Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell damn. Since my last post way back when, I have been shifted to working breakfast. This upsets me. I swear, Nick seems to find the best way to make your life miserable. I don't like working breakfast. I don't like waking up at 5 am. I don't like having my dad drive me in to work. It's all bullshit. He took away the only thing that really made working there bearable, which was the people I worked with. Working breakfast means I get to spend 4-5 hours alone in the kitchen, doing prep, cooking, cleaning, or sometimes doing nothing. It's terrible. Nick didn't even tell me the combination to open the lock to the kitchen. Usually it's open, but Ken (the Sunday breakfast waiter) was running late today and didn't make it in before me.
Not to say I haven't had fun working breakfast, but that was back when Trevor would open up with me.
You see, Trevor used to work with me at 6, so we could pal around, burn plastic, make racist jokes at the expense of the pregnant Japanese pastry chef (who we lovingly call "Godzirra"), or making prep we will probably never use. But now he gets to stroll on in at 11, and since the hotel is hanging on the edge of double digit occupancy, I usually have to leave almost as soon as he arrives. This is basically the final blow to a bad day. As soon as someone I like talking to arrives, I have to leave due to money problems.
Trevor did give me a terrible tasting Jack Daniels filled chocolate when he arrived though, and at least I had the car today, so I got to avoid the 2 hour tour de force that is Trimet. Whoopie.
On the bright side, when I got home, I had a little project that could keep me busy. Or so I thought. On Saturday I went down to the local home brewing store and picked up 12 pounds of various grains, some bags of hops, some LME, and a bag of yeast so I could brew some Hefeweisen. I had it all planned out, I would come home, sanitize my equipment, make my wort, brew my hops, and get everything done before 5. This was before I realized I did not have a stock pot large enough to hold the 3.5 gallons of water I needed, plus all the grains. This put the final nail in the coffin of self loathing and hatred that was my day.
Apparently we're having a Vodka party at H5O someday this week, I think it may even be tomorrow, where any one in the industry can drop on by and get free Vodka. Except for me. Cause I'm too young. Grrrrrrrrr... Why must America be so uptight about drinking ages? It baffles me that I can buy all the ingredients I need in order to make my own alcoholic beverages, but cannot legally drink them outside of my house.
Europe's got their shit together when it comes to drinking ages.
Hopefully tomorrow's more fun. I think T-rex is in at 9 tomorrow, and we're still at a really low occupancy, meaning we'll probably make some powders/gels/hot ice cubes, that we will never use in any dish ever.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
okay, let's do this
Wow, it;s been a really long time since I last updated this thing, I'm still hoping to update it more frequently, but for some reason when I get home, I just don't want to sit down and write about my day for 1/2 an hour. Maybe it has something to do with me getting home at 12 almost every night. Anyway, I'm going to try to update this thing at least 2 times a week, if not more. Well, here's some things that I can remember about the last 3 weeks.
A couple weeks ago I got to work one on one with chef in the kitchen, which means that it was just him and me working the line. This isn't unusual for H5O, since it's usually just me and Amber, or me and Robyn, or Amber and Robyn working the line. But this made me feel good, it kinda made me feel like chef was testing me to see if I was up to his standards as a chef. Monday was dead, I think we did 5-6 heads, but Tuesday was insane, doing about 60-85 heads, and when each person orders 2-3 plates, it really adds up. Long story short, we were busy nonstop on Tuesday days, but it was a good kind of busy. When service was done and chef was getting ready to leave for the night, he turned to me and said "That was a great service Brendan, I can't wait to tell Amber and Robyn about it", I felt so good about myself. After that was all said and done, chef left me to break down the line by myself. He showed me how to clean the flat top and the french top on Monday, so I had no problem with this. I got out at around 11:20ish, which is pretty good considering it was just me.
