1,500 posts on 'Round the Chuckbox

The 1,500th post on 'Round the Chuckbox nearly slipped away without notice! My picture of the US Foods truck arriving at Oakland Feather River Camp that was posted Monday takes the honor. Though a random picture, it represents my post-retirement career as a summer camp chef.

While I enjoy the long hours and seemingly chaotic atmosphere of the commercial kitchen, laboring in the outdoor camp kitchen has been my true love for decades. I share a common interest in outdoor cooking with the readers of 'Round the Chuckbox. Together we enjoy cooking in cast iron Dutch ovens, grilling over a campfire and smoking in the barbecue.

When I look back at the articles I posted while away from home this summer, those that relate to outdoor cooking were the best performers. Of the 36 pieces between late-April and mid-August, two standout. This means they performed significantly better than the thirty or so articles on cooking in the camp kitchen.

It seems readership declines whenever I shift focus from outdoor cooking to my work as a camp chef. The statistics show more readers would rather read my thoughts on locating the massive Lodge 20-inch skillet last April than to view a picture of my baked apple pancake. These two were the best and worst performing posts of the spring and summer.

The second highest performing blog of the season was a series of images of a Dutch oven cookout last May. And the two Dutch oven recipes that I've posted since returning home (baked orange French toast and layered cabbage and potatoes with bacon) are above the others.

Not everyone goes away when I place emphasis on cooking for large numbers of campers. 'Round the Chuckbox draws readers from those interested in cooking for groups as well as outdoor cooks. But the pool of those interested in outdoor cooking seems to be somewhat larger than the group of quantity cooking enthusiasts.

I plan to continue posting articles on cooking for groups and outdoor cooking. As I see it, both types of cooking fit within my calling as a camp cook. Since many folks enjoy reading Dutch oven articles, the focus for the fall and winter will be towards outdoor cooking. While I may post one or two more articles from Oakland Camp this summer, I'm ready to put the modest cast iron collection to work.

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Click here to see what I had to say when I posted my 1,000th blog article. "As long as I'm able to cook and write," I said on February 5, 2010, "I trust that you'll continue to find the blog interesting. Please drop a note. I always enjoy hearing from my viewers."

Creativity in the camp kitchen

Stories such as this one about chef Alex Smith of Ontario Pioneer Camp offer encouragement to camp chefs:

"Even though chicken tikka masala with rice and naan bread is not typical camp food, Alex took a risk to prepare this meal for a dining hall full of hungry teenagers," the blog Extraordinary Stories reported. "The results were better than he expected, actually one of the best new recipes he has tried at camp."

Chef Tyrone's pulled pork technique

Chef Tyrone of the Tyronbcookin: Seasoned and highly flavored blog has been running a series on menu items from his job. Last week he featured red beans and rice along with his thoughts on two fundraiser menus (pancake breakfast and Thanksgiving dinner. Interesting food related tidbits fill the spaces in between food articles.

Today Tyrone posted the first of a promised series of short how-to videos. "I am trying out a few introductory videos from the work kitchen and maybe even my home kitchen," said Tyrone on his blog. "(Each video) will be short and to the point. If you would like more details of the video in each post, please be sure to comment!"


YouTube video description: "Cooking Boston Butt in convection oven for pulled pork sandwiches."

Gobble 'Till You Wobble looking for cooks

Goggle 'Till You Wobble Harvest Feast is looking for cooks on Saturday, November 10, 2012. Featured will be a five to six course Thanksgiving dinner prepared in Dutch ovens at the Butte Creek Mill, Eagle Point, Oregon.

You can cook, "help serve, or just move pots around for us and learn to cook in the Dutch oven," said Ron Clanton on the Rogue Dutch Oven Cookers blog. "We have tons of fun, and a little hard work, all worth it."

The Cookers will start cooking around 9 a.m.and serve dinner around 12:30 to 1 p.m. Turkey, dressing, cranberries and dessert are on the menu. Dinner rolls and a "few other things" may be added . The cooking is being done by the members of Rogue Dutch Oven Cookers for the third year. The Cookers are a chapter of International Dutch Oven Society.

