I also dont have enough time to proof read or run spell check and I really dont give a fuck.

Update on New Place

I am finishing up my third week. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it is still a long ways. Te best jobs I have ever had always took 3 months to get settled into, hopefully this one will take less. I am still working two stations everyday and they have told me I am moving to the veg station next week. That is great except that I will not be trained by anyone on the Veg station either. The guy working that station has quit and is not willing to stay a few extra days to help out. I truly feel like I am being setup to fail. i mean what the fuck. I also found out I will have only two days off between now and November 14th. This restaurant cannot not keep staff because it is in the burbs and no good worker will drive out from the city or put up with the BS. I am in the weeds from 1030am-11pm everyday. Running around like an asshole just to get setup. I am embressed by the way I have to work. I think this job may have been a mistake. I have lost my family, my freedom(yes and those who know me will understand), and not to mention a pay cut to work 10+ hours a week. I have major anxiety 24/7. Even my day off is stressful because I know nothing extra is getting done for me. Is this what it takes to have an awesome resume? Somehow I doubt anyone is working in these conditions at The French Laundry. Good luck with brunch tomorrow guys.

New jobby job

I am in week two of two new job. Not to sound like a whiney bitch, BUT I am fucking exhausted. On my first day the person who has worked the Salad/dessert station for the past 18 months broke her toe. This stoner kid who would just need a dog named scooby if he wanted to be Shagy for halloween trained me, kind of. Anyway he was fired at around 930 my first night. So I had to breakdown and write a prep list myself. On day two I was trained by a girl who, besides having a bigger cock then me, was leaving in a few days. Her work ethic was not exactly strong and she spent more time hitting on servers then anything else. A few days rolled by and on Saturday night the other new guy, we both started on Tuesday, quit at 5pm. He said he was tired and left. Are you kidding me?? Because of that I had to work another 6 day, 12+ hour week. My biggest mistake was not taking a week off in between jobs. I will never do that again.

The work is intense all the time. We have no prep cooks or even a dishwasher until 5pm, so you are on your own. I run/walk all day just to almost be ready by 530. I scrape by with just enough of everything and start all over the next day. I hate working like that, it is a fools way of working.

Everything must be done neat and well organized. This is our walk-in. Tape can NEVER be torn and must always be cut. Once this is setup it doesn't take much time to maintain but it takes dedication from everyone.

I am feeling very depressed about my decision to work here. I know I will be much better for working at this place, but right now I hate it. I hate the commute, the prep, and the pressure. I am impressed with the finesse my co-workers possess and the speed at which they put out high quality food. A few days off might really help and hopefully they are coming soon. At least they don't have brunch.

THe devil you know vs. The devil you don't

A few months ago I was bitching about my boss and is lack of moving forward. My friend said something very important and I did not realize it at the time, " It could be worse". I couldn't imagine work being any worse with a new Chef. Boy Did I learn a lesson.

The owner hired this kid with a great resume. First off a resume should get you a interview, not a job. I have a huge problem with resume Chefs. They all think they dont have to work since they washed dishes at some 3 star European bistro. Fuck them. Anyway this kid thinks he is Hot shit and is not afraid to tell you. That would not be so bad if he had the ability to teach others, mange his time, even order properly. He likes to sit in the office and wait until 430 to start dinner prep, he over orders to the point that boxes are stacked so high they block the light and you must use you cell phone as a flashlight to see anything in the walk-in.

My biggest problem is he is unreliable. He will tell you he will do something and then never do it. WTF? If you say you will stop at the produce stand, well then stop there because I am not. If you say you will be in at 10am, be there at 9:59. If you say you are going to change the schedule, then change it. We have ran out of bacon twice this month even after he said he would order it... all he has to do is say pork belly in the phone and that is it. Someone else takes care of it.

Before he started I spent a few days writing a "101" for my restaurant. He read none of it. He has asked me questions about how things get done, all of which were in the 101. I now tell him to refer back to the booklet. I am being a dick, but every time he opens it he will hopefully see something else he should be doing. Allot of time was spent writing down the little things to look for, he is did not read a page of it. (If anyone wants it I will be happy to email to them.)

