Monday, March 29, 2010

I can do this

I have had a roller coaster of the last few days. I pretty much worked about 60 hours on my first week! Not bad for a casual cook. Last Thursday I worked in banqueting doing the prep for a function of 200 pax on Friday and a wedding for another 200 pax on Saturday. The CDP* I was working for was very handy with advise when he would observe me doing something something not quite right, or simply innefficient. I enjoyed listening to his explanation and take it on board. He made me feel like I can do this job, even if I was rough at the corners.

Then Friday I was back to the basement kitchen with GM** and helping Shanti with the fruit section. This was a very familiar section to me, as I had spent most of my work experience here in 2007 learning how to peel, seed, slice, and plate fruit. I was beginning to feel like I am starting to contribute some speed to the operation.

Saturday night I was on the level 1 kitchen where we ran the buffet. It was familiar and new at the same time. My prior experience with buffets have served me well, all I needed was to remember where the backup*** for all the buffet items are. The Executive Sous Chef (Rick) was very good at explaining what he needed of me and gave me confidence I can do the job. Running the buffet is mostly about making sure all platters and trays were filled with food and presentable. I start by patrolling the buffet table and fixing up any spills or replacing serving spoons that have become soiled, or just tidying up the presentation, but as soon as I spot one or more trays at less than half fill, I had to run back to the kitchen and bring back a fresh tray top it up. Often when bringing back an empty tray, I will spot the next item(s) to be refilled so that I won't waste a trip to the kitchen. It's amusing watching the customers gorge themselves on prawns and oysters.

Another casual, Paul, showed me two ways to wash the oysters in a lemon water solution. The first involved holding two pieces at a time and he referred to it as the proper way. Then he showed me his 'cowboy' way of grabbing five or six pieces at a time, explaining that this was the only way he could get the job done and still finish his shift on time. I tried both ways and found that the cowboy way only got me dropping an oyster and spending ages fishing it back out of the washing solution. He said suit yourself. The hardest part of the job was packing up for the night.

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