The event is free to the public.Thanksgiving meal will be served until the food runs out. Mill owners Bob and Debbie Russell are sponsoring the dinner.

Email Ron if you can cook or assist. The Butte Creek Mill is located at 402 Royal Ave. N., Eagle Point, OR, 97524.

Meanwhile, enjoy these pictures from the 2010 event at the mill.

Lora Lee of the Rogue Dutch Oven Cooker surveys the serving table. The Cookers prepared a 50-pound Turdocken, two (20-pound) turkeys, fresh cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing (Ron's grandmother's recipe) and all the timings. "They ate it all," said Ron on the Cooker's blog. "About 200 people came out to see us cook, or just to eat (I don't know)."

Charles Lee begins work at the 2010 feast. The Cookers used all of the Dutch ovens in the picture "and then some." "I was beat from all the cast iron I pumped that day," said Ron. "But it's always worth it."

Dave Herzog, Medford, Oregon, "pumps iron" at the 2010 Gobble 'Till You Wobble Harvest Feast. Dave roasted the 50-pound Turducken in his 22-inch MACA Dutch oven (pictured at his feet).

Bread baking at Tall Timber Ranch

Victoria FitzKnapps, former food service director at Tall Timber Ranch near Lake Wenatchee, Wash., shows the bagel rolling technique in this brief video. Chef Victoria attended Chef Jim Krieg's baking workshop last year in Oregon. We leaned this technique at the workshop last week in Canby, Oregon.


"There is not a better bagel available than the one fresh out of the oven the day you are going to eat it," Victoria said in a May 2011 blog post. "The crisp crunchy exterior breaks open to a chewy, flavorful center."

Victoria wrote this on the Tall Timber Ranch blog last year:

"While many people are trying to reduce the amount of bread in their diet, I am trying to increase the quality of the bread we eat here at camp, so that those couple servings of bread per day can be a delicious experience, not just a calorie delivery system. To this end, I was able to participate in a Baking Intensive class last week. For three days seven camp chefs were tutored under the guidance of Executive Pastry Chef, Jim Krieg, CCE, CECP."

The workshop motivated Victoria to bake as much of her bread from scratch last summer at the camp. The intense three-day workshop gave Victoria the technique and recipes to produce an array of breads, rolls and pastries.

As summer approached, she planned to bake ciabatta rolls for sandwiches, hamburger buns for cookouts and a weekly run of bagels for breakfast. Focaccia and French bread would be baked for "some of our dinners."

"The baking went great," Victoria said in a Facebook message. "Bread was awesome and saving were great." On average, the ingredients to produce a loaf of fresh bread cost her about 60 percent less than purchased bread.

Best birthday wish

I received this early birthday wish from a shipmate shortly before midnight. Although the day is young, it's shaping up to be the best one of the day.

Roger Edison of the Cowboy and Chuckwagon Cooking blog wrote on my Facebook wall:

"At our age, there are just too many candles to blow them out in one puff. Pulling an All-Nighter means we slept with all night without having to get up to go to the restroom. But one thing for sure, we never want to trade it all in. May today be bless with family and dear friends. May somebody else bake the cake as you have done a thousand times shipmate. And remember, today, it's your cake ... you can have it and eat it too.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY SENIOR CHIEF"

May we all receive birthday greetings with as much wit and charm. Thank you, Roger.

The Rise of the Southern Biscuit

I watched The Rise of the Southern Biscuit this afternoon and recommend the 30-minute documentary to my viewers.

After all, who doesn't enjoy a light, flaky biscuit? Smothered in creamy sausage gravy or decorated with homemade raspberry jam, many give the biscuit an central place in their diet.

One thing struck me on my first viewing of the DVD on the Documentary Channel (197 on Dish Network). Even though each biscuit maker uses different ingredients, the result is most always the same.

Some work shortening (or "Crisco" after the predominant brand) into sifted self-rising flour. Others insist on natural fats like butter or lard.

Biscuit bakers even differ on the liquid ingredient. Milk, buttermilk and cream all have their place. Like the choice of fat, the source of moisture seems to have little bearing on the final product.

