Last Day

As I sit here writing this, I am officially finished with my internship at Restaurant Eugene.

My last day started off with mentally preparing myself to jar and process okra all day, but I got some good news when Jason told me that they were ordering specific jars for the okra and we don't have them in yet, so there is nothing I can do with the okra.  What a relief.  I really didn't want to spend my last day at work doing one thing the whole time.  Instead, Jason got me started on making a pomegranate simple syrup that would be used to flavor the 100 pounds of cherries that we have been preparing for the bottle shop all week.

Chris (the intern from Auburn) had been the main person working on the cherries as he had pitted 70 of the 100 pounds.  I helped chris drain the water that the cherries were being kept in and poured the pomegranate simple syrup over them.  As we were working on this in the walk-in, Chris and I were talking about this being my last day at work when Jackson walked in and said, "Ben, this is you're last day here?  That makes me really sad.  I almost teared up a bit there."  It was pretty obvious that he was joking, but at the same time, it was also obvious that he really meant some of what he said.

After finishing with the cherries (for now), I got to work on jarring and processing the leftover bloody mary mix.  As I was walking out to the back to get more jars, Woody called my name and just kinda sighed and rose his hands from his sides.  I asked him what was up, and he said, "It's you're last day.  I can't believe it."  I just laughed and said, "It's not over yet, there's still the rest of the day."  I swear I told everyone that August 6th was my last day, but I guess people forgot about it and it crept up on them.

While I was jarring the bloody mary mix, Jason approached me and asked if I could make pimento cheese fritters because we had a lot of reservations (100 if I remember correctly) and they wanted to have something to serve people while the wait.  I was more than happy to make the pimento cheese fritters, and thought that it was fitting that I would get to make one of the only things that I get to make for service on my last day of work.

I noticed that there were a lot more people in the kitchen than usual.  That was because Holeman and Finch were hosting a baby shower, so all of the prep cooks from Holeman were working with us at Restaurant Eugene.  This means that the kitchen was very very crowded and working space was at a premium.  Space got even more valuable when the deliveries from the farmers market started to come in. At one point I had five watermelons and 20 jars of bloody mary mix as I was working on forming the pimento cheese fritters on the 1/3 of a workbench available to me.  Very cramped.

All that changed, though, at 2:00 when there was a large staff meeting.  At 2:00, we went from having 20 people in the kitchen to having three people in the kitchen, Juan (a dishwasher), Chris, and myself.  We went from having very little space to having the entire kitchen.  Chris and I were a little bummed that we weren't invited to the meeting because we felt like we've earned being able to go to a meeting that involved everyone.  But at the same time, we are only interns and what was being discussed in the meeting most likely didn't involve us since we would both be leaving fairly soon (even sooner for me).  Though, we both agreed that Chef Hopkins probably  talked about food at some point, and that is what we were interested in hearing.

After an hour of having no one in the kitchen and getting a lot of work done, everyone in the meeting rushed back into the kitchen and was hurrying around to try to catch up on the time they missed while in the meeting.

I got about halfway through forming and breading the pimento cheese fritters in flour when it was time for my last family meal.

Last Supper

Family meal consisted of lasagna made with homemade pasta, marinara, ground beef, and ricotta.  It also included a chocolate chip cake with fresh whipped cream.  Definitely a great last family meal from work.

Once I was finished with the pimento cheese fritters and had boxed the bloody mary mix, i got started on cleaning a tray of chanterelles for Woody.  As usual, this took a good bit of time, but Jason was breaking down fish right next to me, so we got to talk while we were both working which was pretty nice.

By this time, the night's service had already started and Ian needed some cherry tomatoes peeled.  There were a good amount of cherry tomatoes and Chris didn't have anything else to do, so we peeled the cherry tomatoes together to finish them twice as fast.  Chris and I get along very well since we're both the same age, in college, and are doing many of the same tasks around the kitchen.  That being said, Chris is a much better cook and has much more experience than I do, so it was also pretty cool hang out with him during work and get tips from him.

