i don't want fop, goddammit...i'm a dapper dan man!

so, i've a bit of news for ya...i took a new job!  it was a tough decision to leave the old joint and the bossman (who i've spent 11 years working for), but i got a great opportunity to advance my career and i had to jump on it.

now, anybody reading my blog on a regular basis should have noticed that i've never actually mentioned the restaurant i work at by name, nor have i named my boss.  i dunno why i started that in the first place, but i think i'm gonna keep it going.  i guess if you really wanna know the names of either of the places you can poke around my facebook page, i'm sure they're both on there somewhere.  i don't know why i keep the names off this page...i just do.  jamie and eric...your thoughts on the subject?

anyway.  the deal was this...i guy i used to work with like five or six years ago, i heard he was opening a new place downtown.  i let him know (through the cook's grapevine) i was interested and i heard back he was interested and we finally met up yesterday and lemme tell ya...the new place is gorgeous.  it's actually in the spot of one of my old favorite breakfast joints, but the dining room has been redone.  it's in downtown missoula, and it's a wicked historic building (i guess).  it's full of mirrors and molded wood and high ceilings, and it's getting a new circular bar right in the middle (that's right, folks...liquor license!  boo-yah!)  and the kitchen...aah, the kitchen...it's beautiful.  now, someone who doesn't cook would look at it and say "wow.  it's big.", but from a professional line cook's opinion, the place is amazing.  there's so much more space than i'm used to, both counter space for prep and plating but just the space inbetween things, there's just tons of room to move around and not bump into the guy you're working with.  i'm used to working in fairly tight quarters, where if you had three cooks in the kitchen you had to stick to your station cause there's not room to get past somebody else.  this new kitchen could easily have five or six people working at their own stations with loads of room for everybody.  it's got either new or pretty new equipment, and we're getting TVs put in so we can watch the world cup this summer.  it's got an upstairs and a downstairs (downstairs there's three more walk-in coolers, and a big prep room we're planning on catering out of...also got an offsite food and liquor license).

anyway, the kitchen is bomb.  and the chef/owner is someone who i can learn from every single day.  i wasn't really learning or advancing at my old job.  loved it, but that's the truth.  i'm so excited to push my limits and learn new stuff and see what i can do when given creative freedom.  i was told i can make soups.  i love making soup!  i was also offered a schedule that's waaaay more compatible with my wife's schedule, and that was important.  it's pretty much gonna be regular job hours..9-5 m-f, and that's gonna take some getting used to, but in a good way.  also, since it's part of the downtown association i can have a free bus pass so i don't have to drive to work or find somewhere to park...and since i used to work outside of town where i had to get on the highway to get to work, that alone is gonna save me tons of money over the long haul.  pretty excited about that.  the chef is somebody who i can apprentice under and eventually get my own chef papers, which was a huge part of my decision.  that, and the schedule offered to me, and everything else on top of it, just made this a opportunity that i couldn't pass up.  i'm taking a pay cut to start out, but i'm fine with that.  i'm confident that we can make this place a moneymaker, so i'm not worried about it.  i'm really excited to get into a brand new place and see what we can do with it, how far we can take it.  i've always worked at places that had established customer bases so it's gonna be interesting to try to build a fresh one.  our skills are gonna be put to the test, but i'm willing to go one on one with any restaurant in town.  we don't just have some cooks, we got a fucking all-star riot squad.  it's gonna be a fun ride.

but first, i gotta knock out a few more shifts at the old place.  the boss was really happy for me and told me i made the right decision when i gave my notice yesterday.  which was incredibly hard, by the way, just because i've been with him for so long and he's always treated me with respect and dignity, and in addition to being my employer he's been a great friend.  i knew he'd be happy for me, but it's kind of like leaving your family.  restaurants are like that, more so than any other area of business, it's always more of a family thing than a coworker thing.  the people that tend to be lifers in restaurants are a different breed of human, and we recognize eachother and stick together.

anyway.  changes are afoot, my friends...keep reading.  it's gonna be awesome.

hi derek! i'm little cletus! i'm here to talk to you about child labor laws!

so, not much is happening at work, nothing really worth blogging about.  i'm way more excited about upcoming stuff on tv than i am about anything else.  LOST, people!  LOST is almost back!  i'm an absolute lostie...i got into it in the third season, i think, and got the dvds and watched it from the start, and it is the SINGLE GREATEST SHOW EVER ON TV EVER IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER.  i absolutely promise everyone reading that if you put in the time, and watch it from the start, you'll be hooked.  the only people that talk shit are people that don't watch it enough to follow it and people that have never seen it.  it's amazing.  anyway, that's next tuesday and tonight i got new parks n rec, office, and 30 rock.  so i'm really just going to work to kill time before i watch tv tonight.

