Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Today was my first day of work at Restaurant Eugene and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous/anxious. I didn't fall asleep until 3am and woke up at 7am.

I was told to show up for work at 10am so that I could fill out all the paperwork needed for me to work at Restaurant Eugene and be finished by 11am, when most other people get there. However, when I showed up at about 9:50, no one there knew which forms I needed to fill out, so after a few introductions, the Chef de Jardin (which translates to chef of the garden) told me to find a spot, gave me some beets, and told me to peel them so that they can be pickled. I now officially had my first job in the kitchen.

As I was peeling beet after beet, I couldn't help but think of Dwight Schrute and that I should leave the prettiest beets on top (which I did), because those are the Money Beets. I had barely made a dent in the few handfulls of beets that were given to me before the Chef de Jardin came back with even more beets! I sarcastically said, "SWEET!" under my breath and barely got a chuckle from the Chef de Jardin. This guy was all business.

A few minutes later two children casually walked into the kitchen. They started talking to the other cooks in the kitchen, so I assumed that they were the Chef Hopkins' children. Sure enough, Chef Hopkins walked in a few minutes after them.

After another wave of introductions (a common theme throughout the day), Chef Hopkins told me that in his kitchen, mis en place (translation: everything in its place) is a big deal and that everything starts from mis en place. Shortly after Chefs declaration of the importance of mis en place, his son (who is still in elementary school) asked if he could make some eggs. Chef said, "Sure you can. But make sure that you have your mis en place together before you start." With that, Chefs son threw on an apron and was hustling around the kitchen gathering the ingredients he needed for his scrambled eggs. It was pretty obvious that this kid wants to be just like his dad when he grows up.

I got back to peeling my beets stopping and Chef Hopkins started MAKING UP a recipe for a barbeque sauce (which he calls Georgia Barbeque). He turns to me and says, "Ben. This is the difference between us and cavemen." I'm sure I gave him a very confused look. "Sauce. Without sauce, we're just roasting meat." This was both hilarious to me and also true. I feel like there will be a lot of these types of sayings coming from Chef Hopkins. In fact, not long after that comment, he taught his son hoe to properly fold a kitchen towel and said, "If you can't fold a towel right, then you shouldn't be in the kitchen."

I had finished peeling all my beets...

and was then instructed to use a mandoline (not a mandolin) to slice all of my freshly peeled beets and to put them in jars.

Then I added the pickling brine and put the jars of soon to be pickled beets into the steam oven for 20 minutes.

At this point, I had gotten the paperwork that I needed to fill out, so I took a break to complete them and to talk about what my schedule will be like for the Summer. After some discussion with the Sous Chef about what I wanted to do and what they wanted me to do, this is what was decided on:

I would mainly be working in the morning with the Chef de Jardin, receiving produce, pickling and canning foods, prepping for the line cooks, and keeping the walk-in organized.
My schedule, unless otherwise told, will be 10am - 6pm Tuesday - Thursday and 12pm - 8pm on Saturdays.
So, to all my friends that asked, "What would they do if I said something is wrong with my food and I demand to see Ben Whittington!" They will say, "He did not cook your food for you and he is not here." So, don't do that.

Upon my return to the pickled beets, the Chef de Jardin (David) informed me that one of the jars busted and that it always happens. It was a quick fix. We just put the beets into a new jar, added some new pickling brine, and put it back in the oven. This time they came out perfectly.

Now, I was free to help David with the kimchi (a Korean fermented vegetable dish) that he was working on. It was about this time, when I was cleaning and moving my station, that I discovered the best thing about this kitchen. We had a dishwasher. Not a machine, but a person that washed our dishes and tools for us. I HATE washing dishes. Whenever I asked David what I should do with (insert various messy item here), he told me to put it in the sink. Music to my ears.

The rest of the day was devoted to finely chopping garlic shoots and placing them in a tub for use tomorrow. However, I was surprised when David told me that he was leaving at 5pm. I had an hour with no one looking over my shoulder. An hour with not worrying about nonuniform cuts of garlic shoots. An hour to work on my knife cuts on the never ending pile of garlic shoots. It was a great way to end my firs day of work.

Till next time,

Ben

392 hours left.