about to come forth.

Wisely, Dakota put a six-shooter to her google search and is busy in the kitchen, today,  assuring her Thanksgiving menu pleases the sold out restaurant at the W. What’s for dinner at Nine Thirty tonight?

First Course

Pumpkin Bisque

With bourbon spiked maple syrup, spicy pepitas. 

Second Course

Roasted turkey breast stuffed with port braised cranberries and pecans

Buttermilk-herb gravy

Wild mushroom stuffed croquettes

Orange-cardamom glazed yams

Sautéed haricot vert

Cranberry chutney 

Third Course

Trio of mini pies:

Saffron roasted pumpkin pie

White chocolate macadamia nut pie

Buttermilk-rum raisin pie

 

Chef Dakota Weiss & Her Top Chef “Mother Effin” Snakes

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights.

Spring break at Scottsdale Culinary Institute gave my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss, now a Top Chef Season 9 contestant, time to stay with us in our northern New Mexico log house in the middle of an apple orchard.  Beautiful place.   True to the Top Chef public relation media releases about Dakota, she loves my gardens.  And my New Mexico garden was spectacular. 

Garden in An Apple Orchard

Under the fresh spring sun, Dakota and I relaxed on the expansive wood deck and admired the blossoming apple orchard and the sprouting spring peas in the garden when an ominous movement beneath a wood box near the garden faucet caught my eye.

Garden-vigilance was essential because hundreds of wilderness acres began at our northern property line.  Our irrigation ditch and the river that etched our southern property line attracted the wild things from the north.  This included fox, bear, bobcat and snakes.  My fantasy world convinced me that our snakes were benign until my neighbor revealed that he removed a rattlesnake from the expansive wood deck from where we lounged.  That’s a holy crap moment in my life.

Mindful of that memory, I grabbed the nearest hoe and Dakota grabbed a rake.  We tippy toed toward the spigot and gently lifted the plywood.

“Yikes!” we screamed together . Okay, we probably screeched  a profanity. A six-foot, four-inch snake hissed back at us. 

“It’s not a rattler,” I confirmed with hoe keeping distance between the unhappy reptile and I.

“Looks like a coral snake,” Dakota withered with her rake ready for the impaling.

“Too big.  I’m going with king snake, which is a good snake…but it can go elsewhere.  Let’s push it out into the field.”

We squealed and squirmed right along with the serpent, who slithered away from the field and sought   refuge on the wood deck instead.  Apparently snakes don’t herd.

“Oh, Mama, this is a nightmare. What are we going to do?” Dakota asked with her face as contorted as the snake that now raised its neck and began crawling up the logs right next to the sliding glass door. Before I could find a calming answer, it had wound and knotted itself into the exterior pipes for telephone and power.  My solution: Call the neighbor who removed the rattlesnake.

Fortunate for this reptile, it wasn’t in Texas sometime last summer and the first quickfire challenge for this year’s Top Chef 16 contestants in last night’s Top Chef, Episode 3.

The Bravo TV commercials let us know “mother effin snakes” was on the menu. 

Now, I recall Dakota’s stay in Shanghai as a guest chef for the Shanghai Ritz-Carlton.  At day’s end, her hosts escorted her to the restaurants they frequented.  Protocol insisted she bite into tiger, dog and the like.  “I didn’t like it, but I was a guest chef and the Chinese chefs were gracious and happy to introduce me to their food.”  But like me during my 3-week Asian tour, Dakota washed down the less appetizing foods with a whole lot of Asian beer.

No surprise, on her first quickfire challenge, she explained to the camera, “I don’t like rattlesnake at all, but when I think snake, I think beer.” So she made a beer batter and deep-fried the rattlesnake and won the competition.  The judges loved her zucchini almond sauce and succotash side dish.

While America watched this first full on quickfire challenge , Dakota was on her 10^th hour at work, on  her feet wrestling with another kind of challenge—an unheard of crowd of Wednesday night diners at Nine-Thirty (the restaurant at the W, Westwood) and a huge banquet. 

I texted her while the show was on, “U watching this?”

Fur Elise announced her reply, “I’m getting killed.”

My text: “U mean with TC Fan Fave votes? Ur up 34,000 votes. Good!”