One thing you will notice when you watch The Rise of the Southern Biscuit. It takes lots of love -- and a gentle touch -- to create a great biscuit. The rest is left to the baker.

Maryann Byrd, Emmy award-winning filmmaker and creator of the The Rise of the Southern Biscuit, has this to say about the Southern biscuit on her blog:

"Whenever I speak to a group about Southern biscuits, I always tell them, 'Biscuit dough is a blank canvas.' Add your favorite flavors and ingredients to your dough and make your own creation.

"Most of us are used to adding toppings; like honey, jams, and gravies to give a biscuit that great taste. And it does work. But, I say put some fun stuff in the dough! It is even better."

Cooking in frozen Korea without a can opener

Phil Street, a US Marine Corps sergeant in the Korean War, recently shared his story with me. Phil served as a cook in the Corps from 1951 to 1954. The photograph shows Phil during warmer months in Korea.

Click to view a series of pictures of a M-1937 field range in action. Even though the blog hasn't been updated since July 2009, it gives you an accurate picture of how the stove was deployed in the Army and Marines.

I arrived in Korea in February 1952, where I was assigned to the 7th Motor Transport Battalion. On my first day there I noticed we had no can opener. We fed 850 Marines at each meal since we had a company of amphibious DUKWs TAD from the Second Marine Division assigned to the First Marine Division.

We also rode shotgun on the trucks and loaded large dump trucks with sand, using entrenching tools that were made to dig foxholes. Maybe we could have used those entrenching tools to open cans of food.

Much of our food came in 16-ounce cans, and we had to use a meat cleaver to open them. Bacon came in 16-ounce cans also. We had to cut both ends out and then split them down the sides so we could try and get the bacon out of them. Many of us had a lot of bad cuts from trying to get the bacon out of those small cans.

When I left at the end of my tour 13 months later we still had no can opener.

Everything froze

Most of out 2-1/2-ton trucks in Korea never even had doors on them. In subzero weather, the trucks had to be started every 30 minutes to make sure they would start when needed 24 hours per day. Then several did not want to start so the drivers would pull them with a chain trying to get them to start.

Our canteens would freeze and burst on our sides of they were filled more than half full.

The Navy corpsmen put small glass vials of morphine in their mouths to keep them from freezing so to give shots to the wounded. Blood plasma would freeze before they could get all of it into the wounded who needed the blood.

Lighting field stoves in freezing weather

Then there were the ranges. Our M-1937 cook ranges had to have 40 pounds of air pressure pumped into them to get them to burn properly. But, we did not have an air compressor, so we used a bicycle pump, which took forever. The cold affected out cook ranges as it did everything else.

The cook ranges had a generator (piece of pipe) running down the center that had to reach a certain temperature before they would burn properly with a blue flame. Otherwise, the flame was yellow and would flood. The gas would run out on your feet and catch your shoes on fire.

This happened many times. I think that was how the dance The Twist was started and you danced trying to get the fire out. Sometimes the gas lines would spring a leak and shoot flame out line a flame small thrower. You hoped the fire was not towards you.

With temperatures as low as 40 below zero, the leather seal inside the bicycle pumps froze and when it was zero weather the leather was so stiff it could take 20 minutes or more, taking turns pumping to get the 40 pounds of air in one range.

We had many ranges to pump up, so it took forever to get ready to light the burners. To make matters worse, when it was below zero the generator was too cold to generate. So we used a blow torch to heat the generator. But it was often so cold the blow torch would not generate either.

So we had to burn gasoline in the little cup below the blow torch nozzle in order to thaw the torch. Many times it was still to cold for the blow torch to generate so you had to keep repeating the process until the torch thawed out enough to work properly.

We had one cook badly burned trying this as he took a funnel with gas in it with his finger over the end and just dripped the gas into the cup a little at a time. When he repeated this the second time the cup on the blow torch was too hot and ignited as soon as the gas hit it. He threw the funnel in the air and the gasoline came down on his arm and set his clothes on fire.

To be continued ...

