1 post tagged “work”

I started training at my new job at Provence today. I'm the "Kitchen Guy". I'll be in charge of getting food into the cases at the cafe in the downtown library.

Today I cut fruit for fruit salad, then we made croissant sandwiches with scrambled eggs, bacon, and swiss. I cleaned some chicken breasts and made little tarts with chicken, brie, fennel, bacon, and tomato. There wasn't as much to do as there normally would be, because the chef was sick yesterday and left before some things were prepped, so all of the sandwiches were sent from the other kitchen with the breads. Several different green salads and some peaches with vinegar later, and we were done.

Everyone that I met was cool. There are three guys up front that handle everything up there, and a manager, who keeps them in line and has been doing some of the work that I'll be doing. There's an older guy who comes in and does dishes and cleans up and listens to oldies and loves public television. He also enjoys putting the ice scoop just out of the manager's reach.

The chef was talking about how unorganized things were, but the whole time I was really impressed at how organized things actually were. The position I'm taking has been open for a while, the chef is sick, and things still seem to be running smoothly. While I was chopping up stuff, it was hard to fight the urge to stick my head out front every minute or so to make sure things were fine. It is nice having a heirarchy and a limited, defined sphere of responsibility. Nothing is made-to-order, so there is very little stress, just a steady sense of quickness. Everyone seemed relaxed and busy.

I think that as soon as I get a sense of what comes from where, I'm really going to like this. I may have to bring in a better stereo to listen to before the dishwasher gets there for his oldies, but there are a few extras in the attic that I'm sure Brittney wouldn't miss.

Melissa will be hooking me up with some recipes soon, I think, and there are hundreds of cookbooks just two floors up from the kitchen, so I'll be adding my own stuff soon. The chef makes a run to the Farmer's Market a few times a week, so I've got all of that to work with as well. I'm pretty excited about it.