Following Fur Elise, “noooooo, here at work.”

I let her be and watched her make a brightly colored Quinceanera cake for the elimination round.

This morning we had to talk. 

“Details,” I demanded.

“When we walked into the Top Chef kitchen, live rattlesnakes coiled in a glass aquarium, and I guessed what our quick fire meat was.  But, we all thought that in those wood boxes in front of us live rattlesnakes waited for the killing, skinning and butchering.”

As you may have seen, they were already done in and ready for preparation.  However, “I did not want to touch that thing with my hands,” Dakota admitted.

“What did it really taste like?”

“Bland. It was chewy with a milky texture,” she disclosed.  “You will never find it on my menus, ever!”

Next week it’s a Top Chef Texas rodeo.  My rodeo stories pale to my reptile encounters, but I can’t wait to watch Dakota jump into this arena. 

Desensitized To The Homeless In Front of Me

There was time to waste while waiting for my train connection last Saturday.  The sun shot rays of warmth thru the cool November air that gently wiggled the Glendale city flag above the old rail station.  Hurried commuters voided the busy weekday space and I, along with five others, sought time-killing amusements while our Amtrak connection worked its way north.

A man, in decent clothes (from what I could judge from my distance), sat two benches down.  He seemed engaged in a conversation through, what I assumed, to be his headset. 

I rummaged through my carry-on and pulled the Colm Toibin novel that I can’t put down.  Half way into chapter 9 I heard my bench neighbor scream, “That’s not the way it happened.”  And then I wondered why others think that I really want to hear them verbally scuffle with someone in a cell phone conversation.

“Help! Find the dog.  Get my soup,” he ranted.  Discretely I turned my head to see what was going on with him.  There was no headset clipped or cell phone plastered against his ear.  He was having a full on conversation with himself.  I returned to the Toibin novel.

Then it struck me, I’ve joined the Desensitized Club.  During my Los Angeles visit I avoided all eye contact with the droves of homeless and mentally challenged people fighting to survive in alley ways, under bridges, in groves of rail-side trees, and abandoned buildings.  I witnessed a couple hang laundry on a chain link fence next to the bridge that housed their plastic bags of worldly goods; a woman with a baby in one arm and a plastic sack in the other rummaged through a trash can for recyclables to sell; bearded men, bent with heavy and threadbare backpacks, hobbled along the Los Angeles River; and disheveled women pushed grocery carts,some with a dog, and a myriad of clutter—again—stuffed in to black plastic leaf bags.

I avoided eye contact because of my own inability to face this ugly American truth—our increasing homeless population—maybe more than 3.5 million with about 1.6 million between the ages of 13 and 17.

The chatty man two benches away clearly showed mental health issues—one of the many reasons for homelessness.  How can that be in America? 

The newest members of this homeless population are our women veterans—about five-percent of homeless veterans.   How can this be in America? 

Here’s how it happens, according to a United States Department of Labor Homeless Women Veterans Listing Session.

Factors that lead to homelessness for women veterans

A diverse set of complex issues and behaviors was identified as contributing to homelessness among the women veterans:

• Unemployment – due to job loss, lack of job training and skills assessment, and difficulty transferring skills obtained while in the military to the civilian economy
• Lack of veterans benefits – some veterans are not eligible for benefits (e.g., as a result of having a less than honorable discharge); others have difficulty determining eligibility and understanding and accessing benefits for which they qualify.
• Legal trouble post-military , e.g., probation
• Mental health issues, e.g. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST) , and mental illness
• Disabilities
• Divorce/Separation
• Domestic violence
• Lack of family or social support network
• Substance abuse

And even more disturbing is a new (or finally admitted) attitude that  I repeatedly hear and read from those of us lucky to have shelter and well-being–homeless people are losers who don’t deserve help.  Recent headlines that read “Goons Occupy Wall Street,” continue the slandering of the less fortunate. (The headline references a homeless man, probably suffering from mental illness, who went into a public rage.)

Last week a woman called my husband and asked if he would buy her hot tub. She explained in halted language, “I lost my research job a year ago. The company moved my department to India. Even with my masters of science degree I haven’t found work, so the bank has taken my home, and I’m selling what I can before I pack my children and see what happens next. My American dream is gone.”

