wow. i'm pushing 500 hits! not that that's a lot, mind you (this is the internet and all), but still, i'm damn happy that anybody at all wants to read this thing. when i started writing my blog, it was really just a forum for me to rant and rave about all the things i love and hate about the day to day business of line cooking. i didn't really expect anybody to read it, much less come back and read it again. i applied to have my blog listed on the foodie blogroll and i got it, and i know a lot of the readers are coming from there. but i had to do that myself...find out about the foodie blogroll, submit my blog for review and all that. which i was happy to do, as it let a whole new set of people know about my blog. but i was stunned yesterday, as i was approached by a website called The Petit Chef who wanted to list my blog on their site. so i added their button and here we are. i'm flattered that anybody is reading this thing, and i'm double flattered that Petit Chef wanted my blog listed on their site (which is full of awesome blogs and recipes and such). so thank you to the foodie blogroll, thank you to Petit Chef, and thank you to all of you who are reading this thing. i've gotten a lot of awesome comments since i've started, and as much as i like posting my stuff, i like reading what people think about it. so, if you have a google account, comment away! if not, sign up for one, it only takes like thirty seconds.
keep reading, ya'll! i love writing this thing.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
the story of how turkey day became bacon day
so, i've never really liked turkey (except turkey sammiches, but that's a different post), but i do love me some bacon, so whenever i'm asked to contribute to thanksgiving dinner i usually go with bacon or pork of some sort. a couple of years ago i made up a sausage, cranberry, and apple dressing that was a huge hit, so now i'm expected to make dressing all the time. but i've done that one a couple years in a row now, as well as a few times at work, so i wanted to do something different. and, since i've never had cornbread stuffing, i did that. i looked at a couple recipies but didn't follow any...i just crispied up some bacon, cooked celery and onion in that, added fresh sage and thyme, and mixed that with cornbread crumbles and chicken stock. then, i drizzled like a half cup of bacon fat over the whole thing and baked it until crispy. it looked like this:
sadly, the sweet potato salad didn't have any bacon in it. but it was damn good anyway, and i went home proud of how much everybody liked the soup (my dad ate it prison-style, all hunched over with his elbows out), my sister in law destroyed the stuffing (both mine and my dads), i picked lots of crispy skin off the turkey when everybody had sat down and started eating, and i was kind of surprised i came home with bacon candy left. oh well, i ate a bunch last night and i'm bringing the rest to work.
hope all my dear readers had a good bac--err--turkey day, and hope ya'll like my pictures. that soup looks awesome!
i also made pumpkin apple soup, cause i love pumpkin soup and had never had soup at thanksgiving before. it was easy, i just cooked more bacon, cooked onion and garlic in the bacon fat, added a granny smith apple, some apple cider, some chicken stock, and a can of pumpkin. then i whipped it with the stick blender and served it with a drizzle of heavy cream on top. everybody LOVED it. home run.
i also tried making candy for the first time ever, and, you guessed it, i made BACON CANDY. well, technically i was trying to make bacon brittle, but i think i did a few things wrong. first, there was a lot of bacon (and pecans) so it was probably chunkier than it should have been. and i don't think i stirred it enough cause it was two different colors. and it didn't spread out like i wanted it to. in fact, when i finished i wasn't sure if it would turn out to be anything, but after a night in the fridge it set up and i smashed it to bits and it's really chewy and sticky but it's sweet at first and the more you chew it the more the bacon comes out, and it gets smokey and salty and porky. friggin yum.
also my big brother made an incredible roasted sweet potato salad, butte-style (cold, whipped, with egg and scallion), and i ate so much i didn't eat any mashies (for the first thanksgiving ever). it was amaaaaazing.
hope all my dear readers had a good bac--err--turkey day, and hope ya'll like my pictures. that soup looks awesome!