A few weeks ago I started getting the phone calls and emails about this kid and his fucking attitude from former employees. Funny how you can go from restaurant to restaurant and make only enemies. I will never understand that. Most of you I know from working together, a few of you for over 10 years.

He also likes to lie to me and thinks I don't pick up on it. We got a "fresh" truffle in and I put it in some rice. he told me that he likes to order a whole bunch and then cryo and freeze them. I explained that we get an order twice a week and serve less then 50 people a night, so why buy $300 worth of truffle to put in the freezer? He ordered it anyway and told me that one of the top reps in the country fucked up the order. He also made a statement about "empty space" on the produce shelves. As you all know we now have produce from floor to ceiling and throw out half cases at a time due to them rotting.

He spent an entire week doing nothing but prep for the new menu and when the day came to change it he had nothing ready and as soon as the owner left he ran out front to talk with the servers about God knows what. The other Sous flipped out and almost walked, luckily the pastry chef was there and calmed him down. When dinner finally came around he wasn't even close to being prepared.... I flipped out told him off and walked out at 815. The first course had just left, should have went out at 730, and he still did not have the second course ready. I couldn't take it anymore. My speech went something like this:

"You little egotistical asshole, you walked around here all week pretending to be working on this menu and you were really doing nothing. You have let this entire restaurant family down because your giant ego and laziness. The difference between a Man and a boy is that a Man's ego is smaller then his cock, think how far you have to go to shrink your ego that small..BOY. This restaurant is already 4 bells, only an idiot could fuck that up."

I have never done anything like that before and I am not proud of it in the least. I only hope it knocked some sense into him.

He has a few positives, he can write great menus(although execution is a problem) and he has made the entire kitchen staff work as one unit, excluding him. And the fact that the sheltered 24 year old, who lives at home, cuts the crust off his sandwiches and drinks chocolate milk out of a coffee cup to fit in with the rest of us, has bad things to say should sum it up for everyone. I have never heard him say anything mean about anyone before. Actually I did not think he knew how to say anything but nice things.

The Good(?) news.. I have found another job at a great restaurant and a talented chef. It is sad to leave my home of two years, I love working there so much. The freedom there is like no other and I will miss it. I also hate that a little douche bag has made me quit. Well he really has not, if I stay I will run him out of there and that will not go over well with the owner. I would rather leave now on good terms then bad terms later. I would like to think I would go back someday, but I think what is so hard is that I doubt I will.

In summary- I will take a lazy EC anyday. At least I will know what will get done on my days off and expect it. The EC that says he will do something and does not.... he is a douche bag and will constantly be looking for another job.

Thank you all for reading this, I feel so much better venting it all out. Have a great week Chefs

bad juju

I seem to have a special gift of bringing out the worst in some employees.  (I think I can also bring out the best, but that never makes the news.)  The workers in question can usually be safely categorized as "lazy," but smart lazy, the kind of guys that explore every possible angle to do what they want when they want and just as much work as necessary for their personal gain.  I'm sure you've all experienced this at some point, but my special institution seems to thrive on this ghetto mentality.  I have butted heads with one person in particular since day one and the culinary gods really broke the mold when they shit this guy out.  He is the last of the "old guard" at my establishment and he should have been fired immediately, but I realize how much he does for the company and I've done everything possible to reign him in and avoid rocking the boat.  Well, he rocked all of our boats on Sunday when he posted this on Facebook: "have u ever work with a crackhead that feel they better than u always talking shit when u not around and when they saw u they smile like nothing happened go fuck yourself" Even more awesome, I also heard from the Pastry Chef that he mentioned how much he would like to punch me.  I'm of the opinion that I work a little too hard (and long) to have this additional stress added to my plate, so I guess the next step is obvious.  I had hoped that he would just quit of his own volition, preferably without giving notice so he comes off as the asshole that he truly is, but why would a glorified prep cook with no responsibilities give up the best schedule in town?  I would appreciate any of your thoughts or words of advice.  To-day is going to be another long, shitty day.

Two trailer park girls go round the outside.