I went in to work last week to go over some paper work with chef about how well I'm doing as an extern. It has basic questions on it like "does he follow standard recipes"(which we don't have), and "can he properly identify food", just basic things that every chef should know. Now, I got to fill one of these out for myself, and I gave myself some pretty bad scores, I gave myself a couple 2's even, cause I just felt like I should be able to do things a lot faster than I was doing them, and this made me nervous about what Nick was going to say about me. It went a lot better than I hoped it could. I don't think he gave me anything under a 4 during the 20ish question sheet. He even told me that I can do somethings better than everyone else in the kitchen, and that he's probably going to get me hired in the next couple of weeks. That really made my day, and even though I got up at 7 am to do this, I was full of energy and just plain happy.
The next day I had to go back in to work cause I forgot my hours sheet at home. This was okay with me thought because it gave me an excuse to hang out with one of my bestest friends from WCI. Alex was my friend from day 1, and it took me a while to realize that we were even in the same orientation group a month before we started school. Anyways, she works at Cafe Bleu, which is a small cafe that sells things made by students, mainly brownies, sandwiches, bagels, and cookies, along with drinks. I turned in my paperwork and immediately ran down to go hangout with her. We talked about how well our externships are going, comparing different injuries, basic things like that. I think I was there for a couple of hours, because she had to close down for the night. We made plans to try to get a group of us who are still in Oregon to go to the Zoo someday and hangout, than I left thinking that I wouldn't see her again for a while. Well, wouldn't you know it, a max cart broke down somewhere before my stop, so not only was the max late, but when it stopped and opened it's doors, it resembled a bus from India. Crowded, not enough room to stand, and hot from body heat. I decided to take the next one, since it usually isn't as bad. Well, I was wrong, it was worse. But during the wait Alex caught up to me and we got to talk some more.
The Max rolled around again and opened it's doors reviling all the people trapped inside. We made our way up the stairs, only to be pushed in further by a couple of stragglers. The people that got in behind us were pretty cool though, I talked with them for a bit before they got of, like, 2 stops later. After that, nothing really happened, that is, until someone on the Max said something rather scary. I don't remember the whole thing, but it was along the lines of how he curb stomped a "sandniggers" head in when he was in Iraq. The max went silent after this. I mean, dead silent. Non one wanted to upset this angry angry man. Alex, who was standing close to him, turned and looked at me with a worried face, while I was holding back laughter at the absurdity of the conversation. It's nothing to laugh about for sure, I had never once in my life heard someone say something like that with a serious tone in real life. I've heard stuff like that in movies, but it never occurred to me that people actually said things like that in this day and age, and it kinda worried me. The worst part was this guy got off the max at the zoo with a couple of small children. I just wondered what he was teaching them as the max rolled away.
My schedule changed, so now I'm working Friday-Tuesday. It's not so bad, it's just a couple extra hours a week. Friday an Saturday are our busiest night's, and we stay opened till midnight. Like I said, not that bad. I get to go into work later on Friday, which is a plus, I guess. Mainly I'm just hoping that one of these days matches up with Ela's off days so that we can hang with Alex somewhere downtown, maybe go out and get something to eat together.
And finally, Yesterday I stabbed myself in the hand with an oyster shucker. Thank god thee tip was broken, so it didn't go very deep, but still, it hurt. The wound is tiny and unimpressive, but it's on a sensitive part of my hand, so anytime I grab something, it hurts a little. Robyn also told me the I was getting better everyday, and that I was already better than some of the people that they had hired in the last couple of months. I could tell that she meant it too, which made me feel really good.
Okay, that's all I can really remember about those weeks. Hopefully I get the urge to update my blog more often, cause I know that some people actually read it, and I didn't really wanna let them down.
A couple weeks ago I got to work one on one with chef in the kitchen, which means that it was just him and me working the line. This isn't unusual for H5O, since it's usually just me and Amber, or me and Robyn, or Amber and Robyn working the line. But this made me feel good, it kinda made me feel like chef was testing me to see if I was up to his standards as a chef. Monday was dead, I think we did 5-6 heads, but Tuesday was insane, doing about 60-85 heads, and when each person orders 2-3 plates, it really adds up. Long story short, we were busy nonstop on Tuesday days, but it was a good kind of busy. When service was done and chef was getting ready to leave for the night, he turned to me and said "That was a great service Brendan, I can't wait to tell Amber and Robyn about it", I felt so good about myself. After that was all said and done, chef left me to break down the line by myself. He showed me how to clean the flat top and the french top on Monday, so I had no problem with this. I got out at around 11:20ish, which is pretty good considering it was just me.