Friday, November 20, 2009
what part of "we don't have that anymore" don't you understand?
so, this is the only restaurant i've worked at where the boss allows people to order things that aren't on the menu anymore. boss gets himself all worked up over menu changes, and thinks about it for weeks, then takes some stuff off the menu to make room for some new stuff, but, for whatever reason, anything that used to be on our menu is fair game for our customers. they'll say "hey, remember that lunch special that you had like two months ago? yeah. i want that." or "four years ago you had a sandwich i liked. make it."
there's some things, like club sandwiches and patty melts, that aren't on our menu but we allow customers to order them anyway, and although i don't agree with it, it is what it is. club sandwiches aren't hard. but what i don't understand is why someone would order a club sandwich when it's very clearly not on the menu. listen, goddamn near any restaurant in the country can make you a club sandwich or a blt, but if you don't see it on the menu? don't fucking order it. same goes with stuff we just took off the menu. i told marie yesterday (after i found out we got rid of my lemon caper sauce) that within two weeks, one of jessie's customers (it's always jessie) will say "hey, i came in here for the salmon with caper sauce" and jessie will say "i'm sure it's not a problem, i'll have the cooks make it" and then she'll get pissed at me cause i won't do it. discontinued means discontinued. jessie will say "i don't see why you can't make it. you have all the stuff." and my reply will be "yeah, we do. but it's not on the fucking menu anymore. it's discontinued. i'm not doing it." and she'll be pissed at me for two days.
i guess what really bothers me is that we (as cooks and the boss) spend a lot of time trying new ideas, and we spend a lot of time thinking about the layout of the menu, and we look at the POS system to see what has been selling and what hasn't, and when we finally take a few items off the menu and give our customers a bunch of new stuff to eat, it's only a matter of time before someone orders something that we just took off the menu. the worst part? i actually have to make it. even though it's not on the menu anymore.
i don't get it.
i've never in my life ordered something i didn't see on the menu. why? probably cause the menu is a list of the stuff you can have. DO NOT presume to make up your own stuff, or order something we no longer have. just because i have veggies, butter, and white wine, that DOES NOT mean i'd be happy to make you a veggie pasta in a white wine butter sauce. the saddest part? the boss will tell me that "it's a nice little old lady" and "we have all the stuff, why can't you make it?"
listen, if you're having a contractor build you a house, and you go out halfway through the build and the contractor is there and there's a bunch of wood lying around, don't ask him to build you a go-kart. just cause he can doesn't mean he should have to.
*sigh*
it's friday, and i promise that some jerkoff will order something we just took off the menu. maybe i won't have to wait two weeks for jessie to get mad at me! yay!
there's some things, like club sandwiches and patty melts, that aren't on our menu but we allow customers to order them anyway, and although i don't agree with it, it is what it is. club sandwiches aren't hard. but what i don't understand is why someone would order a club sandwich when it's very clearly not on the menu. listen, goddamn near any restaurant in the country can make you a club sandwich or a blt, but if you don't see it on the menu? don't fucking order it. same goes with stuff we just took off the menu. i told marie yesterday (after i found out we got rid of my lemon caper sauce) that within two weeks, one of jessie's customers (it's always jessie) will say "hey, i came in here for the salmon with caper sauce" and jessie will say "i'm sure it's not a problem, i'll have the cooks make it" and then she'll get pissed at me cause i won't do it. discontinued means discontinued. jessie will say "i don't see why you can't make it. you have all the stuff." and my reply will be "yeah, we do. but it's not on the fucking menu anymore. it's discontinued. i'm not doing it." and she'll be pissed at me for two days.
i guess what really bothers me is that we (as cooks and the boss) spend a lot of time trying new ideas, and we spend a lot of time thinking about the layout of the menu, and we look at the POS system to see what has been selling and what hasn't, and when we finally take a few items off the menu and give our customers a bunch of new stuff to eat, it's only a matter of time before someone orders something that we just took off the menu. the worst part? i actually have to make it. even though it's not on the menu anymore.
i don't get it.
i've never in my life ordered something i didn't see on the menu. why? probably cause the menu is a list of the stuff you can have. DO NOT presume to make up your own stuff, or order something we no longer have. just because i have veggies, butter, and white wine, that DOES NOT mean i'd be happy to make you a veggie pasta in a white wine butter sauce. the saddest part? the boss will tell me that "it's a nice little old lady" and "we have all the stuff, why can't you make it?"
listen, if you're having a contractor build you a house, and you go out halfway through the build and the contractor is there and there's a bunch of wood lying around, don't ask him to build you a go-kart. just cause he can doesn't mean he should have to.
