Update from the so-called "Germ-Nazi"

An update during the week! Amazing! I'm at my workplace/drinking establishment, clicking away on the keyboard. I have a Bass ale at my side and I'm awaiting a late dinner comprised of nothing healthy (except possibly the mac salad). Although I may be able to refute that next week when we start our lesson section on nutrition and food science.

I'm continuing to be the go-to guy, being placed on the hot line at some point during the day, usually helping out with the starch and veg for the MOW meal and the employee special. Yesterday was Philly cheese steaks... yummy. Today there was no hot special, but I had to make two huge batches of chicken stir-fry in the larger of the two braisers. By the time I was done with this I was absolutely drenched with sweat. Standing over a tilting skillet at 500° kicking up plumes of steam took its toll on me. At one point, after the first batch, I had to go into walk-in #4 and stand in front of the fan, which blew beautiful, cold air on me; it was lovely. At other points I did my next favorite thing and stuck my head into the blast cooler to cool off for a second.

The go-to guy from the previous class, Rodney, is working two jobs (for credit, of course!) and we don't have the pleasure of his company anymore. Which is too bad, as he is a great, great guy, and he could tackle anything in that kitchen. Not that I want to prevent my colleagues from getting opportunities, but I definitely hope to replace him as the REOC top student. The cook that the instructors and Red Cross staff can count on to get anything done, the right way and quick.

Each day I go to class I learn to appreciate my teachers even more. Greg and Earnie are the absolute tops, and the nicest guys you could want to work with or learn from. When I was bitching to Greg about the sanitary situation at my current restaurant, he told me that he thought I needed to get the fine dining experience out of my system. He recommended that I apply to one of the busiest restaurants in the city, where the chef is a friend of his. He said I should say that I'm taking his course, and to take whatever job he offers me. Greg told me that from what he'd seen, if I worked five nights a week on a line I'd have everything down in two weeks. He said that I need to get thrown onto saute and get buried in tickets so deep that I wouldn't know how to get out. I'd only have to dig myself out once, and it'd all be easy after that.

There are several factors in such a decision, and I am considering it seriously. I don't want to do fine dining restaurant work forever... the pressure's high, the hours are brutal, and there's almost never any benefits. But I do want to do it, just to experience it, just to have it under my belt and round out my skills. And the more I learn about how things can be in a restaurant, the more I don't want to work here. After I told Greg about some of the practices (or lack thereof) around here, he assured me that eventually it would catch up with this place. One food-borne illness outbreak could shut this place down for a week. But even after it re-opened, the press would eat an outbreak (salmonella, E. coli, etc) up and business would never recover. And I don't want my name attached to something like that. About the only thing that's keeping me here is loyalty to the co-workers who put in their good word to hire me. I don't want to hang the bartender I cook for out to dry. But this is a rather dirty place, and now that I lost Sundays, I'm not making much cash at all, so that's a consideration too. It'll require a couple weeks or so of reflection (and budgeting).

Monday night I went to the chef's association meeting in the city. Now that was an interesting experience (sorta). I walked into the VFW where it's held:
Me: "is this the chef's association meeting?"
President (of the local ACF): "Yes, you're in the right place."
Other board member: "You must be a chef, you're wearing a baseball cap. I thought maybe you were an outfielder."
Har-dee-fucking-har. I figured he was just giving me a good-natured ribbing. But he kept at it about my god-damn hat: (I wore my REOC hat)
Ass-hole: "I figure if you want to wear a baseball cap, be an outfielder. If you want to be a chef, wear a toque."
I could see this was going to continue, so I quietly removed my hat and set it on the table. Throughout the meeting he proceeded to grand-stand, even though there were all of ten of us there (aside from the officers), and four of us were non-members, REOC students and recent grads. Everything he said was with an air of superior gravity, and several times he repeated his point to stress its importance. And the points he was making was reading revisions to bylaws about the club's selection of Chef Of The Year. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. He topped it off by taking Earnie to task for referring to the old, retired guys who founded the local chapter as, well, old and retired. It was quite enlightening to see an arrogant, megalomaniacal chef in person.

The Tuesday I mentioned this to Earnie, who laughed (as he usually does) and said that nobody can get along with this guy, and that I figured him out right away. If I can stay out of this jackass' way completely I'll be a happy cook.

So that's the update for now. I'm living the life, at the Red Cross at 7:30 (or pretty close to it) five mornings a week, in full chef's regalia. There's not a minute that goes by where I don't like what I'm doing. It's definitely leaving me with the impression that this is one of the best choices I've made in ages.