This, along with Afghanistan and Iraq women veterans, is the new face of homeless citizens in America.

For me, still blessed with a home and a means to keep it, this scenario turns my stomach.  I feel helpless to remedy this travesty.  Our lawmakers have gone berserk; we hear “class warfare” battle cries from both the uber wealthy and those whose American dream became a nightmare; and I admit desensitization from the legions of uncared for mentally ill seeking solace in the sun on empty benches in empty railway stations.

From Rumor to Top Chef Premier Night

 

Author’s note:  This is a continuation of a series of blogs about the experience of watching my daughter, Chef Dakota Weiss,  make her way through Bravo TV’s Top Chef Texas, currently airing on Wednesday nights.

Vote TEAM DAKOTA  for Fan Favorite: 
http://m.bravotv.com/inf/infomo;JSESSIONID=2C11B2DC0D22A5FFA773.9555?site=tpchf&view=bio_Dakota

At June’s end, a mole leaked my daughter’s missing in action status to a foodie blog.

It read: Rumor alert! Top Chef Season 9 looks to be shooting right now in San Antonio. Any local chefs mysteriously missing for a six-week period? Eater National is asking for tips and any photos from the Texas city’s lone Whole Foods. In other news, a tipster sends an unverified report that Dakota Weiss, executive chef at NineThirty at the W Hotel in Westwood, is a cheftestapant on the next season. Weiss is confirmed to be traveling at the moment.

It wasn’t me. By then my tongue was so raw from my own tooth marks (preventing me from squawking, “My daughter’s a Top Chef contestant RIGHT NOW”), that I was reduced to consuming only bland yogurt and milk for a week. I didn’t even link the “rumor” to my Facebook page.

By July the internet foodie rumor mill had Dakota’s name in most every post. Questions came my way. “Is it true? Is Dakota really going to be on Top Chef?” My reply: They’re rumors. Nothing more. Her sous chef commandeered her kitchen for weeks now, so one rumor upon another bubbled. Gossip buzzed like drunken bees. Some “knew” Dakota ran off to Ireland to get married; another said she had a bad infection; and of course, some conjectured she took up temporary residence at a popular Malibu hotel, also known as rehab. I’m amazed my tongue remains attached.

It was a long, long summer, my friends.

The best day of summer came in August

A little family mug with a rib at farmer's market.

when Dakota, sporting her San Antonio western hat, came home and we spent the evening at our local farmer’s market.

And it’s been a long fall waiting for last night’s Top Chef Season 9 premier.

“Mom,” Dakota began earlier in the week, “Can you make your famous chili and we’ll serve Frito Pies during the show?” So, yes, all day Tuesday my red chili, thick with red chili powder from Chimayo, New Mexico, filled the air with its stomach seduction smoky zest. We packed bags of Fritos, a gallon of apple juice and hauled the fare to Los Angeles.

Google announced  media releases from cities in Ohio, Washington, and Maryland,with Dakota’s name featured: “Watch for Dakota Weiss, 35, opinionated, and one of the two women chefs heavily inked.” I linked the “ink” stories to my Facebook page.  Incoming text messages read, “‘Opinionated???LOL.”

My oldest daughter left her Santa Fe law desk behind and flew into Los Angeles so that we could celebrate this special moment together as a family–and a cadre of Dakota’s friends and associates

Excited friends made their way into the viewing room set up for our private premier. They built their Frito Pies.  Over 20 “friend” requests came through Dakota’s iPhone. The music started with the Top Chef star judges featured on the screen.  We sat at the edge of our seats.  ”I’ve got freaking goosebumps everywhere,” one person cried.

And there she was, the tallest of the women, in her black chef’s jacket burning right through the camera lens.  ”OMG!!! Look at you.  You are so gonna kick a!” my oldest daughter squealed at her sister, who was, like the rest of us getting teary eyed.

Yes, Dakota made it through the first round.  We screamed so loud that we blasted out the urban noise below.

It’s after 9 a.m. right now and the day after. I’m wiped out. The party, however, continues…and I need coffee and food.  What a night!

Follow this link for BravoTV’s official bio on Dakota:  http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-9/bio/dakota-weiss