*sigh*
it's friday, and i promise that some jerkoff will order something we just took off the menu. maybe i won't have to wait two weeks for jessie to get mad at me! yay!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
dinne with dr. and mrs saucehousen
so, yeah...those people on tuesday that eat all the spag sauce...i call them the saucebergs, or the saucensteins, or the duke of saucebury...
here's the thing...we serve a pretty big plate of noodles (i dunno, half pound maybe?) with an eight ounce ladle of sauce on top. eight ounces. that's also a half pound. now, that's a lot of sauce. really, it is. but wait...this table usually orders THREE OR FOUR extra sauces. that's two more pounds of sauce. and that's just for the first plate of noodles. if anybody has a reorder (it's all you can eat, ya know) from that table i can expect to serve up another cup of sauce as well. sometimes i just want to take all their extra sauce and stick it in a goddamn milkshake cup and put a straw in it. it's because of them i don't eat spaghetti anymore.
.
and the wife is bummed, cause we made pretty mack daddy spag at home, but i just see so much of it, and all the extra sauces actually grosses me out...if a real italian were to see how these people eat pasta, they'd be appalled. but i guess it's not totally their fault...i don't really eat anything at work anymore...it's not food, it's product. other cooks can attest to this (i hope). when you first start at a restaurant, you eat pretty much everything on the menu...it's pretty important for both the cooks and servers to know what everything should look and taste like. so you try it all. then, after a few months, you start getting bored with the menu and you start playing with the ingredients in the back to make your own dishes. then, a few months later, you start seeing the food as product and your job, as opposed to food. it ceases to look appetizing, although plates can look good...i mean, i can put a plate of spaghetti in the window, and the sauce is all piled nice in the middle, and it's steaming, and it looks good. but i don't want to eat it. it's like a painting. i know a lot of people that are like, "man, if i worked at a restaurant, i'd never have to have food at my house!" and it doesn't really work like that. granted, a lot of my servers eat meals at work, but the cooks generally don't. except jenney, who comes in hungover and eats greasy sandwiches and then like clockwork pukes twenty minutes later. i very rarely eat at work, although i nibble a lot. listen, i work right next to a giant pan of bacon. all day long. bacon. so there's that. also i taste all the sauces and soups every day to make sure they're all ok. i also have a habit of walking over to the server station and taking single pieces of lettuce and dipping them in bleu cheese dressing. but if i ever eat anything substantial at work it's usually a cheesesteak, cause really, you can't go wrong with cheesesteaks.
so, yeah...anything else? hmm...
oh yeah! hey, i dunno how many of my readers watch top chef, but i've been addicted since the first season. as i've said before, i am in no way a chef, i am just a line cook in a nice little family cafe. but i like watching, cause i love food, and it's just fun to see cooks on tv being cooks. but i gotta tell ya, there's these two brothers on this season, and although they make incredible food and have excellent technique, they're both just total douchers. i wouldn't want either of them anywhere near my kitchen, no matter how nice their food is. i base a lot of my opinions about the contestants on top chef (and other cooking shows) on how much i would like to work in a kitchen with them. iron chef michael symon, for instance, seems like he'd be a fun guy to share a kitchen with, like he could crack the dirty mama jokes i'm used to. i actually heard rachel ray is a filthy mouthed chain smoker, which is damn near required in line cooks. but these two brothers are just total jagweeds. neither one of them looks like they ever have any fun cooking, they don't look like they know any good jokes or listen to megadeth, like neither one of them has ever had a ten minute towel-snap fight with the girls. they say things like "i felt i executed that dish well" and they're always using yuzu and sous viding everything, and they're just fucking douchers. every time one of them says something i always mutter "get the fuck out of my kitchen". i bet neither of them has ever done drugs at work, and i bet they'd tell me to turn the radio down and clean up my station. fuck those guys! there's a fat, bearded, redhead guy on top chef this year that i'm totally rooting for, cause he's fat, bearded, and redheaded. like me. and he seems like he'd do jager shots and take his shirt off, or go to a slayer show with me.