There is a server in our restaurant who I've been giving a hard time to lately. At her classiest she is a hillbilly. She has no finesse, and nags at the rest of the staff a lot. I have and still will try to coach her and train her and support her successes. She thinks she knows everything and I find myself feeling sad for her and her crippling ignorance. Lately, I've been finding it difficult to even see her name on tickets.

Lately our main restaurant manager has been working hard to keep our FOH on their toes with quality and high standards of service. Today at server line up he gave them some critiques and recognized their improvements. I acknowledged those attempted improvements and reminded them that in the end we are all on the same team.

That is when the hillbilly spoke up:

"I had a guest today tell me her salad wasn't dressed properly. This seems to be happening a lot lately, for weeks now, and I've talked to all the lunch servers about it and some of them agree with me."

The other manager and myself immediately asked, "IF THERE WAS A GUEST COMPLAINT, THEN WHY THE ARE WE JUST HEARING ABOUT IT NOW???" It is a staple in our system that if a guest is unsatisfied with something, then a manager needs to know. That is how any restaurant maintains customer satisfaction with quality, especially with the insane amount of volume we do here. This was the first any of us are hearing about her "multiple complaints."

It was pretty obvious that she was saying that to try to piss me off and make the kitchen look bad in front of the staff because I've been riding her lately. Her white trashiness is rather transparent most of the time. Again, I pity her ignorance.

#1. If a guest is not happy we always take action. That is how we got this far.

#2. I will not let some hick ruin what we've worked so hard to achieve.

#3. She will undoubtedly be fired sometime, maybe soon. When that day comes I am going to do what I do to the ones who cross me. I'm going to stand outside the door, make her walk right by me on her way out, then watch her take the walk of shame to her pick up truck. All the while wearing a shit eating grin, and I will two simple words, "Good Luck."

I've seen 100's of people come and go through this restaurant. They will never love this place as much as I do. They will never sacrifice as much as I do. They will never know what it takes to hold this place together. And eventually they will realize that if they go toe to toe with me, they will inevitably lose.

You know what your problem is?

I feel one of my biggest weaknesses is that I talk too loud about the things that are bothering me.

In conquering this weakness I've been trying to keep these two things in mind:

1. When something feels wrong, it most of the time is wrong.

2. Choose your battles carefully.

I am open to any other advice.

A Temperature by any other name

How many ways can it possibly be ordered?

1. Black and Blue

2. Pittsburgh Rare

3. Charred Rare

4. Chicago Rare

5. Burnt, but still Mooing

6. Blue Rare

7. Bloody Rare

8. Bloody as Hell

And it never fails. However it is ordered, somebody gets confused by what the guest actually wants.

Wild Chinook Salmon

Last week we brought in 30 whole salmon, 4 halibut (40 lbs each), and 6 albacore that myself and my lead cooks broke down.

Most of the salmon came from the Oregon coast around Coos Bay. It is wild chinook caught by our esteemed fisherman. He is a wonderful guy who really cares about the species. He participates in a salmon preservation program with Oregon State University. Every fish he catches gets a tag with a bar code and number. You can look up the number to find the exact location of the catch, how deep the water is, and the health of the fish by the scale samples our fisherman sends OSU after each day on the water. Our fisherman also caught us the albacore, first of the season.

30 fucking salmon. It was pretty fucking awesome. We took off the sides. We saved the collars and bellies for the smoked salmon rillette on our menu. Pin boning 30 salmon takes some time. It can become very zen.

We used 28 sides yesterday for a BBQ event for our wine club. We had 200 each dinner portions and lunch portions for our restaurant menu. They are almost all gone. Just a few frozen back stock portions. 30 fucking salmon, gone.

The flesh on a lot of them was such a gorgeous red. You can't beat wild fish. Hatchery is gross. I have little doubt our salmon is some of the best you could possibly get in the whole country. We get it 12 hours out of the water. It goes on plates 16 hours after being out of the water.

I really enjoyed hanging out in the charcuterie kitchen with my favorite cooks showing off our skills in breaking down these majestic fish. It took us 7 hours to do all that fish from whole to vac pack. This is the kind of activity that makes working in such a busy place totally worth it. It is an experience I wouldn't get at another restaurant.