story of my life

that kid...is BACK....on the ESCALATOR!

so yeah, we've switched to movie quotes.  this particular movie was one of my most quoted for years.  also my dvd cover is signed by the director.  it's awesome.

anyway, work is busier but still boring, nothing worth writing about really...nobody has shit up the place, and no customers have sucked too hard this week.  it's been a short week for me cause i had to go to a funeral on tuesday and tomorrow it's the wife's holiday party.  they can't call it a christmas party cause of like ten people out of five hundred that don't do christmas.  they can't have christmas decorations, and they can't have it at christmastime.  anyway, it's supposed to be a 1920s murder mystery theme, which means i'm gonna dress up and drink silently with other husbands, as opposed to just drinking silently with other husbands.  it's funny, all the wives are chatting up with eachother and working the room and seeing everybody they work with and the husbands just kind of...drink.  it's a good time.  the food is usually worthless but it's free and also i'll be drinking.  since it's a 20s theme and i'll be wearing a zoot suit i'll probably drink martinis.  they taste like ass but make you look so sophisticated!

in other news, on tuesday the wife and i sat and watched like ten episodes of little people big world in a row.  and i noticed something.  i'll just lay out the pictures and you can decide for yourself.

*interestingly enough, when i googled "zach roloff" this picture was on the first page so i guess i'm not the only one who's noticed but still...damn!

in other news, got the ol taxes done...getting a nice chunk back but it's pretty much already spent.  nothing fun, i'm afraid...i guess i'll have to wait to get dj hero. 

no one but me can save myself but it's too late

i cannot believe that nobody commented on that last post.  seriously?  shit on the walls, people!

anyway, last night was friday and we were pretty busy.  it was nice.  there were only two servers and no hostess so it got a little crazy for a while but i'm sure when i get there today i'll have a nice pile of tips.  hope so, anyway.  we're running beef stroganoff this weekend, and yesterday i spent a half hour making up a killer strogo sauce...saute onions and garlic until fragrant, add mushrooms and cook until mushrooms are brown and yummy, add TONS of cabernet and let it boil the booze out, then add sour cream, season to taste.  i usually start by sauteing the beef in with it but boss had a ton of steak par cooked and portioned when i got there.  so i made this great sauce, and the first order we got for it i cooked off some of the steak and jesus, it was bad.  it was dry and mealy, and i was embarrassed to serve it.  i asked boss what kind of meat it was and he said sirloin and i said bullshit and he said i know right that's why i can't sell them as steaks and i said well you just made my stroganoff look bad.  oh well.  i have no control over things like that.  i do what i'm told, i use what we got and i make the best of it.  we are probably running it again tonight, but maybe i'll throw the meat in with the sauce to at least wet it up a bit.  boss wanted to run omelets with it but i told him unless they were full of sauteed onions and cheese and other wet stuff they would be too dry.  he asked me what i'd do with it and i told him grind it up with bacon to make it fattier and use it inside something like shepards pie so nobody notices how bad it is.

ah well.  making gold out of turds is what i do.

he doesn't like it, shiny machine

so, okay...umm...how do you shit on the wall?  besides on purpose, i mean.  yesterday when i got to work the back door was open, which was wierd cause it's been super cold in the kitchen the last couple of weeks, and i was thinking "jesus, now it's hot?" but apparently this guy, who comes in every wednesday, just DESTROYED the bathroom with shit.  shit on the floor, shit on the walls, shit plugging up the toilet.  and it smelled so bad that not only was the bathroom stunk up, but the whole dining room, and all the way back through the kitchen.  that's a long ways.  i'm glad i wasn't there cause i would have had to clean it up, and i probably would have barfed all over the place upon seeing it, making more mess to clean up.  what i'm wondering, though, is how the fuck does one shit on the walls?  one of the servers had a theory that this guy was running to the can, got in there and got his pants down, but started spraying shit all over before he got on the toilet.  then, he was trying to wipe up the shit on the floor with his pants around his ankles and power shat all over the wall.

take a second to imagine that.

it's a train wreck of feces and humiliation.  and it's not like he smeared shit on the walls (which i have famously dealt with before) but it was spattered on the walls.  i like to imagine this guy was yelling and just shitting uncontrollably everywhere, like one of those wacky water thingies that we used to run through as kids.

anyway, that's life in the restaurant business.  sometimes you bang out lunch rush, sometimes you do prep,  and sometimes, my friends, you have to clean somebody else's shit off the goddamn walls.

