Don't Expect Me To Do Your Work

If a company asks me to "Upload Your Resume", that's fine. What should happen once I do?

It should be read. 

By a knowledgeable person. 

Who should then contact me directly for any follow-up.

What's more likely to be seen from a job applicant is that the company website immediately follows that action with a homebrew autofill of garbled nonsense it scraped from the resume's PDF. They honestly expect applicants to fix every little piece that the company's shortcutting screwed up, which is absurd. Any such company should have its board of directors and top five levels of executive hierarchy summarily jailed. It's unethical, cop-out behavior that doesn't belong in anything resembling a mutually beneficial work environment.

One of the three largest foodservice companies on the planet.
Not a single clue how to run their own operation. 

Worse still are the ridiculous levels of specificity so many applications call for- as though such things matter when dealing with qualified, educated professionals.

Don't ask for specific dates of employ. Year is always enough.

Don't ask for previous employer/manager/etc. contact information. Do your own digging.

Don't ask for employer street addresses. We likely don't know them any more than you do. Again, do your own digging.

Don't ask for GPA. Most university graduates don't know that even while the proverbial ink on their diploma is still wet. Plus, having them memorized is, for most competent people, a red flag in regards to prioritization.

Don't ask for a cover letter. Part of the hiring process is to ensure someone is a good fit in terms of education, skills, and culture. Cover letters are just opportunities to offer clever lies and show how well a candidate proffers Customer Service Polite. If you have to fake sincerity just to get in the door, it just rewards unethical, duplicitous behavior.

Though none of this really comes as a surprise. For example, Microsoft owns LinkedIn- how many of you knew that? The modern internet they've sewn up for themselves and their contemporaries (because 'competitors' is assuredly a lie) is geared almost exclusively towards data mining and targeted advertising, neither of which are actually necessary for it to function, and cause a great deal more harm than good. Such a premise readily extrapolates to the smaller corporations that dream of competition, and results in hamfisted nonsense like what seems like every online job application.

Automating the job application process is a terrible thing. It creates artificial scarcity while reinforcing institutionalized poverty through passive denial of access, all in the name of saving money.

If you can't afford to find suitable candidates in a competent, thorough, and ethically sound manner, why are you in business at all?

Recipe Dev: Oatmeal Cookies

I'm a cookie guy. It's an ideal dessert for a lot of people because it's self contained, portable, and scalable. A plated dessert might be fantastic, but would you order three of them if you liked the flavors? Almost certainly not! Cookies don't have that problem- you can have one or two for a nibble... or look around to make sure nobody's watching before you indelicately obliterate that box of Thin Mints you told yourself would last a month. No, I didn't see that- nobody did. Honest.

Another delightful point in the favor of cookies is their versatility. Depending on your ingredients, your scoop size, your baking time, and any number of other things, you can turn the same cookie recipe into very different results in a way you can't do nearly as easily with cakes, pies, and pastries.

Unless you're allergic to chocolate, you probably enjoy a good chocolate chip cookie. I certainly do, and put my personal recipe up here back in February. That one calls for a mixer, but but today I wanted to showcase a cookie that doesn't. The recipe here is one I sometimes send alongside my Almond Cookies in tins during the holidays- a pleasantly robust oatmeal cookie. A sorely underrated gem of a cookie that's easy to tinker with. A little on the soft side, not too sweet, perhaps a little crunch underneath, and absolutely NO FUCKING RAISINS EVER okay that's out of my system good yes hello there how are you? Ahem.

This recipe is quite simple, coming together in about ten minutes (before going in the fridge to firm up). I designed it specifically not to require a stand mixer since I don't own one, but I've found that having a hand mixer (or immersion blender for one step) does help yield a fluffier finished product, if that's your thing.

Equipment: 1x Medium Bowl, 1x Large Bowl, Rubber/Silicone Spatula, Measuring Spoons, Kitchen Scale, Half-Sheet Pan (~13"x18"), Parchment Paper, Oven

Ingredients: (Yields about 3 dozen cookies, but the recipe also halves perfectly)

275g Rolled Oats
225g All-Purpose Flour
2 Tbsp Cornstarch (this makes it more like cake flour)
230g Unsalted Butter (melted)
180g Brown Sugar
90g Granulated/White Sugar
2 eggs (L or XL are both fine)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tsp Salt
2-3 tsp Spice Mix (I use cardamom, allspice, black pepper, ginger, and nutmeg)

Process:

If you plan on baking these as soon as they're ready, preheat the oven to 375F/190C.

In the medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and spices. Set it aside.

In the large bowl, combine the salt and melted butter with both sugars, and mix with the spatula till well combined and slightly fluffy. Then add the eggs and vanilla and do the same. (Here is where I use the immersion blender for a few seconds to whip air into it and ensure everything is aggressively homogeneous.)