Preview of coming articles and recipes

I currently working on several articles and recipes for 'Round the Chuckbox. They include:

1. Article on cooking in the Korea War by US Marine Sergeant Phil Street
2. Final article in "My salsa journey" series; click for the first and second installments
3. Recipe for Salsa Verde; although I haven't posted a recipe for the ubiquitous green pepper sauce, you can click for a Chili Verde recipe
4. Recipe for Salsa Ranchera; click for my most recent salsa recipe, Salsa Americana
5. Follow-up article to the Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette recipe

Fire box for camp fire cooking

Here's an article that will interest most camp cooks. Over at the Roger Edison's Cowboys and Chuckwagon Cooking blog, the crew posted detailed instructions to fabricate and build a self-contained fire box for camp cooking. It's similar in design to WagonCook's fire box. I'll locate pictures of his set-up and post one or two in a couple days.

The chuckwagon fire box gives the camp cook a dry container to burn a cook fire. To use the fire box, the cook simply sets it up on the ground and lights the fire. The fire box eliminates the need to dig a fire pit or build a keyhole campfire ring.

Here's Roger's description of the fire box:

The fire box provides a four sided structure to hold wood inside with out the need to dig a hole or trench in the ground. It also allows the spit to be hung over the box to hang cookware for heating and grill bars along the top to place skillets, pot or griddles to cook from. Modern day, the fire box allows to set up on any surface, be it the great outdoors or in a parking lot.

Click over to Rogers's article, "Building a Fire Box for Camp Cooking," to view instructions, photographs and diagrams. It includes a complete materials list with a list of tools for the project.

This isn't a project for the faint-of-heart! It requires the use of heavy-duty metal fabrication tools like a welder and metal saw.

Have you built or purchased a similar fire box? If so, please email me with a description of the outfit and photographs. I'll post them in an article on 'Round the Chuckbox.

Wedding train

The readers of the El Dorado Western Railway blog may not know this little know fact: One of our board members was married on a train. The nuptials were held on Bear Mountain on the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad in Felton, California, some 10 years ago.

A photograph, with the happy couple posing for the photographer on the brakeman's footrest of the Dixiana No. 1, greets me each I visit the couple. The shotgun stack, as it reaches for the sky in the bright afternoon light of the Coast Range, always catches my eye as I enter their country home. (No pun intended ... the tall, narrow smokestack is called a shotgun stack because of its resemblance to a shotgun barrel.)

The Shay was a fitting venue for their wedding. As one of the railway's longest running volunteers, this board member dates back to the early days of the renovation of the Diamond and Caldor No. 4 Shay.

I'm sometimes envious of my friends. They did something that I would've loved to have done. Since I'm nearly 30 years into my marriage, I doubt I'll have opportunity to get married on a train. Besides, my wife may have something to say about it!

Unless family tradition dictates otherwise, I highly recommend a special train wedding to our loyal railfans. A Facebook posting alerted me to this Portland wedding on-board the Oregon Pacific yesterday:

"A special train operated Saturday in Portland. But this is a special train in a different sort of way because a couple in our railfan community were married aboard! Leia and George charted this Oregon Pacific train for their ceremony which as long time railfans this was a perfect way for them to have their wedding and celebrate their day!"

Click over to Dogcaught: A Railroad Blog for the rest of the story and more photographs.

Who knows, maybe the El Dorado Western Railway will offer the occasional wedding special soon.

Ford Model A smoker

Last Sunday I asked my readers to identify this dome-like structure. Other that the detail offered in the photograph, I only gave two clues. "While it's connected to a food device today, it has its origin as a non-food object," I said in my blog article of October 3, 2010.

Two intrepid readers posted their guesses as to the identity of the devise. Brenda first asked if it was a "pressure cooker" on Sunday evening. Her response sounds reasonable. As the past director of the Southern California Chapter of IDOS, Brenda wrangles cast iron Dutch ovens at the chapter's beach gatherings.

"I'm guessing a blowout for a steam loco," posted Ed on Monday from his Southern California home, where he chronicles his family's camping adventures at Our Camping Blog.

