Like Going Backstage...

I remember back in Hawai'i, one of my favorite musicians, Morrissey, came to Honolulu for a concert. By this point I had been working a bit around the theater scene, namely at the Neil Blaisedell concert hall. There I met a number of the IATSE stagehands. At the concert, I saw one of the stagehands sitting outside the backdoor smoking and struck up a conversation. Halfway through the conversation, I blurted out like a groupie, "Can you get me backstage?" To which he replied, "I could, but there's nothing to see back there."

I look back on that now, after being in the business for so long, and he was right, there is nothing to see backstage. Which also makes it a little hard to impress me with "getting backstage" or "behind the scenes". My initial thought always goes back to, "I could, but there's nothing to see back there."

We did however find one "behind the scenes" place that did impress me, the kitchen at Roy's Restaurant in Pasadena.

Nicole and I signed up for a cooking class there, "Roy's Classics". After everyone showed up, the sous chef led us all "backstage" into the actual kitchen where the cooking takes place. Here's the evidence.

When we got "backstage", the chef handed us each the recipes for the different dishes we were going to make. At first, I couldn't figure out how all of us were going to make all the dishes in the small cramped kitchen. But that got figured out in later photos...

Much to my chagrin, but I should have known, all but one of the recipes were for fish. Roy's is, for the most part, a seafood restaurant, that's what Hawai'i has a lot of. Behind me is a large piece of cod. It didn't really stink, but let's just say I'm not a fan of fish. The chef masterfully carved up the cod as well as prepared most of the sauces and broths that would take some time to complete while he talked about the different dishes. He then broke us up into groups, each of us taking one of the recipes to complete.

Here we see the lovely Nicole Boland flipping the teriyaki salmon on the grill. Nicole and I partnered up with our friends, Ernessa and her Mother-in-Law. The chef prepared the fish, and we all got together and made parts of the teriyaki sauce. Ernessa and I cut up the green onions, her Mother-in-law stirred the ingredients together, Nicole dropped in the salmon and the put them on the grill.

Here is the finished product. The chef gave Nicole a few pointers on how to move the fish around to give it the "grill" pattern, as well as how to flip the fish without destroying it.

NOW THIS, I could eat. It's the mustard covered spare ribs. A lot went into make them before hand. Again, a team of people got together, and made the sauce and cooked it, the chef had the meat prepared before we got there. YUM.

Another fish recipe. Yuck.

Cooking of another fish recipe. Yuck.

Prepping another fish. Yech.

The chef cooking the beef. The only thing I could eat.

After all the food was cooked, we sat in the bar area while the chef prepared some vegetables and rice. He brought out all the food we prepared and then proceeded to pig out.

Can't wait to see what next months recipes are...

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