Another day in the life...

I made some serious quantity food yesterday. Shortly after I arrived for class, I was put on the task of making jambalaya for MOW. We're talking gallons of the stuff. Gallons. The veggies were sauteing by around 8 and the whole thing was done and cooling in the blast chiller by 10:30. Not too shabby.

After a decent nap and some time with Heidi, I arrived for my shift at the restaurant to find a typical summer Friday night chaos. I knew this would be the case; it was a warm night and the parking lot was jammed. There was a group of guests milling around the door, waiting for tables when I walked in.

The kitchen was bustling, with people hurtling by as fast as they could walk, calling "behind!" or, "coming through!" All three cooks were up to their eyeballs in orders. I was put to the task of restocking something for them every few minutes, but other than that I just stayed the hell out of the way. Which, in a kitchen that small, is a challenge in itself.

The staff was tired and irritated. One waitress came in looking like she may murder someone, and said, "someone needs to wait on the middle booth in the bar, because if I have to go back there I'm going to punch that bitch in her fucking face." We were awash in asshole guests last night, it seemed.

Sometime after 10:00 dinner service ended and the waitrons disappeared as fast as they could get their sidework done and punch out; it was a long, tough day for them. Two of the three cooks split as soon as they could too, one stayed long enough to help out cleaning and come up with a prep list for me. He told me he wants to run a special with scalloped potatoes Sunday, so my primary responsibility was to peel 45 spuds. As you can imagine, I had eagerly awaited this part of the day. It's always the zenith of my day as a cook to peel forty-five fucking potatoes. I almost pissed myself with glee.

It took me only an hour to knock the spuds out, which isn't too bad. It would've sucked if we had gotten hit at 12:00 or something. This cook made it clear that I wasn't to leave without finishing the potatoes. (Of course the bartender would've tossed my ass out when he finished at 2:30, but who's counting?)

I finished the prep that I could (all 45 potatoes and 7 white onions, sliced), cleaned up a bit, and got my last food orders out around 1:45. Then I got to enjoy my beer and quick and unhealthy dinner. And sitting down... that's always my favorite at 2am.