"There's a rumour that you're on ice and will rise again someday..."
It's been a weird couple of weeks, hell, a weird few months. Let's see what comes up...
Kitchen Work
Looking back, the kitchen was usually a lot of fun. The curious use of the past tense will be explained. The crew was solid, hardworking, with just enough perverse humour to keep ourselves sane between rushes. A couple of things in the nature of the kitchen kept grinding me down, though.
First off, working third station at The Stone also includes washing and busing a lot of dishes, and a regular dose of mopping up the hallways and floors. It's understandable. These things need to be done in any kitchen. Even if you work in a place with a regular dishwasher on the schedule, the lowest station people are the ones proving themselves through the crap work. The thing that troubled me though was looking up the line and realizing that I really didn't want to be promoted to second station and spend most of my day in front of a deep-fryer. I enjoy the food-prep side of third station, and I loved playing around with presentation, especially on desserts, but every bit of that gets crushed as you realize that you have to finish up the order to get back in the dish pit.
It just isn't economically sound for us to keep someone on dish on the slower shifts, but every shift has it's points when the pressure is on and you already feel like you're a couple of limbs short. Naturally, this would be in around lunch or dinner, when you'd really like to be able to focus on making food, but need to get the dishes done in order to plate it. You see the problem. I told myself that I'd give it six months, then see where I wanted to go from there. Three weeks ago, I gave my notice.
I finally had the chance last week to sit down with my kitchen manager for a half dozen rounds of beer and chat things out. Looking back on the past six months, I really have come a long way. My speed was getting good, I was comfortable, cracking jokes, I knew most of the recipes by heart.
Sitting down, Neil paid me a huge compliment on something I hadn't even thought of though -- apparently it's unheard of in the history of our restaurant for anyone on third station to be making their own specials. I tried to make it standard on the rare mornings when I got to open at 9AM. Then told me he had been inspired by one of the pizzas I'd made just playing around with specials one night. It was exciting, he said, to see someone fresh into a kitchen creating their own foods; unafraid of trying new things, new combinations; just expressing their own tastes and ideas through their work. Wow.
Most of the specials I cooked up were pretty basic by anyone's standards, but I hadn't been in a kitchen long enough to have settled into the crossover tricks where you save yourself work by, say, using your soup as pasta sauce, or vice-versa. Given the limited time and storage areas, about half of my specials involved the words "pizza" or "barbecue chicken". One of the ones I was really proud of though was the "Warm Apple Salad with Apple-Plum Vinaigrette". It came about simply because winter had just hit, it was cold, and I felt like making something vegitarian. When I first told Neil I wanted to try it, he gave me a weird look that was something like "ok -- I'm not sure if it will sell, though", but said "Sure, run with it." It turned out to be surprisingly good in the end, especially the dressing. We even ran it for a couple of days. I'll post it below then call it a wrap for this post. More to come later.
Warm Apple Salad
------------------------------
Base of mixed greens (green, romaine, red lettuce with baby spinach by default)
Carrot sticks (wanted squash but we were out of decent substitutes)
Cashew nuts.
Sprinkle of cheddar cheese.
Top with apple preparation (microwaved, see below).
Apple plum vinaigrette (see below) in containers on the side.
Apple preparation
----------------------------
X apples, cored, sliced.
Water, enough to cover X apples.
Lemon juice to prevent browning.
Vanilla extract for a touch of flavour.
Make a batch and microwave a handful as needed.
Apple-plum vinaigrette
----------------------------------
1/5 Plum sauce.
3/5 Apple juice.
1/5 Basalmic vinegar.
Kitchen Work
Looking back, the kitchen was usually a lot of fun. The curious use of the past tense will be explained. The crew was solid, hardworking, with just enough perverse humour to keep ourselves sane between rushes. A couple of things in the nature of the kitchen kept grinding me down, though.
First off, working third station at The Stone also includes washing and busing a lot of dishes, and a regular dose of mopping up the hallways and floors. It's understandable. These things need to be done in any kitchen. Even if you work in a place with a regular dishwasher on the schedule, the lowest station people are the ones proving themselves through the crap work. The thing that troubled me though was looking up the line and realizing that I really didn't want to be promoted to second station and spend most of my day in front of a deep-fryer. I enjoy the food-prep side of third station, and I loved playing around with presentation, especially on desserts, but every bit of that gets crushed as you realize that you have to finish up the order to get back in the dish pit.
It just isn't economically sound for us to keep someone on dish on the slower shifts, but every shift has it's points when the pressure is on and you already feel like you're a couple of limbs short. Naturally, this would be in around lunch or dinner, when you'd really like to be able to focus on making food, but need to get the dishes done in order to plate it. You see the problem. I told myself that I'd give it six months, then see where I wanted to go from there. Three weeks ago, I gave my notice.
I finally had the chance last week to sit down with my kitchen manager for a half dozen rounds of beer and chat things out. Looking back on the past six months, I really have come a long way. My speed was getting good, I was comfortable, cracking jokes, I knew most of the recipes by heart.
Sitting down, Neil paid me a huge compliment on something I hadn't even thought of though -- apparently it's unheard of in the history of our restaurant for anyone on third station to be making their own specials. I tried to make it standard on the rare mornings when I got to open at 9AM. Then told me he had been inspired by one of the pizzas I'd made just playing around with specials one night. It was exciting, he said, to see someone fresh into a kitchen creating their own foods; unafraid of trying new things, new combinations; just expressing their own tastes and ideas through their work. Wow.
Most of the specials I cooked up were pretty basic by anyone's standards, but I hadn't been in a kitchen long enough to have settled into the crossover tricks where you save yourself work by, say, using your soup as pasta sauce, or vice-versa. Given the limited time and storage areas, about half of my specials involved the words "pizza" or "barbecue chicken". One of the ones I was really proud of though was the "Warm Apple Salad with Apple-Plum Vinaigrette". It came about simply because winter had just hit, it was cold, and I felt like making something vegitarian. When I first told Neil I wanted to try it, he gave me a weird look that was something like "ok -- I'm not sure if it will sell, though", but said "Sure, run with it." It turned out to be surprisingly good in the end, especially the dressing. We even ran it for a couple of days. I'll post it below then call it a wrap for this post. More to come later.
Warm Apple Salad
------------------------------
Base of mixed greens (green, romaine, red lettuce with baby spinach by default)
Carrot sticks (wanted squash but we were out of decent substitutes)
Cashew nuts.
Sprinkle of cheddar cheese.
Top with apple preparation (microwaved, see below).
Apple plum vinaigrette (see below) in containers on the side.
Apple preparation
----------------------------
X apples, cored, sliced.
Water, enough to cover X apples.
Lemon juice to prevent browning.
Vanilla extract for a touch of flavour.
Make a batch and microwave a handful as needed.
Apple-plum vinaigrette
----------------------------------
1/5 Plum sauce.
3/5 Apple juice.
1/5 Basalmic vinegar.