I went in to work last week to go over some paper work with chef about how well I'm doing as an extern. It has basic questions on it like "does he follow standard recipes"(which we don't have), and "can he properly identify food", just basic things that every chef should know. Now, I got to fill one of these out for myself, and I gave myself some pretty bad scores, I gave myself a couple 2's even, cause I just felt like I should be able to do things a lot faster than I was doing them, and this made me nervous about what Nick was going to say about me. It went a lot better than I hoped it could. I don't think he gave me anything under a 4 during the 20ish question sheet. He even told me that I can do somethings better than everyone else in the kitchen, and that he's probably going to get me hired in the next couple of weeks. That really made my day, and even though I got up at 7 am to do this, I was full of energy and just plain happy.
The next day I had to go back in to work cause I forgot my hours sheet at home. This was okay with me thought because it gave me an excuse to hang out with one of my bestest friends from WCI. Alex was my friend from day 1, and it took me a while to realize that we were even in the same orientation group a month before we started school. Anyways, she works at Cafe Bleu, which is a small cafe that sells things made by students, mainly brownies, sandwiches, bagels, and cookies, along with drinks. I turned in my paperwork and immediately ran down to go hangout with her. We talked about how well our externships are going, comparing different injuries, basic things like that. I think I was there for a couple of hours, because she had to close down for the night. We made plans to try to get a group of us who are still in Oregon to go to the Zoo someday and hangout, than I left thinking that I wouldn't see her again for a while. Well, wouldn't you know it, a max cart broke down somewhere before my stop, so not only was the max late, but when it stopped and opened it's doors, it resembled a bus from India. Crowded, not enough room to stand, and hot from body heat. I decided to take the next one, since it usually isn't as bad. Well, I was wrong, it was worse. But during the wait Alex caught up to me and we got to talk some more.
The Max rolled around again and opened it's doors reviling all the people trapped inside. We made our way up the stairs, only to be pushed in further by a couple of stragglers. The people that got in behind us were pretty cool though, I talked with them for a bit before they got of, like, 2 stops later. After that, nothing really happened, that is, until someone on the Max said something rather scary. I don't remember the whole thing, but it was along the lines of how he curb stomped a "sandniggers" head in when he was in Iraq. The max went silent after this. I mean, dead silent. Non one wanted to upset this angry angry man. Alex, who was standing close to him, turned and looked at me with a worried face, while I was holding back laughter at the absurdity of the conversation. It's nothing to laugh about for sure, I had never once in my life heard someone say something like that with a serious tone in real life. I've heard stuff like that in movies, but it never occurred to me that people actually said things like that in this day and age, and it kinda worried me. The worst part was this guy got off the max at the zoo with a couple of small children. I just wondered what he was teaching them as the max rolled away.
My schedule changed, so now I'm working Friday-Tuesday. It's not so bad, it's just a couple extra hours a week. Friday an Saturday are our busiest night's, and we stay opened till midnight. Like I said, not that bad. I get to go into work later on Friday, which is a plus, I guess. Mainly I'm just hoping that one of these days matches up with Ela's off days so that we can hang with Alex somewhere downtown, maybe go out and get something to eat together.
And finally, Yesterday I stabbed myself in the hand with an oyster shucker. Thank god thee tip was broken, so it didn't go very deep, but still, it hurt. The wound is tiny and unimpressive, but it's on a sensitive part of my hand, so anytime I grab something, it hurts a little. Robyn also told me the I was getting better everyday, and that I was already better than some of the people that they had hired in the last couple of months. I could tell that she meant it too, which made me feel really good.