so, to sum today's lesson up, don't eat that much fucking spaghetti sauce, i don't eat at work, and those two guys are fucking douchers.
here's the thing...we serve a pretty big plate of noodles (i dunno, half pound maybe?) with an eight ounce ladle of sauce on top. eight ounces. that's also a half pound. now, that's a lot of sauce. really, it is. but wait...this table usually orders THREE OR FOUR extra sauces. that's two more pounds of sauce. and that's just for the first plate of noodles. if anybody has a reorder (it's all you can eat, ya know) from that table i can expect to serve up another cup of sauce as well. sometimes i just want to take all their extra sauce and stick it in a goddamn milkshake cup and put a straw in it. it's because of them i don't eat spaghetti anymore.
.
and the wife is bummed, cause we made pretty mack daddy spag at home, but i just see so much of it, and all the extra sauces actually grosses me out...if a real italian were to see how these people eat pasta, they'd be appalled. but i guess it's not totally their fault...i don't really eat anything at work anymore...it's not food, it's product. other cooks can attest to this (i hope). when you first start at a restaurant, you eat pretty much everything on the menu...it's pretty important for both the cooks and servers to know what everything should look and taste like. so you try it all. then, after a few months, you start getting bored with the menu and you start playing with the ingredients in the back to make your own dishes. then, a few months later, you start seeing the food as product and your job, as opposed to food. it ceases to look appetizing, although plates can look good...i mean, i can put a plate of spaghetti in the window, and the sauce is all piled nice in the middle, and it's steaming, and it looks good. but i don't want to eat it. it's like a painting. i know a lot of people that are like, "man, if i worked at a restaurant, i'd never have to have food at my house!" and it doesn't really work like that. granted, a lot of my servers eat meals at work, but the cooks generally don't. except jenney, who comes in hungover and eats greasy sandwiches and then like clockwork pukes twenty minutes later. i very rarely eat at work, although i nibble a lot. listen, i work right next to a giant pan of bacon. all day long. bacon. so there's that. also i taste all the sauces and soups every day to make sure they're all ok. i also have a habit of walking over to the server station and taking single pieces of lettuce and dipping them in bleu cheese dressing. but if i ever eat anything substantial at work it's usually a cheesesteak, cause really, you can't go wrong with cheesesteaks.
so, yeah...anything else? hmm...
oh yeah! hey, i dunno how many of my readers watch top chef, but i've been addicted since the first season. as i've said before, i am in no way a chef, i am just a line cook in a nice little family cafe. but i like watching, cause i love food, and it's just fun to see cooks on tv being cooks. but i gotta tell ya, there's these two brothers on this season, and although they make incredible food and have excellent technique, they're both just total douchers. i wouldn't want either of them anywhere near my kitchen, no matter how nice their food is. i base a lot of my opinions about the contestants on top chef (and other cooking shows) on how much i would like to work in a kitchen with them. iron chef michael symon, for instance, seems like he'd be a fun guy to share a kitchen with, like he could crack the dirty mama jokes i'm used to. i actually heard rachel ray is a filthy mouthed chain smoker, which is damn near required in line cooks. but these two brothers are just total jagweeds. neither one of them looks like they ever have any fun cooking, they don't look like they know any good jokes or listen to megadeth, like neither one of them has ever had a ten minute towel-snap fight with the girls. they say things like "i felt i executed that dish well" and they're always using yuzu and sous viding everything, and they're just fucking douchers. every time one of them says something i always mutter "get the fuck out of my kitchen". i bet neither of them has ever done drugs at work, and i bet they'd tell me to turn the radio down and clean up my station. fuck those guys! there's a fat, bearded, redhead guy on top chef this year that i'm totally rooting for, cause he's fat, bearded, and redheaded. like me. and he seems like he'd do jager shots and take his shirt off, or go to a slayer show with me.
so, to sum today's lesson up, don't eat that much fucking spaghetti sauce, i don't eat at work, and those two guys are fucking douchers.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
speaking of the murder kit...
