Austin Cantina

What have I been up to lately?

Since the cruise ship job fell through I have been looking for work, helping out where I can and teaching some. I had a very nice conversation with Nancy Douglas about teaching at her B&B in Woodinville, went out for a visit and started to plan a menu.  In the mean-time Nancy called me one Friday night to ask if I could step in to cover for another Chef who was scheduled to teach but became ill. I worked with the chef’s existing menu and I think things all turned out fairly well. One of the students had been a Cantina customer, so that was especially nice.

Nancy spent a lot of time in France and has grown a Francophillic business devoted to the good life of wine and cuisine, so the classes are all focused on regional French cooking. The one I did a couple weeks back was based on a small region north of Provence in the mountainous region near the French/Swiss border. The next class I teach focuses on the broader area of Normandy which is like the Pacific Northwest is their access to miles of coastline and fresh seafood as well as latitudes in the 45 to 50 degrees North range which support greens, mushrooms, cows and apples/pears in the regional agriculture. Think great cheese and cider.

For details on the B&B, and their classes in general see their website  my class on 4/18 will include the following;

Normandy French Regional Dinner Class

Pork liver pate served with gherkin pickles, kalamata black olives & crusty bread (making the pork liver pate and the bread during the class)

Green Salad  Frisée with Camembert de Normandie and green apple dressed in a dijon mustard & chive vinaigrette (Edge of Seattle homemade vinegar)

Sole Sautee with shrimp & seasonal mushrooms
Spinach soufflé, sauté of carrots

Gateau aux Poires with sliced pear and crème fraiche

In addition to teaching I spent a couple weeks helping out with the opening in the Lost Lady American Cantina, which Nancy Leson  wrote about a few weeks back.  I will not be there long term, but I spent a couple weeks with the staff (mostly kitchen) talking about how to set up the kitchen in an efficient manner, and discussing the types of Tex-Mex cuisine that we Seattle-ites demand and love. The owner, Dale is a BIG Texas personality who has operated steakhouses in Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere, has been shot by his ex-wife, loves great steak and tall tales, and will demand the best from his staff. We parted on very friendly terms and Dale knows that he can call me anytime if he needs a hand.

 

Cruise ship job offer rescinded

I was offered a job by Lindblad cruises, which I discussed here at length. The job offer came after 3 or 4 phone conversations, but no face to face meeting. That seemed odd to me, since they are in Seattle and it wouldn’t have been difficult for me to come to the office in person. I was invited in for an orientation, and to fill out new-hire paperwork, they bought me a plane ticket to Mexico and provided an itinerary. I was provided with a uniform and a safety program (dvd and notebook) and told to complete the safety quizzes, get a physical exam and take a piss test.

After the orientation I returned to the office 2 more times, on Friday to drop off some documents, and again on Monday to turn in my piss-test receipt and my physicians “fit-to-travel” form.  I had spent the better part of a week preparing my life for 2 months away, as well as shopping for items required (battery operated alarm clock, etc…) for the trip.

On Monday I was told that they’ve decided, after meeting me that I didn’t fit with their needs/expectations of someone who would be successful on their ship, 12 hours a day, no more than 9 consecutive hours off at a time, for 2 months straight, with limited access to employment development and opportunities for job growth. Of course I find it odd that they chose not to meet me BEFORE offering me a job, and more than a little rude that they required me to jump through all sorts of hoops BEFORE telling me that they didn’t think I’d work for them.

In today’s tight job market it is dis-empowering enough to send out dozens of resumes and not hear anything back, or to meet for an interview and get no feedback (or job offer), but to be given a written job offer, told to prepare for work, and then be effectively dismissed without being given any concrete or specific reason seems unnecessarily cruel. Of course, if I were the company attorney, that is likely how I’d recommend them to proceed, but being legally safe is not the same as being sensitive, or polite.

I am bruised from this experience, but not exactly crushed. While I certainly need some income, and anything would be better than nothing, I wasn’t exactly excited about the pay rate or the hours, despite being thrilled with the location. My parents never warmed to the idea of me being away from my kids and family for months at a time, but my family here in Seattle was just settling into accepting it as a condition of me getting an income.

There could be a variety of reasons for their decision, ranging from my blog post about the job (cruise companies can be VERY protective of their brand identity), to my discussion with the HR person about my compensation goals and opportunities for advancement, or my discussion with their safety team about the discrepancies between their safety program and the quiz given to test knowledge of safety policies and procedures.  I didn’t even get into what I think about cruise ship pollution  in any way, except to acknowledge that I had heard that their company makes an effort to be seen as “Greener” than most in the industry Of course I’m sure that their attorneys advise them against giving any further information, it couldn’t possibly benefit them, from a legal perspective.

Anyway, no one likes whiner or a loser. I never intended this blog to become a record of my travails, but since I posted here about the job, it made sense to post here about the job going away. I have no intention of discussing all of the jobs that I DON’T get, or of my hardships getting back on my feet.

