sorry bout that, folks

whoa, it's been over a week since i've posted.  work has been ok, i guess.  i'm in a really wierd headspace about where i'm at right now.  not really burned out, cause i still love cooking, but kind of a been there done that sort of feeling.  it's not fun anymore.  at least it hasn't been lately.  we've had some busy nights; last saturday was good, there was a football game and we got tons of business both before and after.  i can't remember anything going wrong on saturday, but i can't remember enjoying myself either.  and usually i love rocking out a frantic dinner rush...it's kind of my gig.  line cooking is wierd...some people have jobs where they're occupied all day but not what you'd call busy, some people have jobs where they don't do shit, but i have a job where probably 70% of the time i have nothing going on, with intermittent bursts of frantic cooking.  last night was spaghetti night (my loyal reader will be familiar with spaghetti night) and it wasn't as busy as some, but right when tina got to work she started on some prep and i got like eight or nine tickets within about five minutes of eachother.  it wasn't anything i couldn't handle (i can handle damn near anything.  bring it on.) but for a couple minutes there i was a bit under the gun.  not in the weeds, mind you, just under the gun. 

this might need explaining.

we have cook talk in the restaurant.  anybody who's read any bourdain knows about it.  for the uninitated, here's a little glimmer:

in the weeds--busy, behind, lost, etc.  i usually only feel in the weeds if i've forgotten to do something important like cook baked potatoes, get the prime rib ready, or maybe i burnt the spag sauce.  doesn't happen often.

under the gun--not as bad as in the weeds, but more a time crunch sort of thing.  as in "it's already 4:30 and i'm under the gun to get the special ready by five".

fifo--first in, first out, in regards to tickets.  sometimes there's no avoiding one ticket dragging past another as different items have different cook times.  but generally it's fifo.

single, deucer, three top--refers to the number of customers at a single table.  self explanitory.

there's a lot more that i'm not gonna get into right now, mostly cause i don't wanna just plagurize tony bourdain and i'm brain farting a lot of it.  but around my kitchen, a frenchie is a french dip, bullet is a blt, we refer to prime rib in ounce-per-cut, as in "i need two twelves and a sixteen", d spec and l spec, or speckle refer to dinner and lunch specials.  and if i get an order for a chicken walnut quesadilla, you have to sing it like "ah-chickenannawalnut quesssa deeeia".  most of the time when i get an order for anything i just yell "aahhh cheeseburger cheeseburger!"  (it's an old snl skit reference.  nobody i work with gets it.)

anyway.

nobody reads this thing.