there's actually a bunch of other stuff in my knife kit as well...there's a furi ozitech sharpener, which works really well and folds down into practically nothing. i have a pill bottle full of extra stregnth tylenol, zantac 150, and a couple of lortabs for when things get really bad. i got band aids in there. i got gum. i got a couple of sharpies.
i also have a toolbox full of goodies that i sometimes bring to work, depending on what i'm doing. mostly it stays home. that has my other two microplanes, my stick blender (an absolutely invaluable tool), a coffee grinder for spices, a few silicone spatulas, a small chinese rolling pin, a gnarly set of chinese veggie carving tools, extra squeeze bottles, pastry bags with a very impressive tip collection (for piping anything from frosting to mashed potatoes to guacamole), some silicone measuring cups and spoons that flatten out, a small bottle of white truffle oil, and a few jars of my favorite spices. the spices vary, but there's always smoked paprika.
hey other cooks reading this (if any other cooks are reading this), leave a comment and tell me what's in your knife kits!
i also have a toolbox full of goodies that i sometimes bring to work, depending on what i'm doing. mostly it stays home. that has my other two microplanes, my stick blender (an absolutely invaluable tool), a coffee grinder for spices, a few silicone spatulas, a small chinese rolling pin, a gnarly set of chinese veggie carving tools, extra squeeze bottles, pastry bags with a very impressive tip collection (for piping anything from frosting to mashed potatoes to guacamole), some silicone measuring cups and spoons that flatten out, a small bottle of white truffle oil, and a few jars of my favorite spices. the spices vary, but there's always smoked paprika.
hey other cooks reading this (if any other cooks are reading this), leave a comment and tell me what's in your knife kits!
see now this is just annoying
so, TWICE now i have written a fantastic post about how this one table eats too much spaghetti sauce on tuesday nights, and twice this goddamn laptop has failed and froze up, so you're just going to have to take my word for it...it was a great post, probably one of my best, and it was full of witty comments and hilarious insights. it could have changed the world.
oh well. stupid laptop. look at my knives! i call it the murder kit.
oh well. stupid laptop. look at my knives! i call it the murder kit.
k left to right...12 inch forschner granton edge slicer
analon paring knife
worthless veggie cleaver (too light)
8 in analon chef knife (my tattoo knife)
henkel steel
offset serrated knife
microplane
8 in henkel granton edge santoku (my go-to knife)
the henkel is a fantastic knife but i highly recommend analon knives as well, the steel is awesome, they're easy to sharpen and keep sharp, they all come with hard sheaths, and they're affordable as all hell. i have three of them (one's at home, a 5 inch kyotso, which my wife loves).
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
holy god my computer is f**ked up
sorry dear readers, i haven't posted in a while. my computer has some sort of virus that i just can't get rid of, and it's not allowing me to access my blog. i can blog from my blackberry, but the sort of posts i like to write are frigging annoying to type on my bb. i could twitter from my bb (but twittering is stupid) but blogging from it is a pain in my ass.
anyway, i also have an old crappy laptop that i have to drag upstairs and actually plug in to my ethernet cable, which i guess isn't really a problem, i'm just lazy.
ANYway...i can't really remember what happened at work this week so i'm assuming that nothing important went down. we got some new steaks...16 oz bone in new york strips, to replace our 12 oz ribeyes that weren't selling. these new ones are ginormous. i think they look awesome, but i also think that 16 oz of protein for one meal is disgusting and excessive. unless you're doing a hot wing challenge or something, or eating that five pound steak in texas. i guess then it's more about proving your awesomeness. but if you're just looking for a little dinner and you decide to order a goddamn pound of steak then i think you got issues.
oh yeah, on thursday my mother in law had a little gettogether at the restaurant, and it was her, my father in law, my lovely wife, a couple folks from the bank my m-i-l used to work at, and for some reason, my boss's dad. i went out to talk to them before they ordered and when i came back to the kitchen i said "umm....boss? i think your dad is hitting on my wife" and he just goes "probably." classic. the boss was working for jenney on thursday cause she ran off to get married. and we weren't exactly busy, but we had a good weekday dinner rush and i ran circles around him and that's always fun.
geez, i wish i could think of more stuff to talk about right now, considering i haven't blogged in a week, but i'm all out.
here's a picture of my kitchen! it's hot in there!
anyway, i also have an old crappy laptop that i have to drag upstairs and actually plug in to my ethernet cable, which i guess isn't really a problem, i'm just lazy.
