Long Days

Thursday was a fairly easy day. The big project for the day was making the cherry tomato jam. I helped David with gathering all the ingredients for the jam, but he had to leave to get some jars for us to put the jam in, so he left me to finish with the jam. The recipe called for the cherry tomatoes to be cut in half and added to the rest of the ingredients, but David thought that this would take too long and the only reason for cutting the tomatoes was to allow the liquid to mix with everything else, so David told me crush the tomatoes instead of cutting them.

Macerated cherry tomatoes

While waiting for the cherry tomatoes to cook, I got started on the pimento cheese fritters by shaping them and leaving them in the walk-in to firm up. While waiting for the cherry tomatoes to cook and for the fritters to firm up, I peeled, sliced, and fried the shallots for the nights service.

Remember a few posts back when I talked about setting goals for myself during this internship (ex. watching a service, participating in a service, getting to go to the upper office, having my own agenda for the day)? Well, today I achieved another one of my goals.

In the kitchen there is a telephone. This telephone serves as communication between the kitchen and the upper office so that we don't have to keep going up and down the stairs to tell each other things. I never answer the phone because there is no reason that they would be calling for me and because there are usually people like Jason, David, or Woody that could better answer questions in the kitchen at the time. However, today was the day that I got to answer the phone.

The phone had been ringing for a while and Aaron, Keron, and I were the only ones in the kitchen. In this situation, Aaron would be the one to answer the phone, but he was working on a project, so he told me to answer the phone for him.

It wasn't a very important call, just a call from upstairs asking if we needed anything, but the fact remains that I had successfully answered the kitchen phone. Good day.

Along with the completion of one of my goals, I had a revelation about the breadcrumbs process. I discovered that if the cubed pieces of bread are allowed to dry for a few days and then processed, they are much MUCH easier to sift through the tamis than fresh bread crumbs. In fact, the dry breadcrumbs practically fall through the tamis with little prompting. From now on, I will try my best to let the cubed bread dry out before making the breadcrumbs.

Now it was time for family meal which consisted of roasted chicken, roasted squash, and spicy mac 'n cheese!

After family meal, about all I had time for was to finish the pimento cheese fritters and do all the odd jobs that people asked of me for service.



Friday we had about 40 pounds of green tomatoes that David wanted to pickle, so I immediately got to work on prepping the green tomatoes. After finishing the tomatoes and working out how much of everything else that we would need, I came to the realization that we did not have a pot large enough to cook all of the green tomatoes at the same time, so we decided to do it in two batches. Next, I got to work on gathering and measuring the spices needed and slicing the bell peppers for the pickled green tomatoes.

Once we got the green tomatoes on the stove to cook, I got working on making the pimento cheese fritters for service. However, we did not have much pimento cheese left in the walk-in, so after I got through what pimento cheese we did have, I went to the bakery to get more.

On my way to the bakery, I received all the messages that I couldn't get since I don't get service in the kitchen. One of the messages was my dad who told me that my car was ready to be picked up from the collision center (due to damage from the tree that fell) but, since I had the rental car, I would have to pick it up and if I didn't go get it that day, I would have to wait until Monday to get my car back.

Once I got the pimento cheese and got back to Restaurant Eugene, I talked with Jason, told him everything that was going on, and asked if I could take a couple of hours off to go pick up my car. Jason told me that I could absolutely go get my car, so off I went.

Finally got my car back almost good as new

I got back with just enough time to finish forming the pimento cheese balls before family meal

Today's family meal was full of yummy dishes. There was crispy fried chicken, roasted homefries with home made catsup, baked grits, and some amazing zucchini bread. I have found that family meals where the pastry chefs contribute something are more often that not some of the best meals that we've had, and this meal was no exception to that rule.

After family meal, I processed the cherry tomato jam from the day before and the mulberry jam from a few days earlier.

Cherry tomato jam

Mulberry jam

After finishing those jams, I started to jar and process the pickled green tomatoes. while waiting for the pickled green tomatoes, I decided to finish breading the pimento cheese fritters. Then I cut loaves of bread so that they could begin to dry out before making breadcrumbs.