Okay, that's all I can really remember about those weeks. Hopefully I get the urge to update my blog more often, cause I know that some people actually read it, and I didn't really wanna let them down.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
When I get angry, I cut myself
Well, tonight was the first night that I got to work on the line with Chef Nick. I'm going to admit that when I woke up this morning, I was more than a little nervous. I didn't want to mess up in front of chef, especially since he is the one who decides whether or not I get the job there. I got to work 20 minutes early, put on my apron, and got to work. We didn't expect many people to show since it was labor day, which turned out to be correct. Most of my day was spent cleaning or making Caesar rolls. Chef was out of the kitchen for most of the day working on the Fall menu that we're going to switch too soon, which left me alone for most of the day. I played my music while doing odd jobs around the kitchen, singing along with Starfucker and Asleep in the Sea while straining beef stock.
around 8:30-9:00 we got busy fora while, but not enough to really stop us from cleaning. Near the end of the day chef was talking about a show he watched over the weekend called "Lock up" or something, he told us that it's a show about prisons, and how one of his favorite quotes from the show was "When I get out of prison in 20 years, how am I going to tell my kids that I cut myself when I get angry?!" Chef's response was "Maybe you would tell them why you were in prison for 20 years, and not why you cut yourself, you dumb motherfucker." We all had a jolly guffaw at this remark.
Cleaning went by super fast today, chef showed me how to clean the flat top and the french top, which was useful. I basically did all the cleanup today though. I swept and mopped the floors, I wiped down all the counters, I broke down the line, I took out the trash/recycling/linens and I cleaned the fryer. I finished all the cleanup by myself before we were technically closed for the day. At 10:00pm I left the kitchen, walked into the park across the street, called my sister, and waited for her to pick me up. While I waited in the cool night's air, listening to Danger Doom, and looking out into the water, a strange looking man with a flour in his hair asked me for a cigarette. I told him sorry, and that I didn't smoke, wherein he replied "Dammit" and walked away. This isn't the first time I have been asked for a cigarette, and it got me thinking that maybe I should carry around a pack of Marlboro's, just in case someone asked me for a smoke. I always feel bad when I don't have any cigarettes to give out to people when they ask me for one.
Well, tomorrow I am working with Chef again, but this time I won't be so nervous. Chef told me that we might talk Wednesday about me getting a job there, so we'll see how that goes.
nighty-night.
around 8:30-9:00 we got busy fora while, but not enough to really stop us from cleaning. Near the end of the day chef was talking about a show he watched over the weekend called "Lock up" or something, he told us that it's a show about prisons, and how one of his favorite quotes from the show was "When I get out of prison in 20 years, how am I going to tell my kids that I cut myself when I get angry?!" Chef's response was "Maybe you would tell them why you were in prison for 20 years, and not why you cut yourself, you dumb motherfucker." We all had a jolly guffaw at this remark.
Cleaning went by super fast today, chef showed me how to clean the flat top and the french top, which was useful. I basically did all the cleanup today though. I swept and mopped the floors, I wiped down all the counters, I broke down the line, I took out the trash/recycling/linens and I cleaned the fryer. I finished all the cleanup by myself before we were technically closed for the day. At 10:00pm I left the kitchen, walked into the park across the street, called my sister, and waited for her to pick me up. While I waited in the cool night's air, listening to Danger Doom, and looking out into the water, a strange looking man with a flour in his hair asked me for a cigarette. I told him sorry, and that I didn't smoke, wherein he replied "Dammit" and walked away. This isn't the first time I have been asked for a cigarette, and it got me thinking that maybe I should carry around a pack of Marlboro's, just in case someone asked me for a smoke. I always feel bad when I don't have any cigarettes to give out to people when they ask me for one.
Well, tomorrow I am working with Chef again, but this time I won't be so nervous. Chef told me that we might talk Wednesday about me getting a job there, so we'll see how that goes.
nighty-night.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
and the pace quickens
Well, today and yesterday were noticeably busier. Both days had slow starts, but eventually they got quicker, giving us more stuff to do and less time to do it.