One of the best experiences of the night was being able to listen to Chef Hopkins expo for the service.  When someone is on expo, that just means that all the food produced has to be approved by Chef before it goes out to the customers.  Whoever is on expo pretty much runs the entire kitchen.  It was really cool to be able to listen to how Chef runs everything and motivates everyone.

As the night's service was beginning to wind down, Chef went around to make sure that everyone was leaving.  Eventually he made it around to me and asked how much time I had left.  I told him that this was it, today was my last day.  Chef said, "Oh, man.  Everyone!  We gotta do something to Ben!  Break out the glucose and flour."  We all laughed about that and people gathered around telling me the things that they were going to do to me.  It was all talk though, nothing happened.  After all that, I thanked Chef for everything and and for taking me and this internship on.  In response, Chef thanked me for my hard work and for the HACCP plans that I worked on for him and told me to make sure that I come back to Restaurant Eugene sometime before I left for college.  I told Chef that I would absolutely be coming to Restaurant Eugene before I left for Clemson.

At this point, I was well over my scheduled 8 hours for the day, but I felt that since this was my last day, I should stick around and try to soak up as much as I can.  So, I pitted the last 10 pounds of cherries so they can begin to soak overnight and would be ready to join the rest of the cherries in the pomegranate simple syrup the next day.  When I was almost finished with the cherries and service was over, Woody told everyone that he was leaving.  I said, "Bye Woody" as he was walking out and he turned around and came back and said, "Ben, I almost forgot that it's your last day."  Woody also thanked me for my work this summer and that they're going to miss having me around.  And with that, Woody was gone for the night and for the rest of my internship.

When I finally finished pitting all the cherries, I decided that it was time for me to say my final goodbyes and leave.  First, I told everyone in the back of the kitchen (Chris, Aaron, and Charlie) that I was leaving and thanked them for all their help throughout the summer.  Next, I moved up to the line where I said goodbye to Ian and Levi.  I also thanked them for helping me with everything this summer.

Next, I said goodbye to Jackson.  Like I had with everyone else, I thanked Jackson for everything that he has done for me and helped me with this summer.  Jackson, along with an handful of other people, had been one of the constants for me in the kitchen.  Jackson thanked me for all the work that I had done and said that I had really come a long way and improved from my first day of work.  Then Jackson added that he doesn't know who is going to doing all the work that I've been doing now that I'm gone and that I have no idea how much the work that I do helps everyone in the kitchen.  These complements really meant a lot to me and I thanked him yet again.

Last, but not least, I said goodbye to Jason.  Jason was the first person that I met at Restaurant Eugene.  Jason is the person who conducted my interview when I was still looking for an internship earlier this year.  Jason is the person who offered to give me a ride home from work at 11:30 after a tree hit my house and my car was trapped in our carport.  Jason is the person that I would always check with before leaving to make sure that there was nothing else that needed to be done before I left for the evening.  So, it was a little weird to say goodbye to him.

It's never been so hard to leave work, even after working 11 hours.





To everyone that I've had the pleasure of encountering and working with at Restaurant Eugene, to Chef Hopkins, Jason, Woody, David, Ryan, Jackson, Aaron, Chris, Ian, Levi, Stella, James, Billy, Jorje, Charlie, Jeff, Rob, all the office girls, all the wait staff, and everyone at Holeman and Finch, I want to say a heartfelt and resounding thank you.  Thank you for teaching and guiding me through everything during my internship.  Thank you for making my internship fun, interesting, and challenging at the same time.  Thank you for being amazing people and co-workers.  I am unbelievably lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you all in a restaurant as well respected and admired as Restaurant Eugene.  I could not have dreamed of a better place than Restaurant Eugene and better people to work with for my internship.

For all of that, I am very thankful and forever grateful,

Ben

423 hours and 27 minutes completed.