I had decided that since I spent about an hour and a half going to get my car, that I would stay until 7:30 instead of my usual time to leave which is 6:00. So, I asked if there was anything I could do for the line. Everyone was pretty busy, so they had little things that I could do for them and whenever I would finish something, someone else would come to me with something that I could help them with.

It ended up being a pretty busy night since I didn't even have a chance to leave until after 9:00. Once I did leave though, I contemplated just heading over to Holeman and Finch for a 10:00 burger since it was so late and I was already there. Even the valet guys for the restaurants said, "You're getting out of here pretty late tonight" as I was walking to my car.



Saturday I knew that we would be getting some deliveries from the farmers market, so I started to organize the walk-in so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed when the deliveries came in. After finishing in the walk-in, I started to chop parsley and got through two blocks of butter before the deliveries arrived.

Getting everything into the walk-in took a good while, but once I finished, Woody got me working on assembling tarts. I had assembled these tarts before, but everything was already made for the first time I made them, this time I had to do everything.

Making the filling for the tart, pimento cheese and rendered bacon

Finished tart filling

Earlier this week a cotton candy machine was delivered to Restaurant Eugene. I was told that the cotton candy machine was going to be used for a baseball and beer dinner that Holeman and Finch would be hosting over the weekend. So, as I was working on the tarts, James called me over to the back workbench to try some of the bacon cotton candy that he was making for the dinner.

It was pretty cool. I didn't think it tasted a whole lot like bacon, but it definitely smelled like bacon so it worked pretty well. Very cool application of unique culinary tools.

For the past week, Ryan has moved from the garde manger station to one of the day prep stations (what I do), so we've been helping each other with tasks that were delegated to us.  He has been a huge help because now I'm not the only one working to fit everything in the walk-in and I'm not the only one that people can go to when they need something for the line.

I started making the pimento cheese fritters for the day and got 100 of them formed before letting them chill in the walk-in and moving on to something else.

By that time, it was already time for family meal

Family meal was supposed to include tortilla chips and taco shells so that we could make tacos and nachos, but by the time I go there, they were all gone, so I just mixed together some of the taco meat, rice, and the zesty taco sauce for my family meal.

Woody had been working on making tomato water for most of the day and by the time I was finished with my family meal, it was time for the tomato water to be strained, so I strained it for him.

For those of you that haven't worked in a kitchen or anything like that, it can get pretty crazy and fast paced and with people carrying and moving things around all the time, it can be hazardous to walk around.  Because of this, it is customary to announce when you are going to walk behind someone by saying, "Behind" or if you need to get something above or below someone by saying, "Above you" or "Below you".  Announcing where you are going and if you're carrying something hot just lets people know to be careful and helps to keep the kitchen a safer place.

Saying these things have been weird for me.  If I'm just going to get something, I'll forget to announce if I'm behind someone or something like that.  And if I do tell them that I am behind them, I usually don't talk very loud because I'm not a loud person by nature.  That being said, I ALWAYS will announce where I am and where I'm going if I am carrying something hot or large.

Now, for a project I was working on, I needed a pan that just so happened to be below Chef Hopkins.  I felt like, "He's the chef, so, being the intern, I shouldn't make him stop what he's doing just so I can get something I want" so I waited for him to move and made my move to get the pan I wanted.  Chef bumped into be and I immediately apologized.  Chef Hopkins then loudly said, "Underneath" for me.  Chef then went on to tell me that we talk "like we're talking to grandma, loud"  We both laughed and I told him that I would do better next time, which I did.

Now that I had my pan, I got working on cleaning chanterelles for Jason.  Cleaning the chanterelles took a long time because the ones I had to clean were pretty small and I had to clean half a sheet pan of them. But I eventually got through them and moved on to blanching green beans for Jason.

After I finished blanching the green beans, it was pretty evident that Jackson had a lot of stuff that he needed to get done, so Ryan and I offered to help him with whatever he needed.  All in all, I halved some okra, fetched caviar and portioned fish, sliced potatoes for a potato salad, crushed ice, as well as many other tasks before there was a chance for me to leave for the evening.

It was a very busy and hectic, yet very fun and informative day of work.

Till next time,

Ben

155 hours left