ANYway...i can't really remember what happened at work this week so i'm assuming that nothing important went down. we got some new steaks...16 oz bone in new york strips, to replace our 12 oz ribeyes that weren't selling. these new ones are ginormous. i think they look awesome, but i also think that 16 oz of protein for one meal is disgusting and excessive. unless you're doing a hot wing challenge or something, or eating that five pound steak in texas. i guess then it's more about proving your awesomeness. but if you're just looking for a little dinner and you decide to order a goddamn pound of steak then i think you got issues.
oh yeah, on thursday my mother in law had a little gettogether at the restaurant, and it was her, my father in law, my lovely wife, a couple folks from the bank my m-i-l used to work at, and for some reason, my boss's dad. i went out to talk to them before they ordered and when i came back to the kitchen i said "umm....boss? i think your dad is hitting on my wife" and he just goes "probably." classic. the boss was working for jenney on thursday cause she ran off to get married. and we weren't exactly busy, but we had a good weekday dinner rush and i ran circles around him and that's always fun.
geez, i wish i could think of more stuff to talk about right now, considering i haven't blogged in a week, but i'm all out.
here's a picture of my kitchen! it's hot in there!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
this crap always happens
so, last night we had a party scheduled...supposed to be 20-25 people, and it's actually pretty rare when all of them show up, and it's even rarer for them to show up on time. if we have a group scheduled for twenty people at six thirty, chances are that we'll get sixteen or seventeen of them around seven, seven fifteen. and i love how nobody thinks its a big deal. it's not like we set up half of our restaurant for them, and brought in extra help....oh.....wait....
anyway, the group last night turned out to be 31 people, which was awesome, and they all ate dinner and drank some beers or wine each, so the ticket was huge. peggy took part of the table and jeana took the other part, and even though peggy's part was 19 people and jeana's was only 12, jeana ended up with more tips. and peggy threw a hissy fit, and it became this whole big thing, and jeana was crying at one point, and it turned out that i finished before any of the servers. ANY of them. only one is supposed to close! and peggy and jeana were still there, mostly cause peggy was whining and calling the boss and jeana was trying to not bash peggy's head in and get her sidework done, which had gone unattended due to the drama.
so, from the kitchen perspective, the table went fine. the boss was hanging around wanting to help but i've told him a million times, as long as i have one other person in the kitchen everything will be ok. and i had tina and even though she's a little slower than i'd like, she did just fine. boss is kinda cute, though, when he stands there asking if we want help...he looks like a kid asking for cookies. we let this group order off the menu, and a lot of times with groups that big, we'll give them a limited menu just to make it easier on the girls and on the kitchen. lemme see if i can remember what they had..
five matadors (one split)
four tuesday spag specials
one half rack ribs, mashies brown gravy
two chicken fried steaks, mashie chicken gravy
salmon and caper sauce, rice
almond salmon, rice
hamburger steak, mashie brown
meatloaf, mashie brown
two chicken strip baskets
cheeseburger, fries
single lumberjack cheeseburger, fries
country harvest salad
blt wheat toast
french dip, fries
that's all i remember off the top of my head but that's like 23 out of 31 meals. and i have no reason whatsoever for remembering that. i'm not gonna need to know that today when i go to work, but...there it is. anyway.
back to the salt mines...
anyway, the group last night turned out to be 31 people, which was awesome, and they all ate dinner and drank some beers or wine each, so the ticket was huge. peggy took part of the table and jeana took the other part, and even though peggy's part was 19 people and jeana's was only 12, jeana ended up with more tips. and peggy threw a hissy fit, and it became this whole big thing, and jeana was crying at one point, and it turned out that i finished before any of the servers. ANY of them. only one is supposed to close! and peggy and jeana were still there, mostly cause peggy was whining and calling the boss and jeana was trying to not bash peggy's head in and get her sidework done, which had gone unattended due to the drama.