In 2-3 stages, mix the contents of the medium bowl into the large until just barely combined.

Use the empty bowl to weigh the oats, then add and gently mix until evenly distributed.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 30m, or ideally overnight.

Line the half-sheet tray with parchment. Using heaping tablespoons (or a #50 portion scoop if you have one), tray out cookies 12 at a time in a 3x4 configuration, refrigerating any unbaked dough until needed.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, and allow to cool for another 5 once out of the oven before removing them from the tray.

New Look at an Old Friend: Medium Raw

Very little food media has the knack of true timelessness. More than almost any other field, its styles and methods are transient, mutable, and very much identifiable. Author, origin, and year go a very long way, but then comes the style- be it of page layout, recipe choice, prose, or photography, so many cookbooks and memoirs read as though they were carved from the stone of their era in the business. Sometimes those are shining crystal, others polished marble, and still more might as well be kidney or gallstones. They all leave their marks.

I decided to take a look at an Anthony Bourdain book today. If anyone in living memory served to define a generation's perspective on the restaurant business and serve as its face, it would probably have been him. Five years dead now, he left behind two wives and many lovers, a daughter (who manages quite well to stay out of the spotlight), and a massive legacy as messy and fraught with conflict as his career.

Kitchen Confidential was one of those rare volumes that mixed knowledge with candor and pain in a manner that not only spoke to people, but enticed them to more. To sit down, shut up, and listen- and then think about what was said. About who said it, how they said it, and why. It was a story of a life indulged, squandered, wasted almost in its entirety, and then through blind luck and happenstance, unleashed upon us all.

But that tale of frustration, anger, and war stories from the culinary underbelly isn't the book I'm looking at here. It is instead the ten-years-on incarnation, Medium Raw.

Straight out of the gate, to set the mood, there's a lengthy bit on the notion of 'selling out', wherein Bourdain admits to having tried to uphold some fabricated sense of principles, of integrity. Aghast that people he thought of as heroes were willing to shill for nonsense, he listened to them. He learned perspective. For the big names, the empire builders, it's no longer personal. It's about those that depend on them- the staff of the restaurants and operations bearing a larger-than-life name. The beast must be fed, and it can't afford to be a picky eater. Perhaps out of sheer stubbornness, remembering how many years he spent bereft of anything remotely resembling principles, Bourdain still clung to those supposed notions, resisting the offers of endorsing things or people that would stick in his craw... until he had a daughter.

Almost everyone has a price- though in fairness, I've yet to find mine. My principles have kept me warm when I was cold, and assuaged the hunger when I was starving. But it's tireless work and constant suffering for no tangible reward, and it really shouldn't be.

There's a broad section on heroes and villains, which is always interesting when it comes from the heart and mind of someone so awash in the potential for vitriol. Some real surprises in this section for most people, I'd say, but the neat bit is that it sets the stage for the rest of the book, which does a superb job riffing on that theme. Bourdain offers a much more comprehensive perspective than would have been penned ten years past, rich in tone and robust in descriptives as he moves from food writing and food media to squabbles between industry titans, a deeply personal look at the most important invisible man in one of the greatest restaurants in the world, and then finishing out with a thoughtful, uncompromisingly harsh look at himself, his attitudes, and his future.

In one last nod to Kitchen Confidential, the final bit 'Still Here' gives briefs of some names and faces of his own checkered career. It reads quietly, apologetically, even mournfully, as it all slowly fades to black.

At the end of the day, Anthony Bourdain knew he was on borrowed time. Never once even dreaming that he could have met the requirements for the life his lightning-in-a-bottle book gave him, he merely did his best to do it justice. Sometimes he failed, and he never shied away from saying so. In spite of that, he kept at it, seeking the deeper, more personal feelings behind everywhere he went and everyone he met; an explorer knowing full well he was on a one-way trip, but determined to make the world a more informed, aware place in that familiar coarse way he'd always had.

We should be grateful. But we must also be worthy. He wasn't. But he knew that he wasn't, right down to the core of his being, and his work has always made that hard truth quite clear. In that regard at least, his integrity was beyond reproach. That, above all else, is what will always make him memorable.

Anthony Bourdain: 1956-2018.

"Cookbook" Review: 'Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat', by Naomi Moriyama

 

Every so often, and more often than it ought, the world handles surges of interest in fad diets. From Atkins to grapefruit to paleo, GF, or whatever else, there always seems to be something new and kitschy to try in the search for a foolproof weight loss technique. This one's got a good tagline with a faint ring of truth. It's “Japanese Women Don't Get Old Or Fat”, by Naomi Moriyama.

This is the tale of the author, her husband, and their joint desire to share their experiences with Japanese home cooking. It made them feel healthier, happier, and more energetic, as well as giving them something to research- the reasons why it might have done so, and the history behind its development.