anyway, any bets on whether this guy will come back?  if i was him i'd never show my face at the restaurant again, but it wouldn't surprise me if he comes back like nothing happened, like he never shit all over the floor and walls.  wtf is wrong with people?

ps mikey, hi-may, and mushmouth...you guys better step up.  the new guy is guessing all the songs and leaving you all in the dust as far as bonus awesome points are concerned.  also i was thinking of going from song quotes to movie quotes.  good idea?

well high school seemed like such a drag, i didn't have much interest in sports or school elections

ok so nobody is guessing my songs.  the dude from blacklungcrayola finally got the clutch song (electric worry, btw) and one of the cooks i work with has guessed all of them but gets no bonus awesome points cause she told me and didn't leave a comment.  should i keep doing this?  it's up to you.  i could care less.  it seems a bit tiresome after ten posts, actually.

anyway, WHOOOO!  busiest night we've had in weeks.  we ran the always fantastic beer battered halibut (bayern amber) and a great coleslaw (i made fresh dressing) but we had friggin jo-jos, which my boss insisted upon because he loves big chunks of floury potato.  he likes his french fries the exact opposite way i like mine.  i hate jo-jos.  but hey, i didn't have to eat any, just cook a bunch.  we had 18 orders of the halibut, which was stepping out on a limb considering how slow we've been lately, and we sold 13 of them when i left (still open for an hour). it was just nice having a normal friday diner rush for a change.  we all know the xmas to valentines day lull (well, those of you that don't work in restaurants probably don't---slowest time of year is between xmas and v-day), but it's been especially bad this year for my place, and it started around thanksgiving.  i've been bored as shit a LOT at work the last few weeks, and my god, it was a fucking relief to be busy and sell specials, and everybody was in a good mood, and we all got to nosh on some wicked fish.

in other news tomorrow is my friday and i hope we're busy again cause that would make three days in a row and i wanna end the week on a good note.  i like not being bored.  i like being busy.  i like cooking food for people.  i always enjoy my weekends more when i've kicked ass and knocked out a ton of plates on saturday night.

i'm a sailor peg, and i lost my leg

so i have come across some rad websites lately so i'm finally gonna do the hey-check-out-my-favorite-sites post.

http://www.gorillamask.net  pretty much the first website i hit every morning, and has been for years.  just a link dump, kinda, but a really good one.

http://www.mikewatchestoomuchtv.blogspot.com  i link mikey's blog all the time but he has a plan to watch the 100 worst movies of all time and post about each one.  gonna be a good year for reading his stuff.

http://www.blacklungcrayola.blogspot.com  just found this one but what a fantastic idea...this guy wanted to quit smoking so he replaced his camels with crayolas and just draws a picture when he wants to smoke.  genius.

http://www.twitter.com/shitmydadsays  this guy's dad is the coolest.  this is just shit he says.

http://www.thechive.com  hilarious photo time wasting site.  daily randomness rules.

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com  another wonderful time waster.  reminds me of how old i'm getting though.


http://angelbunnies.wordpress.com  my boy jamie's blog.  he's a chef at an italian place, but his blog is more about his adorable daughter.  still though.  go read it.

http://www.wwtdd.com  what would tyler durden do? is pretty much a celebrity gossip site, but in a very celebrities-are-total-douchers sort of way.  part of the uproxx network which also includes filmdrunk and warmingglow.  all great sites.

that's about as good a list as i can come up with right now without including tons of poon links.  should be good for a couple hours of wasted time, though, if ya got some.  i, however, have to do laundry cause i'm out of socks and all my clothes smell like french fries and spaghetti sauce.

it's friday, and we're running the legendary halibut n chips tonight except my boss is insistent on doing jo-jos instead of the pub chips, and i hate jo-jos but whatever...i'm sure it won't stop the halibut from selling...if anybody comes in to eat, anyway.  we were kinda busy yesterday so i'm hopeful for today.  i feel like banging out some plates.

women and children and cowards attack

so today was good.  well, it ended up good.  it started out by me walking into a kitchen that was like forty five degrees (it was eight or ten degrees outside)...the hand wash sink was froze up, and all the ovens were at three fifty and propped open with tongs.  it sucked.  for the first little while i was all grumbly about "harsh work conditions" and "freezing my tits off" but we had a pretty decent lunch for the first time in a while, even though it was mostly breakfast orders.  then it slowed down again in the afternoon but the kitchen heater got fixed and it was all warm and toasty.  then it got kinda busy and i got a twelve top and jace was running her six hundred year old ass all over the place.  side note--jace is older than old.  she's so old her birth certificate is in sanskrit.  she's so old she was two years ahead of jesus in high school.  she's so old the building blocks of the universe are hydrogyn, carbon, and jace.  when she's around i have to be sure to refer to things so she'll understand, like "motor-cars" and "moving-picture shows" and "paper money".  the best part is she actually waited on me as a baby, when my dad would take me and my brother out to breakfast with his friends, and i used to throw cheerios at her and spill hot chocolate on her and now we knock out twelve tops together.  she's a trooper, and a testament to the awesomeness you find in this industry.