Neither Brenda or Ed supplied the right answer. You could say that Brenda came the closest to revealing the identity of the cooking devise. Here's another picture of the devise from last Sunday:

I found this trailer-mounted smoker at the California BBQ Association-sponsored Smokin' For Gold event at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds. Andy Ferrendelli fabricated the smoker out of a early twentieth century fuel delivery tank.

"The closest I've been able to date (the tank) is 1918-1920," said Andy. He found the tank in Colusa, California, about 14 miles south of his home in Princeton. After burning it out, Andy discovered that the tank was built in Wasco, California, by Baker Brothers.

Today the dome serves no purpose other that as a historical attachment to the smoker. A cleaned and polished brass fuel breather valve tops the clean-out port.

Three such tanks were mounted on a Ford Model A truck, said Andy. The tank is made of a nickel alloy.

My cast iron rule

This blog article began as a comment to the Ramblings on Cast Iron blog. After typing three paragraphs on my thoughts about purchasing cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens on eBay, I converted my comments into a blog post here.

I occasionally browse the cast iron listings on eBay, mostly for fun. I've never purchased any cast iron from the on-line auction site. Shipping is just too expensive, especially since many of the vendors seem to be located east of the Mississippi and I'm in California.

Any cast iron piece in my collection must be functional and ready to use. That's my rule. There are no idle pieces in my collection. Each piece must serve a function and be able to work over a hot bed of coals. You won't find any museum pieces in my modest collection (12 skillets, 13 Dutch ovens and two or three trivets).

When I purchase a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven (a rare event these days), I don't want to screw around with heavy cleaning or reconditioning. I leave that for others. Plus, I just don't have the time for the lengthy process.

This rule saved me from purchasing a $510 Griswold 20-inch cast iron skillet last year, a piece that I'd love to own. Two factors attract me to the skillet. It's size makes it the perfect cooking vessel for a crowd. The 20-inch skillet will make quick work of a big batch of cottage fried potatoes for a hungry crowd of campers.

The mammoth skillet was manufactured in a time when durability and quality meant something. While I find the contemporary Lodge 17-inch skillet is an acceptable replacement, the larger vintage Griswold or Lodge 20-inch skillet would be the perfect addition to my battery of cast iron cookware.

(For readers that feel compelled to advise me buy the Bayou Classic 20-inch skillet, please save your words. I won't buy it.)

If you feel the need to purchase cast iron through eBay, click over to the Ramblings on Cast Iron blog. "And I've found that many (eBay) sellers don't know much about what they're selling," warns greenturtle, the Ramblings' blogger. "Often, the description of the size and volume is listed incorrectly."

As a buyer, you need to do your homework. "And always search online for the current market price," adds greenturle. "Some sellers vastly overcharge." Armed with common model and size information, you'll also know that the "8" on the handle is the model number, not the diameter, for instance. The Lodge No. 8 skillet (SKU L8SK3) is 10-1/4 inches in diameter, not 8 inches.

Unless you're a serious collector of cast iron, my rule will serve you well. Avoid eBay and make sure each purchase is ready to work. If you locate a 20-inch Griswold skillet for a reasonable price, buy it. Make sure it's ready to fry up a huge batch of sausage gravy at your next family reunion breakfast.

Breakfast, plow disk cooker and Labor Day street fair

I set out this morning just after 8 a.m. to see what was happening at the Diamond Springs Labor Day Bazaar. Since the Firefighter's Association has centered the street fair around Fire Station 49 on the west end of town in recent years, I walked the length of Main Street before encountering any booths or exhibits. I made a straight line for Charlotte's Baker and Cafe for coffee and a morsel or two for breakfast.

I found chef and owner Carolyn Kumpe and crew busy frying torrijas and enpanadas. While I didn't taste the empanadas, they looked good. She filled them with two or three cheeses and served the stuffed pastries with a lively salsa.

After acquiring my obligatory cup of coffee, Carolyn handed me a paper dish with four gently fried torrijas slices . At a dollar a slice, the Spanish-style French toast made for a quick breakfast. From the first bite I knew I'd found a special treat.

Carolyn featured her torrijas with raspberry and orange blossom honey syrup on a Mother's Day special on News10 last May.