Opening with a wave of statistics about the Japanese lifestyle, the book touts their long lifespan, low rates of obesity and heart disease, low healthcare spending, and many other things. Always be suspicious when statistics are used as primers, because you can use said statistics to say virtually anything you want. 78% of statistics are made up on the spot because they sound so effective!

Obligatory attempt at Logos aside, the next pages turn to Pathos. First comes a dramatic monologue in honor of the culinary skill, creativity, and devotion of the author's mother. As any mother should, she gives all for her children, even if they don't always appreciate it at the time. After that comes a stern diatribe centering on how devoted the Japanese are to freshness- foods not only dated, but *timed* at the supermarkets, and even 7-11s stocking tasty, nutritious composed bento instead of prefab salads and suspect sandwiches. Then came a detour to detail the lifestyle of the glorious and rustic countryside, how everything is so vibrantly flavored, fresh, and full of life!

It all felt so transparent, so obviously fabricated- but I couldn't put my finger on why. Understanding came later.

While the “How to Start Your Tokyo Kitchen” chapter is potentially handy for the novice, the truth is that a good cook already knows what equipment they need to cook dinner, and if they don't have it, improvising isn't hard. Some of the later recipes call for Japanese-exclusive cooking gear, and the author tells you how to jury-rig one. Why not add those to the starting list of equipment in the early chapter- perhaps as a closer? That's a much more suitable time to detail where to get things a bit tougher to find.

Time and pages aplenty are spent emphasizing the importance of at-table garnishes and individual seasoning, in accordance with the Japanese tendency not to individually plate, but rather allow self-service from platters- a technique borrowed from China, just one of many.

It grows quite tedious when a portion of every recipe's ingredient list has 'to use at the table' as a caveat. Such a concept needs explaining one time. After that's done, make a separate section within the recipe for the garnishes and table condiments. It's entirely too easy to confuse an inexperienced cook by piling all the ingredients in one column without adequate direction. Considering the prospective readership, I find this to be a massive, glaring error.

A full third of the book is devoted to what's termed “The Seven Pillars of Japanese Home Cooking”. Fish, Vegetables, Rice, Soy, Noodles, Tea, and Fruit are the vaunted pillars, and while each subsection has several anecdotes and a handful of recipes, most of them are rather banal. For a book that centers around what they term 'healthy eating', the number of recipes that use, say, refined sugar as a fairly prominent ingredient is more than a little bothersome when looked at with a more professional eye.

To counteract that, there are stories aplenty that seek to emphasize the healthy, life-giving qualities of the other ingredients. There's an entire tale that centers around brown rice- the barest film of historical reference is given to the fantastic tale of Tomoe Gozen, then used to create a veneer of confidence in the nutritional superiority of brown rice. I agree with the sentiment entirely, but the method is shifty at best. Fiber isn't a miracle cure.

I admit, I wanted to like this book, but I just can't bring myself to. It's trying to be a cookbook and reference text, but it doesn't have enough recipes to be reasonable as the former, or enough hard nutrition facts to shore up the latter. Mostly it reads like a slapdash memoir, bereft of the aura of legitimacy and believability that often feels so necessary when creating a suitable referential work. It's a collection of vignettes, loosely tied together around the common theme of Japanese home cooking being healthy and happiness inducing. Likewise, the book seems to hedge its bet, making the premise sound like something a person has to try for themselves to see if it works as advertised, rather than to try it and expect results.

If you're willing to trust the book and the author's message, feel free to trust the recipes. Some of the 40-odd recipes sprinkled throughout the book might serve you well, and there is a recipe index in the back. I will not, however, offer any recommendations on which ones are worth trying. 

As for me though, I'm not going to bother. This goes straight back to the library- ideally in the fiction section where it belongs.

Scholarship

A discussion I had this morning led me to revisit a relentlessly bothersome notion. While well-read by any, even every metric, I have no formal degree more advanced than my B.Sci. As an educator and professional, that causes endless difficulties when looking for work. Being a better teacher than plenty of people with teaching degrees grates on me when I see them in front of a lecture hall. Knowing there are JWU alumni (with degrees identical to mine) that I wouldn't have let graduate seventh grade has always been infuriating too.

Still, those horrors don't make my own development any less valuable or impactful, just less likely to make me a suitable living. In a great many circles, I'm the X-Factor. The one possessed of the broadest knowledge base and most comprehensive universal perspective, and an asset to scholars and researchers more aggressively specialized than I- the provider of missing links.

A former classmate with her PhD in Japanese History: "I wonder where Yamamoto Yae got that Spencer carbine of hers in the middle of a war that made shipping hard?"