On a related note, I’d like to request that people treat me like a toddler, a small child. I am sort of done getting sympathy for my business having failed, for me losing this opportunity. I am requesting that if you have something you’d like to express, I’m interested in congratulations and recognition for how far I’ve come, rather than how far short I’ve fallen.  Think about a child learning to walk, with every step they fall, and get back up again. Responsible adults look and say “My, what a good job you’ve done taking that step”, “That was really impressive, how far you walked when you tried so hard” We rarely walk around behind a child and say how sorry we are every time they fall. Let’s take the focus off the falling and put it on the walking. I’m trying to get back up, and I do appreciate all who recognize what I was successful at, and where my successes will be in the future. Of course, if you’d like to reach out a hand for me to grab, and help pull me up, that would be best of all!

 

My next adventure

The Cantina is closed, a new sushi place is going in on 24th, and I've been looking for work. It has been a terrifically difficult time with the U.S. having more people on unemployment than ever before in history, and even that doesn't include failed business owners (like me) who are not eligible for unemployment.

Anyway, I have a new adventure starting next week, I leave for Mexico on Feb 12th as a chef (not THE chef, I'll be second in charge) on a National Geographic cruise ship watching whales in Baja California. It is a 2 month contract (includes several journeys, with different guests), doesn't pay very well but compared to losing money month after month over the past year and a half it will pay my mortgage, and if all goes well lead to a better position within the company. I haven't been "on the road" for more than 2 weeks at a time in years, and though I've slept on boats, I've never spent the night, and never been on a cruise ship. I hope that I was hired with a recognition for my skills and experience and an awareness that I'd need to learn some about cooking on a crusie ship before being given FULL responsibility to run the show.

My employer runs 14 vessels around the globeincluding trips down the Nile, the Galapagos and the Poles, below are some links to details about my next couple months. Please stay tuned here for photos and updates from my journeys

The Cruise Line
The Ship I'm On

Some of the trip itineraries I'll contribute to
Among the Great Whales
Special photo expedition and comprehensive voyage to Baja

I'm both very excited about this, and more than a little apprehensive about being away from my family, internet access, cell phone reach etc.. for weeks at a time. My family shares lots of these feelings, though they cann't be quite as excited because they won't be able to go on the fun trips I'm lookng forward to. Everyone is happy to be having some money coming into the household.

Not re-opening

In order to minimize losses, and to allow the landlord to re-rent the space and recover some expenses. We will vacate the premises and leave most major appliances in place. Our last day on 24th street will be 12/30/08.

In an effort to recover some of the expenses of creating Austin Cantina, we'll be selling Cantina t-shirts for $10.00 each and a bunch of decor and kitchen small-wares. Check out http://austincantina.org/private/forsale.htm for details.
We also have a modest stock of sealed hot sauce bottles that could be available at $5.00 each, shoot me an e-mail if you are interested in any of these items.

contact [email protected]

Cold, Cold, Cold, Goodbye

It looks ever more likely that tonight will be the last night of Austin Cantina in its present configuration. I am too far behind on bills and taxes to make it through another January, February, March, April like 2008, and all indications are that the coming year is likely to be tougher on consumers than the last year, and therefore tougher on consumer businesses like this one.

I feel so good about so much that we've done here, it's a difficult exercise to guess what we might have done differently that would have allowed us to continue. I have many ideas about what we could do differently next time. I will spend the next 2 weeks thinking about I'm going to do next.

The photos in this post were taken yesterday, before the BIG snowfall today. I thought that when I left the midwest in the late 80's I was done with people shoveling driveways and the phrase "wind-chill-factor".

Everyone think good thoughts and have a great holiday season. I wish you all the best and look forward to keeping everyone informed about what I'm doing next.

ARTWalk 12/13/08

We are participating once again in Ballard ARTWalk this weekend, please drop by to see

Soda Pop Santos

Area teacher and arts educator T. Beth Sims's bubbly mixed media shrines are
a refreshing and unique blend of advertising kitsch and a more serious look
at the varied palette of North and Central American devotional folk art.

Website update

Press page is now live
http://austincantina.org/press.php

Also, our November special (kids eat free, and $5.00 late night menu) will continue through December.

Jefe

Thanksgiving Weekend

We closed on Thursday & Sunday to spend time with family and had friends and family from a half dozen states as well as overseas for Thanksgiving dinner.

Menu included 2 Turkeys (one from Thundering Hooves and the other one was deep fried), both brined overnight, wonderful Pumpkin Soup, Cornbread Stuffing with Blue Cheese, Mashed Sweet Potatoes, and Tequila Chocolate Cake.

Thanksgiving Week, 2008

What an amazing turnout last night for the Biznik Networking event here!

And such great people, wow!

We will be closed all day Thursday & Sunday in order to spend time with family that is traveling from around the country and overseas.

Austin Cantina will be open for regular dinner hours on Friday and Saturday this week.

Networking event at the Cantina

Next Tuesday Austin Cantina is hosting a Biznik networking event from 6 to 8 p.m. It will be a special pre-thanksgiving Happy Hour. Check out this link for details.

We've had Biznik here before, in fact much of our interior space was designed and implemented by folks from Biznik. On Tues 11/25 we'll offer our $5.00 late night menu for this group. Including $5.00 Margaritas, Wine (by the glass), Quesadilla's and other cheap munchies.

Please check out the link, RSVP, and join us.