anyway.  enough about old ass jace.  we had a pretty good dinner.  it was actually fairly busy today.  it was nice.  also the heat was fixed.  will it be fixed tomorrow still?  maybe.  will something else break down?  very possibly.  will it be jace?  probably not, she's only halfway through her thousand year warranty!

aah, i kid.  seriously, i love jace, and she's only, like, sixty.  but i give her shit like that all the time.  she usually responds by hitting me and telling me to fuck myself.

god i love this business

my love runs cold, my memory has just been sold

huzzah!  huzzah, i say!  comedy central is now in high definition!  cross that shit off my bucket list!

wait, i got the wrong list...the hd comedy central is on the list i posted a couple days ago.  my bucket list consists of three things, and three things only.

1.  feed Giada DeLaurentis peaches with my hands

2.  meet David Lee Roth in a bar and do shots with him

3.  personally orchestrate the downfall of Larry the Cable Guy and redneck comedy in general

i'm pretty sure number two is the only realistic one.

*sigh*

condolizza rice is nice but i prefer 'a roni

http://www.twitter.com/linecookninja

well, there it is.  if anything interesting happens at work now ya'll can check it out real time!  see how mad i get at shitty tippers!  watch me complain about fellow employees!  be the first to know when someone wants a special order!  watch live as i slowly decend into a stew of depression and madness!

there's a man in the back as a matter of fact, and his eyes are as red as the sun

wow.  i'm getting wicked good at having boring nights at work.  i guess i shouldn't say i'm good at it, cause i fidget and wander around and look at the clock a million times and am constantly complaining about how slow we are.  come to think of it, that's pretty much what i do when we're busy.  i just like complaining.  doesn't stop me from cooking, though.  spag night was mellow, and what you'd call our rush (i wouldn't call it a rush at all) was over by about six thirty, and like i said, it was shitty out.  ya know, there's all this talk of the economy being in the tank and it doesn't affect me personally too much, it's not like i got stocks or a mortgage or anything, but one thing i've noticed is that this time last year, there were tons more trucks in the parking lot at the end of the night (the truck stop lot, not ours).  there used to be rows and rows of them by nine o clock, probably 40-50 of them, now there's usually around twelve or fifteen.  and for as bad as they tip, and for as bad as they smell, and for as bad as their social skills are, those dudes are a good chunk of our business.  as much as i hate how late they come in or how rude they are to my servers, they do spend the money.  there's one dude i used to see almost every day that i haven't seen in a couple weeks.  i don't mind too much, he always sits facing the room instead of his table, and he's always alone and talks very loudly on his circa-1980 headset phone, and he's a dirty, dirty old man, but he likes our meatloaf and pie.  and like i said, he annoys me and everyone else, but i feel a grim satisfaction feeding him and those like him...it's one of those "well who the hell else will feed him?  he's an asshole." sort of thing.

anyway, here's hoping today will be better.  i've decided i'm gonna set up a twitter feed for a while just to see how it goes.  i'll come back and post when i got it all done and let ya know where to go.

spent fifteen years getting loaded, fifteen years till his liver exploded

so, first off...mikey, you don't get to guess this one it's too easy.

anyway.  the sky is draining slush upon the valley, and i know it's gonna kill business tonight.  it's naassty out.  i really don't wanna close tonight cause it's supposed to freeze and by the looks of it there will be inches and inches of slush on the ground by then and i drive a mustang and she don't like adverse weather conditions so much.  when it's nice out it's the greatest car ever, a shiny silver bullet, but in the wintertime it's scary.  people ask me "how's that thing drive in the winter?" and i go "eh...sideways."  

so i got that to look forward to.

aside from that, it's spaghetti night.  and you all know how i feel about that.

also i've been thinking of starting a twitter feed (something i once thought was super lame) so you can all get in-the-moment updates of crappy tippers, late table bullsnizzle, and line cook manliness.  would anybody read it?  the only twitter feed i read is shit my dad says, which is absolutely golden.  i dunno if there's any other cooking ones...i've never checked.  i should probably get on that.  anyway.  work work work.