so, from the kitchen perspective, the table went fine. the boss was hanging around wanting to help but i've told him a million times, as long as i have one other person in the kitchen everything will be ok. and i had tina and even though she's a little slower than i'd like, she did just fine. boss is kinda cute, though, when he stands there asking if we want help...he looks like a kid asking for cookies. we let this group order off the menu, and a lot of times with groups that big, we'll give them a limited menu just to make it easier on the girls and on the kitchen. lemme see if i can remember what they had..
five matadors (one split)
four tuesday spag specials
one half rack ribs, mashies brown gravy
two chicken fried steaks, mashie chicken gravy
salmon and caper sauce, rice
almond salmon, rice
hamburger steak, mashie brown
meatloaf, mashie brown
two chicken strip baskets
cheeseburger, fries
single lumberjack cheeseburger, fries
country harvest salad
blt wheat toast
french dip, fries
that's all i remember off the top of my head but that's like 23 out of 31 meals. and i have no reason whatsoever for remembering that. i'm not gonna need to know that today when i go to work, but...there it is. anyway.
back to the salt mines...
Monday, November 9, 2009
haha! whee!
The world famous chef knife tattoo
the shrimp cocktails from the party i catered...they so cute!
here's my famous grilled cheeseburger. yep. you see it right.
this is my restaurant on a good day. happy folks.
these are those caprese skewers that nobody ate at my party.
mmm...pulled pork tacos
classic. me and daniel rocking the phony moustaches
umm....working hard. as usual.
"thanks for reading the blog, suckers!"
sorry grandma
jeez, i haven't posted in forever. my computer has been having some major problems, and i'm too lazy to walk my laptop upstairs and plug it in. i need a wireless router. anyway. what's going on, dear readers? have ya missed me and my angry line cook rants? not much happened this week...except that on thursday we had a big table (16 top) of regulars that came in and ate, and everything was fine except one there was confusion on one lady's fried chicken. ok. so we get this fried chicken pre breaded and pre portioned. they come in bags of four pieces. occasionally they only have three pieces, and sometimes they have two of the same pieces in there (supposed to have one each of breast, thigh, leg, and wing). so this lady ended up only getting three pieces, and as soon as we found out, we dropped the other piece she was missing. now, astute readers will realize that that means we opened up another bag of chicken and took a piece out. ok, so we sent that out, and she thought it was overcooked, so we ended up making a whole new order of fried chicken. then tara gave her a free piece of pie. so, to recap, this lady got two whole chicken dinners (without being charged for either) and a free dessert, and when all was said and done, and everybody was done and leaving (this group comes in a lot and they're good customers and they tip well), this fucking lady comes back in like she forgot something, gets the credit card slip from tara, and TAKES THE FUCKING TIP OFF OF IT.
what the fuck is wrong with people? first of all, that was kitchen error, which i don't think the server should be punished for. second, we did EVERYTHING we could to make it right. she got two dinners and a dessert for free. and the other fifteen people at the table enjoyed their meal and tipped accordingly, and this skunky bitch takes the entire tip off the ticket. and we were slow other than that, so the one table tara had all night that she could have made money off of, she got stiffed on, because of one stupid rich lady. (oh yeah, all those folks are rich, and live on a golf course. rich people tip like shit because they don't know what it's like to be broke and really need that four dollars. fuck them). also, it wasn't even tara's fault! well, to be fair, it wasn't really our fault in the kitchen either, it was the fault of shitty product. sorry folks...i don't do the ordering nor do i decide what products we'll use. what i wish i did, however, is rush out and 86 this bitch, but i was long gone by the time all the drama went down. *sigh* sometimes i really hate people.
our last ticket was an hour and a half before we closed on saturday night, and we spent all night friday talking about nintendo games. kind of a boring week.
