Next, I worked on the pickled watermelon rind. I had already peeled and sliced the watermelon rind, so the toughest part of the process was already finished. I gathered all the other ingredients and put them in a pot to bring to a boil while the watermelon rind simmered in fresh water. Once the rind had become tender, it was added to the rest of the ingredients and brought to a simmer for about 15 minutes, then jarred and processed.
Now, I could get started on the bread and butter pickles. I was excited to work on these because I had pickled just about everything except pickles and now I was getting my chance. I drained the sliced cucumbers from the salt water and gathered the other ingredients. This took some figuring out because the ingredients were in some odd measurements (like I had to make a gallon of sliced onions) but eventually I got everything together and into a pot to bring to a boil. Next, as always, was to jar and process the pickles.
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| Bread and Butter Pickles |
All of that took a good while, so before I knew it, it was time for family meal. Today, family meal consisted of empanadas and a cucumber salad.
After family meal, Chef Hopkins brought me a jar of olives that he wanted me to juice for him. I'm not exactly sure why he wanted the olive juice, but I think it was to use for an olive capsulation. When I got to thinking about it, I didn't know how I was supposed to juice the olives. After some consultation with Jason and Woody, we decided that I should puree the olives and press the puree through a chinois.
Once finished with the olives, Jason told me that he needed me to cut some corn off the cob for him. He was going to show me how to use a special tool that they had for taking corn off the cob, but we decided that it was a little too dangerous. Next, Jackson got me working on bagging and cryovacing halibut for service.
The last thing I did before I left was to organize and consolidate the walk-in. I just had to make sure that everything was labeled and in the right size container.
Friday, David told me that I needed to sort through the edamame and pick out all the ones with spots (and here I was thinking that I was finally finished with the edamame). Once finished with sorting the edamame, I cut about four loaves of bread to use for making breadcrumbs.
Then, I went to David to see if there was anything that I could do for him. David told me that I could do the end of the week inventory for him. The end of the week inventory consisted of me going through all the produce in the walk-in and weighing it to find out exactly how much of each ingredient we had. Needless to say, this took a long time to complete.
As I was getting ready to get family meal, I overheard a conversation between Jason and Jackson where Jason was telling Jackson that there are two things that all chefs cook inconsistently, and those two things are toast without a toaster and rice. i just thought that this little tidbit was both interesting and funny.
Family meal today consisted of enchiladas and a cucumber salad. You may notice that the family meals from yesterday and today are very similar and in fact, they both used the exact same ingredients. The reason for this is that Jackson (who is usually the one who makes family meal when we host it at Restaurant Eugene) wanted to one up the Holeman and Finch family meal from the day before.
After family meal, I sliced eggplant on the industrial slicer that was going to be used to make the eggplant gratin that would be served that night. Next, I got was asked to assemble tarts for service. Then I strained a chicken and lamb stock into better containers for storage. Lastly, I organized the walk-in just like the day before before leaving for the evening.
Saturday I started making the breadcrumbs from the day before. Now, we definitely had enough breadcrumbs for a good while. Next, we got some deliveries from the farmers from the farmers market earlier that day, so I spent a good while making sure that everything made it into containers and into the walk-in.
Next, I began to make the pimento cheese fritters for the evening. The pimento cheese fritters aren't normally on the menu anymore, but I had some family coming to dinner that night and they wanted to try the pimento cheese fritters because they're one of the things that I am involved in. So, because I was already going to be making the fritters for my family, Jason decided that we should just put them on the tasting menu for the night. After doing a few odd jobs around the kitchen, the fritters were ready to be breaded and finished.
By this time, we were just starting to get into the nights service, so I helped Chris with making croutons for his soup course. I had to slice bread and butter it, then put the slices in the oven for a little while and finish them in a hotter oven to crisp them up.
Next, I halved an entire of sheet tray of cherry tomatoes for Jackson to sue during service. Then, I cryovaced foie gras for Jackson and changed out the ice for all the seafood in the walk-in.
After I finished with all of those things, Emily (I'm not exactly sure what her title is, but she's like and assistant maitre'd) found me in the back of the kitchen and told me that my family wanted to know if I could come out and see them. Ever since my family arrived that night, multiple people were telling me that my family was there and were asking me if I had a twin brother, it was pretty humorous.
I had to make sure that I was presentable before going out into the dining room in front of all the guests. It was weird going out into the dining room because I could almost feel everyone looking at me, but it was nice to get to talk to my family for a little while.
Once I got back into the kitchen, I got to work on chopping some parsley for the line and lastly deboned some fish after Jason showed me how it was done. Finally, I organized the walk-in (as usual) before leaving for the evening.
I was going to meet my family after dinner because we figured that we would be finished at about the same time, but they had just been served dessert when I was finished and there was no room to wait for them at Holeman and Finch, so I decided to go on home.
When I was walking to my car, the first thing I noticed was that the foie gras protestors were back. This time though, they were more vocal and as I noticed that they were having some pretty intense arguments with Holeman and Finch and Restaurant Eugene customers. I later found out that some of these arguments got pretty out of hand and the protesters were harassing our customers so we had to call the police. I'm sure no one was arrested and they were just warned, but still, crazy stuff.
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| The Protesters (argument on the left side) |
Till next time
Ben
67 hours left
The "family" had a WONDERFUL meal and were so proud of your coming to the dining room to greet us. Thank you.
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