Apparently L.A. has a yearly extra virgin olive oil competition.

Today I did stuff! Stuff to make sure that I am employed! Yaaay!

It was fun. I made a resume and everything. My very first resume, imagine! Once I started thinking about it, I am actually highly employable in a kitchen for someone my age. I have worked in CDS in several positions, and I worked in Pyle, and I was a part of the Oberlin catering team, so I definitely have experience in commercial kitchens. Our friend Lee came by the house when I was doing it, too, and she has experience looking over things like this (it used to be her job) so she helped me spruce it up and told me lots of useful stuff about getting a job, basically that I can't be too professional.

I dropped the resume off at three places (Petros, Los Olivos Cafe, and Mattei's) and the guy at Mattei's opened it right in front of me. He was super friendly, but he's only in charge of the wait staff, bartenders, and the front of the house so he wants me in to talk to the chef-owners sometime on Friday, which I can do!

I also called everyone I babysit for to make sure they knew I was back in town and available. Amusingly enough, I got an immediate response asking me to sit for five hours this Saturday. So I have at least one paying job!

Also, my stipend check from Confluence arrived! Since we were guests, they apparently promised us a stipend, forgot to give it to us, and then remembered last-minute. So all four of us got checks for $60-odd dollars, which is excellent. More money for the bank, yay!

It was nice to get out of the house today. After I delivered all my little envelopes with resumes to the restaurants, I walked over to Global Gardens and decided to do a little olive oil tasting. They sell tastings for $3, and I was curious. One of the most interesting things on the menu was being able to taste the difference between two oils made from same olives, one batch of which was pollinated by sage grown nearby, one batch left alone. The difference was immediately and obviously apparent. It was super cool to be able to taste a bunch of olive oils next to each other, too. I might have to become an olive oil snob until I'm old enough to fully develop my wine snobbery; the tasting methods are similar. I mean, I have to find something to do with my vast amounts of disposable income.

Dinner tonight: roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots with paprika and whole garlic cloves. Made up entirely because I wanted to use my paprika, and we had root vegetables in the larder. Absolutely DIVINE. Served with salad, of course, because I go into green withdrawal.

recipe for those what care...

PAPRIKA POTATOES:

Ingredients:
3 large yukon gold potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
2 large carrots
a head of garlic
sausage (optional)
paprika
thyme mustard (moutard au thyme)
mustard powder
cayenne pepper
ground thyme
salt
a couple tablespoons of brown sugar
a couple tablespoons of butter
a quarter cup of olive oil

Cut carrots into pieces. Put in pot of water on stove. Heat while chopping potatoes and sweet potatoes. Put those in the pot and parboil for 5-8 minutes. While boiling, melt butter, then and add olive oil, spices, mustard, and brown sugar. Whisk until emulsified (the mustard should do that for you).
Drain root vegetables, put back in pot, and shake pot, until edges are fuzzy, but chunks are not broken. Spread onto baking sheet (the heavier the better) with unpeeled garlic cloves and sausage chunks and toss with oil and spice mixture.
Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, take out, stir around (add oil or butter if necessary) and put back in for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Turn off oven. EAT (the potatoes, not the oven).