what the fuck is wrong with people? first of all, that was kitchen error, which i don't think the server should be punished for. second, we did EVERYTHING we could to make it right. she got two dinners and a dessert for free. and the other fifteen people at the table enjoyed their meal and tipped accordingly, and this skunky bitch takes the entire tip off the ticket. and we were slow other than that, so the one table tara had all night that she could have made money off of, she got stiffed on, because of one stupid rich lady. (oh yeah, all those folks are rich, and live on a golf course. rich people tip like shit because they don't know what it's like to be broke and really need that four dollars. fuck them). also, it wasn't even tara's fault! well, to be fair, it wasn't really our fault in the kitchen either, it was the fault of shitty product. sorry folks...i don't do the ordering nor do i decide what products we'll use. what i wish i did, however, is rush out and 86 this bitch, but i was long gone by the time all the drama went down. *sigh* sometimes i really hate people.
our last ticket was an hour and a half before we closed on saturday night, and we spent all night friday talking about nintendo games. kind of a boring week.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
not what i expected
so, halloween has come and gone, and lots of interesting things happened. first of all, whoever wrote "Happy Halloween" on the board out front misspelled halloween (holloween) which is totally bush league. then one of the breakfast cooks let an omelette go out with a slip of paper in it (most of our cheese comes pre-sliced with paper separating the slices). it's careless, and it should not happen. although we in the kitchen know that particular piece of paper never touched anything but cheese for all the customer knows we wiped our taints with it. not cool.
then there was the whole costume thing, which went about like i said it would. most of the girls were in their griz gear like normal but with more facial accessories and fancier hairdos. it was ok. they looked like a gang, which, really, is kind of what we are anyway. and tammy was in her prince get up, and she looked great, except she took her purple jacket off to wait tables, and then she just kind of looked like the soul glo guy from coming to america. also i kept trying to get her to say "i'm rick james, bitch!" she had a great wig and a pinstripe moustache. i just told people i was dressed up as myself from the day before, and that my costume was more spot on than theirs.
anyway, it was pretty slow, we didn't really get any after game rush like we should have. jessie actually bet the boss (or he bet her, i'm not sure how it happened really) forty bucks that we wouldn't get 11 tables between 6:30 and 7:30, and she won. just barely, though...at like 7:32 we started getting tables and we were actually pretty steady until almost nine. of course, i had let jenney go by then (cause it was slow) so it was just me cooking, but i kind of like being by myself in the kitchen...it's almost easier for me to make sure everything comes up together by being responsible for both sides of the kitchen instead of assuming somebody else will do it. anyway it was nice and steady for a while, and we made a few bucks and i got to talk to a couple of cool guys watching the world series game, one of whom grew up just a couple blocks from shea stadium. for those of you who don't know (and judging by my counter, there isn't any of you) i'm a huge mets fan. anyway, he was cool and i fed him and his buddy and we talked baseball for a while.
it was a pretty good night. now it's sunday, and i'm gonna be lazy and drink beer, and maybe play some mario.
then there was the whole costume thing, which went about like i said it would. most of the girls were in their griz gear like normal but with more facial accessories and fancier hairdos. it was ok. they looked like a gang, which, really, is kind of what we are anyway. and tammy was in her prince get up, and she looked great, except she took her purple jacket off to wait tables, and then she just kind of looked like the soul glo guy from coming to america. also i kept trying to get her to say "i'm rick james, bitch!" she had a great wig and a pinstripe moustache. i just told people i was dressed up as myself from the day before, and that my costume was more spot on than theirs.
anyway, it was pretty slow, we didn't really get any after game rush like we should have. jessie actually bet the boss (or he bet her, i'm not sure how it happened really) forty bucks that we wouldn't get 11 tables between 6:30 and 7:30, and she won. just barely, though...at like 7:32 we started getting tables and we were actually pretty steady until almost nine. of course, i had let jenney go by then (cause it was slow) so it was just me cooking, but i kind of like being by myself in the kitchen...it's almost easier for me to make sure everything comes up together by being responsible for both sides of the kitchen instead of assuming somebody else will do it. anyway it was nice and steady for a while, and we made a few bucks and i got to talk to a couple of cool guys watching the world series game, one of whom grew up just a couple blocks from shea stadium. for those of you who don't know (and judging by my counter, there isn't any of you) i'm a huge mets fan. anyway, he was cool and i fed him and his buddy and we talked baseball for a while.
it was a pretty good night. now it's sunday, and i'm gonna be lazy and drink beer, and maybe play some mario.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