Today was the first day since beginning my externship where I just didn't want to go in to work. Maybe it has something to do with paintball over the weekend, and how because of it I had yet to just lay down for a whole day and do nothing. I only have two days left till my weekend, but I feel like it's not getting here fast enough. I really just wanna sit down and do nothing but watch t.v. or play video games, maybe work on my bike, but that's it. I don't even want to get out of my pajamas.. Maybe I'll just stay in bed all day Friday.
Nothing much happened yesterday, and nothing really happened today. At least we got out at a reasonable time yesterday. Today, at around 8:30, a 4 top sat down. This is all fine and dandy though since they only had one thing each, but than the new owner and his friends decided to hop on down at 9, and keep ordering food till we closed at 10. I know the new owner wants to eat a free meal, and that we can't tell him to leave, but come on buddy, we just wanted to clean up so we could leave. We didn't end up getting out of the kitchen till around 11:30, and luckily my dad decided to pick me up today, or I wouldn't have gotten home till after midnight.
I ran into Jacine the other day on the max while going to work. I thought it was kind of funny, cause the night before I ran into her boyfriend on the max after work. I wasn't sure if she'd recognize me since I cut my hair so short, so I didn't end up saying "Hi" to her till she stood up to get off. Even then neither of us said anything, we just smiled and waved at each other. Later on she told me that she felt like a dork for not talking to me, but I told her it was all right.
Man... I'm really hoping tomorrow and Thursday go by quickly, cause I really wanna relax.
well, that's really it, two days, and nearly 16 hours of work, in less than 5 paragraphs.
Seacrest out
Dammit Ela, why did you get that stuck in my head. Speaking of which, I have a wicked awful headache.
Today was the first day since beginning my externship where I just didn't want to go in to work. Maybe it has something to do with paintball over the weekend, and how because of it I had yet to just lay down for a whole day and do nothing. I only have two days left till my weekend, but I feel like it's not getting here fast enough. I really just wanna sit down and do nothing but watch t.v. or play video games, maybe work on my bike, but that's it. I don't even want to get out of my pajamas.. Maybe I'll just stay in bed all day Friday.
Nothing much happened yesterday, and nothing really happened today. At least we got out at a reasonable time yesterday. Today, at around 8:30, a 4 top sat down. This is all fine and dandy though since they only had one thing each, but than the new owner and his friends decided to hop on down at 9, and keep ordering food till we closed at 10. I know the new owner wants to eat a free meal, and that we can't tell him to leave, but come on buddy, we just wanted to clean up so we could leave. We didn't end up getting out of the kitchen till around 11:30, and luckily my dad decided to pick me up today, or I wouldn't have gotten home till after midnight.
I ran into Jacine the other day on the max while going to work. I thought it was kind of funny, cause the night before I ran into her boyfriend on the max after work. I wasn't sure if she'd recognize me since I cut my hair so short, so I didn't end up saying "Hi" to her till she stood up to get off. Even then neither of us said anything, we just smiled and waved at each other. Later on she told me that she felt like a dork for not talking to me, but I told her it was all right.
Man... I'm really hoping tomorrow and Thursday go by quickly, cause I really wanna relax.
well, that's really it, two days, and nearly 16 hours of work, in less than 5 paragraphs.
Seacrest out
Dammit Ela, why did you get that stuck in my head. Speaking of which, I have a wicked awful headache.
Monday, August 31, 2009
And the lord said "LET THERE BE SUSHI"
Holy fuck cunts, today was boring. It's a Sunday, so I wasn't hoping for much action today, but still, JESUS. What am I saying? I didn't even want today to be busy, I'm still super sore from paintball. We got a lot of cleaning done at least. All the table legs are clean, the spice racks and shelf above the cooking area are spotless, and the inversion grill looks brand spankin' new. We got the occasional ticket which broke up the monotony of cleaning, but it also kinda bothered us that someone had to interrupt us before we could get done. Almost every ticket though had sushi on it. MY GOD PEOPLE, ORDER SOMETHING ELSE. Get some fucking duck confit, or maybe a nice bowl of soup. Stop getting sushi. And to top it all off, most of these rolls were veggie rolls, the most labor intensive roll on the menu. I did get to make a crab nepolian, which is one of my favorite things to plate, so that kinda made up for it. I must have rolled 10-12 rolls of sushi today, 8 of which were veggie rolls.
