Moving Monday

Everything was set up for the move. My boss juggled my roster so I get the day off; I had Sol and his van booked, except I underestimated traffic and was late signing the lease and getting the keys.  The reason for the traffic was also that the Australian bushfire crisis was escalating two days before Christmas.  In fact, as I drove up to my new home, the fire volunteers were busy unpacking the community fire fighting trailer stationed at my street. Here I was moving in with my furniture and stuff yet there was a real possibility I could be asked to evacuate at any moment.  We were so busy unloading, but there was a part of me that wanted to watch the helicopters water bombing just 250 metres away.

Fortunately, my good friend Sol was a true legend and he helped me accomplish everything and finish by 3PM.  In my entire life I have not had a plan that went as well or better than this move and Sol was the power piece that made it all possible. Gracias hermano.

I made it a point to sleep in my new home that night.

Four Weeks In

I am humbled and awed by the experience and skill of the chefs that I work with. I have total respect for their ability to think and plan a week ahead, I'm still struggling getting ahead by three days and I'm slowly getting there.  On the plus side I find I'm enjoying myself more than I'm stressing out about putting on the best buffet menu that I can muster.  At the moment my stress points is being able to present all the dishes by 5pm, and hopefully have made enough chicken to last until 6:30pm when the buffet closes.  The former happened once, the latter more than once.  The students try to keep me upbeat by saying it's because the students enjoy the food, so we run out. It's my fault for making it too tasty, apparently.

At my last service, I had so much fun with my students.  As suggested by Chef iN, I got one of them to make the crumbed fish and earned the right to put her name on the dish. Then I got another two students to cook the noodles on the large wok. The other students all wanted that job after they've seen them doing it. I also gave myself an extra challenge of putting up an extra chicken dish and an extra vegetarian dish (all using left over prep). I was even cheeky enough to leave in the middle of service to visit the other kitchen just to show myself that I could. 

Earlier that day, I also found a place to live in the mountains. I had lodged an application with the agents and I could potentially move in as early as next weekend.  Let's see what happens and watch the universe unfold.