Torrijas are traditionally served at breakfast during Easter in Spain. Like traditional American French toast, torrijas is a popular way to use day-old bread. Carolyn used day-old baquettes, cut on the bias, for hers.

While talking to Carolyn, I saw this shallow outdoor pan. Mounted on a 60,000 BTU propane burner, the pan appeared to be a homemade. It's a cross between the shallow chef's sautee pan and a cast iron skillet.

The cooker was constructed to sit securely on the burner. The last thing you want is to accidently dump hot oil onto the burner. It looks like the cooker was made from of a discarded plow disk. The plow disk cooker can be used as a wok, heavy skillet or pan fryer.

I would've loved to hang around and talk to Carolyn and her cooks. But they were busy and I had to get over to the engine house to held the El Dorado Western Railway crew prepare the new Whiting Trackmobile for the parade at 1 p.m. My report on the parade is found at the El Dorado Western Railway blog.

Cast iron 20-inch skillet

Here's greenturtle's blog post from this afternoon from Ramblings on Cast Iron. She graciously allowed my to reprint it on 'Round the Chuckbox.

This is a cast iron 20-inch skillet. It's huge.

It's sometimes called a "lumberjack skillet."

These skillets were frequently used by railroad workers, to cook full meals for the crew. It's useful for large group fishing, hunting, or camping trips.

Cook an entire breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns, or an entire supper of fish and all the trimmings. Or steaks, fajitas, fried chicken, etc.

Since it takes a lot of heat to use this skillet, regular oven mitts won't do; You need heavy duty oven mitts with silicone.

The only brand still selling them is Bayou Classic, but I have not been impressed with their quality.

If you're lucky enough to find a better quality brand, expect to pay between $500-600. Way more than I'd want to pay!

A more affordable alternative, without sacrificing quality, is the Lodge 17 inch skillet for $69.

It's smaller, but will serve the same purpose, and you can at least use that in your oven as well as outdoors. The 20-inch will not fit in most ovens.

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943

My sister periodically sends me links to blogs of interest. While most of Lib's suggestions are food related, she occasionally comes through with a link that fulfils my interests in other endeavors.

This morning, Lib send me a link to Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943, a blog post on the Denver Post website. The article contains some 70 color government photographs from the World War II era.

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

"Toward the end - trains and planes ...," Lib wrote in her mid-morning email. The reference to trains was intended for my eyes. The photos of planes will interest my brother David, a pilot.

Nine photographs in the collection feature the Chigago and Northwestern Railway in Chigago and Clinton, Iowa. They're numbered 45 to 54. Here's my favorite photo in the collection:

Caption from the Denver Post blog: "Mrs. Viola Sievers, one of the wipers at the roundhouse giving a giant 'H' class locomotive a bath of live steam. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress."

Off to my summer camp job

I leave this morning for my summer camp job at Deer Crossing Summer Camp. The camp is a hour and one-half drive from my home. I meet the boat at Loon Lake in Eldorado National Forest at 1 p.m.

I'll try to keep blogging at my normal pace, about 15 posts per month. The camp has Internet access via satellite, so I'll have to gauge how often I can get on-line each week.

The camp website says that staff average about one and one-half hours per week on the Internet. I plan to write blogs out longhand in my notebook before posting them to 'Round the Chuckbox. This will save precious time.

My contract carries me through August 15. Hopefully, one or two photographs of me will appear on the camp's photo page as the summer progresses.

The first campers arrive on Sunday, June 21, after a 10-day staff training session. The camp features four (two-week) sessions. My assistant cook and I will feed between 50 and 60 staff and campers each day.

Tuesday Teatime: The Smiths

My sister posted this blog and picture with my granchildren at Brave Writer:

We had quite a crowd over that day. My niece’s children joined us as well as a close friend’s two children. Because of the span of ages, we read from a poetry book that we haven’t enjoyed for awhile: Mice are Rather Nice ... (continue reading).

The Chef Apprentice blog

I've added a new blog to my daily reading list, one that's worth reading. The blog is found at the Sacramento Bee website.