We started cleaning at around 8:30, just so we could have something to do. We finished all the other cleaning, there were no tickets coming in, we were just standing around listening to music. So we cleaned. And wouldn't you know it, at 9:50we got an order.
It was for me.
It was sushi.
Not only that, but it was for a spot prawn roll, which requires the use of the deep fryer, and as luck would have it, I just put the frying baskets in the dish washer. This means I had to grab one of the small flour sifters we keep in the back and hold the basket in the oil. The handle on this thing is less than 6 inches long, and these prawns are big. As I lowered the prawns into the oil, I could feel little splashes of oil hitting my hand, like tiny burning suns pattering on my flesh. I hoped to god that I wouldn't somehow slip and punch my hand straight into the hot oil. This went on for 3-4 minutes, the hot oil mere inches from my knuckles, I couldn't let go of the basket or the prawns would sink to the bottom of the fryer, never to be seen again. The prawns finished, and the danger was over. I rolled that shit up in rice and nori with some green onions, and then layed it down on a plate, sexily dressed with tamarind sauce, spoon dragged, of course.
I got out today at 10:05, a whole hour-and-a-half sooner than last Sunday. I said my good-byes, and made my way. I got on the Blue line to Hillsboro, like usual. As I boarded the train, I ran across an odd site. It was a morbidly obese woman that I saw once at Good Will some months ago. She's not just morbidly obese, shes like Jabba the Hutt in what I guess is lady form, a power chair, and a Southern accent. She was more than half the width of the Max by herself. But enough about her, let's talk about another odd encounter on this magical Max. I ran into my old friend Kyler Gould (pictured below, just cause I wanted to talk about his beard). We talked of our wanting to zoo-bomb, and of our current lives. He's working, from what I understand, as a phone sex operator. We made plans to make bikes this Friday with our friend Quinlan. We parted ways at Sunset, but not before hitting each other, as men often do, in a playful manner.
This is Kyler. He enjoys being a badass , and living on the edge. He likes his whiskey like he likes his women, 12 years old and cut with coke. His beard gets more women than I've even seen. He looks like a goddamn urban pirate. He's ridden sharks, sank ships, and impregnated women, all at once.
He is everything I wish I could be. Well, except for being short and hairy. He's no Chef Luke, mind you, but he's some type of superman.
Well, that's all for today. Maybe something awesome will happen tomorrow, like I win the lottery, or get challenged to mud wrestle Olivia Wilde.
We started cleaning at around 8:30, just so we could have something to do. We finished all the other cleaning, there were no tickets coming in, we were just standing around listening to music. So we cleaned. And wouldn't you know it, at 9:50we got an order.
It was for me.
It was sushi.
Not only that, but it was for a spot prawn roll, which requires the use of the deep fryer, and as luck would have it, I just put the frying baskets in the dish washer. This means I had to grab one of the small flour sifters we keep in the back and hold the basket in the oil. The handle on this thing is less than 6 inches long, and these prawns are big. As I lowered the prawns into the oil, I could feel little splashes of oil hitting my hand, like tiny burning suns pattering on my flesh. I hoped to god that I wouldn't somehow slip and punch my hand straight into the hot oil. This went on for 3-4 minutes, the hot oil mere inches from my knuckles, I couldn't let go of the basket or the prawns would sink to the bottom of the fryer, never to be seen again. The prawns finished, and the danger was over. I rolled that shit up in rice and nori with some green onions, and then layed it down on a plate, sexily dressed with tamarind sauce, spoon dragged, of course.
