I still live.

I have been away from the Internet for a while, but have managed to grab some time at a local internet shop with which to update matters.

I have a new job now. The Mexican restaurant turned out to not have enough money to pay me, so I have instead found a new, and much better home, as the head cook at a little Japanese/Korean restaurant here in town, and have even finally found my own home in town for a reasonable amount of money.

I love my new job very much, I feel like I'm at home again, and I look forward to going to work every day. My first real culinary experience was at a Japanese restaurant, so while the techniques we use at the new place are a little different, all in all, it's all like old hat to me. My employer has been very impressed with my skills, and I've even gotten to flex my creative muscle a bit and really show of what I'm capable of. I'm thinking I might talk the owner into running weekly specials, to give me the opportunity to try some new dishes, and I've already added a few tweaks and one new item to the sushi menu.

All in all, it's going very well indeed, though the last week was a bit exhausting, as our lunch cook was out with illness, leaving me to run two all day shifts in a row.

I also finally got another opportunity to try my hand at barbecue this weekend, this time with a nice pork shoulder roast. It came out not so hot, it got a little burnt on the outside, a little dried out, but all in all the end result, shredded and put in a corn tortilla with some fresh avacado salsa and homemade sweet hot sauce, was amazingly tasty, and I've learned a lot about how this damnable smoker works best and how to get it just perfect next time.