Me: "Probably Civil War surplus. Maybe through Russel and Co.- American trading company based in Hong Kong. I think maybe they had another office in Yokohama?"

Her: "...*the LOUDEST gasp*"

It's the random little things that can open the door for a tidal wave of expanded knowledge. The butterfly effect in scholarship is very real, which is why cross-discipline communication is so incredibly important. Perspective grows more complete as information connects, not merely as it accumulates.

Cookbook Review: "Classic Chinese Cuisine", by Nina Simonds

 

I've spent a good bit of my life loving Asian cuisine of all shapes and sizes, and I'll always say the most proportionally undervalued of them all here in America is actual Chinese cuisine. The history of its evolution here in America is intriguing but tragic, in that it's been stripped down, marginalized, and cheapened till it's nearly unrecognizable. I've researched long to find what might have been accurate attempts to preserve 'the real deal' in English-language literature through the latter half of the 20th century, and have managed to collect superb examples from the 60s and 70s. Next up- the 80s.

Nina Simonds' “Classic Chinese Cuisine” follows in the form and function of the volumes I've come across before- Lee Su Jan's 1962 masterpiece “The Fine Art of Chinese Cooking” and Madam Wong's 1977 “Long Life Chinese Cookbook”. Ms Simonds had been a writer for Gourmet magazine, and spent years of her youth training in professional kitchens in Taiwan, under master chefs that found mainland China both restrictive and dangerous. (All things considered, I don't blame them.)

As I read through the book, I couldn't help but pull my earlier reads of Dr. Lee and Madam Wong from my shelves and check some of the recipes I recognized against the equivalents in the other volumes. I wasn't disappointed, but instead intrigued. Many of them are virtually identical, some down to idiosyncrasies in language that led me to wonder if a translation or two might have been borrowed.

However, that's not the important part. Most vital is that the recipes don't change over multiple decades, and the historical citations are likewise the same. All three manuscripts are quite clearly drawn from the same core playbook, millennia old and held in deference enough not to be messed with.

The recipes themselves are laid out in a neat and organized manner, with the ingredients listed on the edges of the pages, split up by their purpose within the dish. The method of preparation is detailed in short paragraphs nearer the spine. Be warned, these require careful reading- not every dish has the necessary steps in an effective, efficient order.

I suspect that's a quirk of the extant Chinese culinary lexicon and ingredient prep priorities, though. That small quirk aside, I very much approve of the book's layout. There's a conversion chart at the end just before the index (American, British, and Metric), and each section of the book has any necessary tutorials either right at the beginning or beside the relevant recipe. Likewise, the historical elements that must compliment any serious book of  Chinese cookery are vibrant reading wherever they appear- and many of them are once again referencing the same people, times, and places as other books I've known in the past.

A well-researched manuscript, “Classic Chinese Cuisine” has earned a place on my shelf. It's a bit less worn out and much easier to read than the stalwarts of previous decades, but I feel safe and secure in referencing it just as readily for the quotes and stories as the recipes. Hunt this one down at your local library or used bookstore- you won't regret it one bit.

A Culture Of Failure

I think it's worth talking about one of the worst and most dangerous parts of American 'culture'- The Business Mulligan.

The willingness to subsidize, insure, or look the other way in the name of business and capital, recklessly enabled by the two other major bugbears of Credit and Insurance. 

Elsewhere in the world, starting a business that fails and goes under? An embarrassment. Go bankrupt? A disgrace. Here, it’s just... accepted? Another part of the process? 

I know full well the kind of person who likes this about the US.

They might raise some money, have a go and screw it up. What then? Obfuscate with legalese to finagle themselves a do-over. Fail to learn or plan properly and screw up again? Never really seems to be a problem.

The sort who willingly and knowingly makes mistakes, and thinks just because they're not yet dead, it means they deserves the possibility of redemption, despite having no idea what that actually might entail, and wrongly thinking it means 'the opportunity to make another attempt'.

No proper thought given to the necessary and correct penalties for failure. Or even to compensation for employees who trusted them, and whom they failed- those without the ability or authority to prevent such a failure but stricken with the burden of it nonetheless.

Defenders of such foolishness might say that much of American culture is defined by failing and learning from those mistakes. Many 'successful' people seem to wear failures and restarts like badges of honor. But that's just a disguise, and simply not true. 

An outlook like this emphasizes ego-driven determination supplemented by financial chicanery and dubious legality. It spurns adequately ethical planning and leaves no adequate recourse for the human side of collateral damage brought on by failure. It attempts to impose an intrinsically flawed but ~profitable~ version of reality over what actually exists, and simply expects the new version to work. That sometimes works quite well with magic- but it should never work in business.

Failure has to come with penalties- financial, legal, and social, because enterprise obliges responsibility.

That doesn't happen properly here. But it must.