I got out today at 10:05, a whole hour-and-a-half sooner than last Sunday. I said my good-byes, and made my way. I got on the Blue line to Hillsboro, like usual. As I boarded the train, I ran across an odd site. It was a morbidly obese woman that I saw once at Good Will some months ago. She's not just morbidly obese, shes like Jabba the Hutt in what I guess is lady form, a power chair, and a Southern accent. She was more than half the width of the Max by herself. But enough about her, let's talk about another odd encounter on this magical Max. I ran into my old friend Kyler Gould (pictured below, just cause I wanted to talk about his beard). We talked of our wanting to zoo-bomb, and of our current lives. He's working, from what I understand, as a phone sex operator. We made plans to make bikes this Friday with our friend Quinlan. We parted ways at Sunset, but not before hitting each other, as men often do, in a playful manner.
This is Kyler. He enjoys being a badass , and living on the edge. He likes his whiskey like he likes his women, 12 years old and cut with coke. His beard gets more women than I've even seen. He looks like a goddamn urban pirate. He's ridden sharks, sank ships, and impregnated women, all at once.
He is everything I wish I could be. Well, except for being short and hairy. He's no Chef Luke, mind you, but he's some type of superman.
Well, that's all for today. Maybe something awesome will happen tomorrow, like I win the lottery, or get challenged to mud wrestle Olivia Wilde.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The eruption of Mt. Yanes
Man, what is it with this week and slow days? All-in-all, we had more tickets today, but it was still super slow compared to last week. It does have it's upside though, cause I can think about how I'm going to plate a dish, so they have been coming out looking super nice. Since it was a slow day, I had more prep work to do throughout the day, which boiled down to cutting brussel sprouts and clarifying duck stock.
The day went pretty smoothly, if not horribly boring, till we got a ticket for a cobb salad. Neither myself nor Robyn, the other line cook, knew that the eggs we had were bad. This is when the day went downhill. Let me tell you what we do to the eggs for the cobb salad. First we hard-boil the eggs, than we separate them into whites and yolks, then we run them through a tammy to get small ricee sized pieces of egg that we put on theplate with some avocado, tomato, and minced olive. It looks pretty nice when it's all done, but it's a bitch to do. Well, since the eggs we had prepared went bad, we had to hard boil the eggs to order. For some reason this took us 30 minutes, and the eggs still weren't cooked all the way through, the yolks were still a little runny. This is when chef got angry. He was saying how it "shouldn't take 30 FUCKING minutes to make a FUCKING cobb salad", and how we made him look like a jackass for taking so long. His anger was understandable though, since neither of us checked the eggs before hand, we just assumed that they were gonna be good.
This is the first time in 2 weeks that I've seen chef act like that, usually he's one of us, a happy go lucky guy, singing along with the music we play in the kitchen, even playing his own selection of music. He's almost always in a good mood and laughing at something or telling jokes, but tonight he did a total 180. It really caught me off guard, it kinda felt like having a fight with a good friend, and how afterwords you feel weird being around them. The feeling will probably go away by Sunday, but man... It was just so strange seeing him act like that.
He left shortly after that, leaving the kitchen in the hand of Robyn and myself. We started cleaning at around 9:30 again, but had to stop halfway through to make some food for some late night bar patrons. We still got out at around 10:30ish. Clean up goes by faster with Robyn than it does with Amber, I'm not sure why though. They seem to do the same stuff, cleaning wise, but with Robyn, I'm almost always leaving before 11.
I just found something out today though, the average age in the kitchen is 22. I'm the only one who can;t go out drinking at Patty's after shifts, and it makes me sad. I have to do all my drinking at home. Again.
The day went pretty smoothly, if not horribly boring, till we got a ticket for a cobb salad. Neither myself nor Robyn, the other line cook, knew that the eggs we had were bad. This is when the day went downhill. Let me tell you what we do to the eggs for the cobb salad. First we hard-boil the eggs, than we separate them into whites and yolks, then we run them through a tammy to get small ricee sized pieces of egg that we put on theplate with some avocado, tomato, and minced olive. It looks pretty nice when it's all done, but it's a bitch to do. Well, since the eggs we had prepared went bad, we had to hard boil the eggs to order. For some reason this took us 30 minutes, and the eggs still weren't cooked all the way through, the yolks were still a little runny. This is when chef got angry. He was saying how it "shouldn't take 30 FUCKING minutes to make a FUCKING cobb salad", and how we made him look like a jackass for taking so long. His anger was understandable though, since neither of us checked the eggs before hand, we just assumed that they were gonna be good.