The Chef Apprentice chronicles "self-taught cook" Stuart Leavenworth's internship at Oliveto, an upscale Italian restaurant in Oakland, "known ... for its traditional Italian dishes made from local, seasonal products with the clarity of a great kitchen."

"I plan to profile the chefs and employees at Oliveto and the farmers who supply the restaurant," said Leavenworth in the paper's Food and Wine Section blog Wednesday.

Leavenworth will note his "trials and errors" over the next six months. He promises to record his experience as he applies skills he mastered at home to the restaurant world.

I'm certain we'll see a few painful lesions. His first -- one that almost ended his internship -- came as Leavenworth jammed the short tip of an unfamiliar paring knife into his left thumb.

The accident happened as he practiced "turning" a potato, a technique new to Leavenworth. To turn a potato, the cook makes a series of cuts with a special paring knife to simultaneously trim and shape the potato into the shape of a barrel or football.

Then there'll be occasions where Leavenworth, a novice to the fast-paced world of restaurant cooking, will bring his culinary skill to the plate.

Quick thinking by Leavenworth saved a pricey lamb dish at the restaurant. Of course, he's the one who almost sent the braised lamb with "an intensely flavored sauce" into the garbage in the first place.

Leavenworth sprinkled too much salt on the meat as he seared the lamb in a large fry pan. Once he pulled the braise from the oven, the chef tasted the stock and declared, "Too salty."

"If the stock was slightly salty now, it would be way to salty once reduced," observed Leavenworth.

This is where the "self-taught" part of being a cook comes in to play. Leavenworth understood the basic principle of culinary reductions. And he knew to save the dish meant he'd have to "take out some of the stock, and add something to reduce the salt."

Leavenworth suggested wine, while the chef said cream would do the trick. The chef added both and a dish was saved.

"This is going to be a wild and unpredictable journey," said Leavenworth. "I hope you'll join me, five days a week."

It's nice to read a blog where the author writes with the style and technique of a journalist, but has the heart of a cook. Leavenworth's passion for his second craft clearly comes through.

Join me as I read The Chef Apprentice each day. The time stamp on the blog indicates that he'll write most entries late at night, long after the Italian eatery has closed for the day.

If this week's entries are an indicator of his future writing, his passion for cooking and his new experience in a restaurant kitchen, will come through.

Old Bay recipe at Dutch Girl blog

I generally only stock my pantry with three commercially produced spice blends. The rest -- blends like taco seasoning and rub for ribs -- are made and stored in old one-pound spice containers.

I find that you get better quality spice blend when I make them at home or in the camp kitchen. Plus, it's much easier to avoid MSG, anti-caking agents and excessive salt content when you make your own.

I just recently re-discovered Old Bay Seasoning. According to Wikipedia, the commercial spice blend was first developed by German immigrant Gustav Brunn in the 1940s as a crab seasoning in the Baltimore area.

Since I rarely purchase fresh crabs, I like to use Old Bay as an all-around seasoning. I typically use it on broiled chicken. It's also good in salmon or crab cakes, tater sauce and cocktail sauce.

Then today, I saw a recipe for an Old Bay reproduction on the Kayotic Cooking blog. This authentic Dutch cook and artful photographer produces some wonderful recipes on her blog from her home in Gouda, Netherlands. (My favorite recipe: Dutch split pea soup, a recipe that I've made for about 10 years.)

Here's what she has to say about Old Bay:

A couple of years ago a friend sent me a big can of ‘Old Bay Seasoning’. I instantly became hooked! It’s been a staple in my home ever since. Since this spice mix can’t be bought in the Netherlands (is it a typically American item?), I’m doing my Dutch (and European?) buddies a favor by giving the ingredients for a faux old bay seasoning!

Please let me know if you try her recipe. I have 6-ounce can in my cupboard, but will have to try Dutch Girl's recipe when my supply runs out.

My other two purchased spice blends? Chili powder (typically Gephardts) and Pappy's Choice Seasoning, a regional blend produced in Fresno, California. I buy 32-ounce containers of the blend from my butcher. Pappy's is a versitle barbeque and grilling seasoning.