I'm looking forward to this weeks catch.

holy god, are we all still alive?

i can't believe i haven't posted on here in--HOLY SHIT--i just looked it up, i haven't posted since december.  first and foremost, apologies for slacking, i've at least posted on my blog a few times this year, but i've left all ya'll hanging.  part of it is, for the first time in a long while, i absolutely love my job.  it's easier to blog when you have shitty things that you're mad about kicking around your brain.  it's not so fun to read a post that says "work was great today!  the end!"  but for the most part, work is great.  and i could get on here and say what a great time i had and try to describe everything that was funny all day, but somehow, holding a link sausage where your penis is and having your boss take a bite of it doesn't sound as funny in print as it is in person.  anyway, i decided i was gonna try to actually list everything that makes me laugh at work.  busting out prep and tickets is great, and it's what i do, and i'm good at it, but i like to liven it up a bit, and all my bosses like me cause of my "intangibles", and i got a lot of em.  i keep it light when things get tense.  ok, anyway, if any of you have read my blog recently, you know that i like to try to put stickers on people's backs.  feta stickers, goat cheese stickers, day dots, whatever.  since we all wear black tshirts i also like to flour up my hands and slap people on the back or grab their titties (mostly caddy, but he's got big fluffy tits that are always tempting me).  another thing we do is take literally anything and hold it up like it's your cock and catch somebody's eye and go "...get it?  like it's my cock!"  it's great when it's a 16 inch chunk of andoullie, but it's also acceptable with tiny link sausages (those are the most accurate for myself) and it just gets funnier and funnier the more random things you use...hotel spoons, whisks, 10 lb beef chubs, full tenderloin pismos (which we lovingly refer to as horse cocks).  bonus points if you use a frozen sausage and manage to rub it on someone's arm or, god willing, their cheek (if they are reaching in a lowboy).  i also like to put tater tots on my tits and ask if anybody else is cold.  i've been known to shove a baguette down my pants and stand in the server station.  most of us have nicknames too...that's always fun.  my crew includes caddy, bee-ree (his name is billy but for some reason i always yell his name in a super racist asian accent...also know as hillbilly, swillbilly, and chillbilly), fuckin matty (we don't really get along, so i'm always exasperated when i'm referring to him), ben jammin, thomaswithpenis (we have a hummus and pita dish we always yell out as "hummuswithpita" and it's not a stretch to get "thomaswithpenis"), shay-z, ryo, nico, turtle, and our km has many different names...lor-bear, baby boo, tough guy, the little guy, short round are just a few.  i'm usually referred to by my last name, but i get called panama and panama red all the time.  panama; cause it's my favorite van halen song (and possibly my favorite song ever), and panama red because i have red hair and also i...eh...well, you know. 

god, what else do we do?  we make a lot of gay jokes, but not like, toward gay people, just joking about how we are gay...for instance today a bartender went and bought bread at the store for us and brought back some glazed donut holes and all day long i kept talking about how i like to glaze caddy's hole.  i like to talk about how little my penis is and how terrible i am in bed, that usually gets positive reactions.  like, "my dick may be short, but at least it's narrow" and "i suck in bed but at least i'm quick about it..."  lately i've been throwing frill picks at my prep guy (a long time ago i learned how to throw them like darts, and i can put one through a to-go box at twenty feet).  i can also snap towels so hard they rip pants.

we have a lot of little games we play but it's taken me so long to write this i had too many beers and forgot our games.  but anyway.  rest assured, it's fun as hell in my kitchen.  i laugh more than i bitch, and any day that happens is a good day.  oh, and we also rock four grand brunches the whole time.  serving eight dollar plates.

what do you guys do for fun in the kitchen?

how does a bad day get worse?

100 degrees with 100% humidity for the next three days. The bathroom at work will hit 115-120. You can just stand in there and sweat it out. Good luck to anyone else in this heat.

thingsthatmakemehappy.com

Only had to wait 4 months and cost 31 cents a recipe.

I thought the team life sticker was great.

I was overwhelmed the first two days, but today I am actually reading chapters. The detail is amazing and almost a bit of overload at times.