This is the first time in 2 weeks that I've seen chef act like that, usually he's one of us, a happy go lucky guy, singing along with the music we play in the kitchen, even playing his own selection of music. He's almost always in a good mood and laughing at something or telling jokes, but tonight he did a total 180. It really caught me off guard, it kinda felt like having a fight with a good friend, and how afterwords you feel weird being around them. The feeling will probably go away by Sunday, but man... It was just so strange seeing him act like that.
He left shortly after that, leaving the kitchen in the hand of Robyn and myself. We started cleaning at around 9:30 again, but had to stop halfway through to make some food for some late night bar patrons. We still got out at around 10:30ish. Clean up goes by faster with Robyn than it does with Amber, I'm not sure why though. They seem to do the same stuff, cleaning wise, but with Robyn, I'm almost always leaving before 11.
I just found something out today though, the average age in the kitchen is 22. I'm the only one who can;t go out drinking at Patty's after shifts, and it makes me sad. I have to do all my drinking at home. Again.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Rollin' California rolls like fatty blunts, bitch
Shit, I forgot to post this last night
Hot damn, another slow night. We had 3 tickets all day till about 8, when we got bombarded with tickets again. Because the night was so slow, chef Nick told me to practice rolling sushi, cause I suck at it. Rolling sushi is a lot harder than you think it would be. You have to make them tight enough so that thee insides don't fallout when you cut them, and so they won't squish when you cut them. He had me practice by making him 2 California rolls and a Spicy Tun roll. The Spicy Tuna roll came out like shit compared to the other 2 rolls. I'm getting better at least, cause I remember the first roll I ever made there fell apart as soon as the knife touched it.
I was gonna practice this weekend, but I'm not gonna be home, I'm going down to Lebanon for the weekend to play some scenario paintball. It's a Vietnam themed game, so I have a whole outfit together to make me look kinda like Sgt. Elias K. Grodin from Platoon. I'll post some pics from the game on Sunday.
I saw some people getting off at the zoo last night for some late night zoo-bombing. Damn, I really wanna do that. Not late night zoo-bombing, but zoo-bombing in general. I would go with some friends of mine, but I have no bike to use. All mine are normal sized MAN bikes, so I'd either have to borrow one of my friends, or make one myself. Maybe I can trick Brian and Quinlan to come over to my house next weekend and help me construct such a bike.
Hot damn, another slow night. We had 3 tickets all day till about 8, when we got bombarded with tickets again. Because the night was so slow, chef Nick told me to practice rolling sushi, cause I suck at it. Rolling sushi is a lot harder than you think it would be. You have to make them tight enough so that thee insides don't fallout when you cut them, and so they won't squish when you cut them. He had me practice by making him 2 California rolls and a Spicy Tun roll. The Spicy Tuna roll came out like shit compared to the other 2 rolls. I'm getting better at least, cause I remember the first roll I ever made there fell apart as soon as the knife touched it.
I was gonna practice this weekend, but I'm not gonna be home, I'm going down to Lebanon for the weekend to play some scenario paintball. It's a Vietnam themed game, so I have a whole outfit together to make me look kinda like Sgt. Elias K. Grodin from Platoon. I'll post some pics from the game on Sunday.
I saw some people getting off at the zoo last night for some late night zoo-bombing. Damn, I really wanna do that. Not late night zoo-bombing, but zoo-bombing in general. I would go with some friends of mine, but I have no bike to use. All mine are normal sized MAN bikes, so I'd either have to borrow one of my friends, or make one myself. Maybe I can trick Brian and Quinlan to come over to my house next weekend and help me construct such a bike.
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