chop your parsley, son

My first task of the day (as has become the norm) was to organize the walk-in so that we would have space for new deliveries. This always takes a good amount of time because I have to go through all the produce, decide if they could be moved into a smaller cambro or consolidated into a cambro with other produce, find the right size clean cambro, and move everything around so that all the cambros will fit. While working on all of this, I also have to receive the new produce, put them in cambros, and fit them in withe the other ingredients. Unfortunately and fortunately, we don't receive all the new produce at the same time. This is good because I'm able to focus on getting that ingredient all put away, but it's also bad because I don't know if I'm really finished or if we'll be getting another shipment of ingredients.

On this day, we received everything from squash, to carrots, to onions, to butter beans, to komatsuna. We even got in some of the first green beans of the season. Woody made me taste some right when we got them and they were so sweet and delicious.

My next task was to cut lemons for service that night. I had to turn lemons from this...

... into this...

The lemons are used to add lemon juice to dishes, so I have to try keep as much of the lemon on the peel as possible. The leftover middle of the lemon is kept and used to make lemonade for the staff. Just something different to drink other than water. While cutting the lemons, I was reminded of a fact: If you have any sort of cut on or near your hands, lemon juice will find them.

Now that I was finished with the lemons, Jackson told me that he needed a deli container (about a pint) of minced parsley for service tonight. I have minced parsley many many times before, so I was pretty comfortable about being able to do this for Jackson.

Before I had even finished mincing the parsley, Jason and Woody both gave me things to do so that I wouldn't have to come looking for something to do while they were getting set up for service. Jason gave me a bag of shallots and tole me that he wanted them peeled. Easy enough. Woody had just finished searing some leeks in a pan and needed them separated into rings.

These leeks smelled exactly like the onion rings from The Varsity. This made me think, "what if the onion rings from The Varsity are actually leek rings?" But before my mind could wander too far with that concept, I thought, "Oh, it's probably just because they're both absolutely saturated with oil."

The family meal for the day was some pulled pork with green beans (pictured at the top of the post). The pork was very tasty and had a hint of cinnamon which I thought was very interesting. The only draw back was that there was a lot of fat on the meat, so I ended up getting less meat that I thought I did.

Next, Jason came back with another task for me. I was to take cherry tomatoes that had the middle removed, fill them with baba ghanoush, and put the top back on.

I didn't know it then, though I kinda suspected it, but these tomatoes would be used as the nights amuse bouche.

An amuse bouche, or amuse for short, is a single bite-sized appetizer that serves as a "muse" for the rest of the meal. Amuses are often complementary and are meant to tease you or get you ready for the impending meal.

Next, I had both Jackson and Gavin come up to me with meets that they needed cryovaced. The cryovac machine is essentially a vacuum that sucks all the air out of the cryovac bags and keeps items fresh or infuses items with whatever liquid is added to the bag. Once ready to use, the bags are placed in extremely hot water and heated for a couple minutes before being torn open and ready to be cooked. For Gavin, I had to put wrapped squab into individual cryovac bags and seal them. For Jackson, I had to seal bags with halibut and olive oil. It's not a very difficult or time consuming job, but we were getting close to service time so they needed these items as quickly as possible.

By the time I finished with the cryovac, dinner service had already started. I ventured up to the line and dropped off the meats for Jackson and Gavin. Then I asked Jason if there is anything I can do. Jason asked, "Have you ever been up here on the line for a service?" I told him that I haven't. "Well, go watch what Jackson is doing."

At this point in the service it was still fairly early, so the kitchen wasn't very hectic yet, so Jackson, who was on the fish station, showed me all about his station and walked me through what happens when we receive orders. Not too long after that, though, orders started pouring in, so I got out of the way and just watched everyone do their jobs.

I felt bad that I was just watching because I felt like I should be helping out in some way, but at this point, everything was prepped, everything was ready, all that was left was to put it all together. With two hours left in my shift, I had nothing left to do but watch and learn. It was awesome.

Eventually, things started to get a little crazy, so Jason gave me a job on the line. Jason was working on the cold app and salad station, so he let me prepare and plate the amuse for the rest of the time I was there. I was to put a small dot of baba ghanoush on a small plate, place one of the filled cherry tomatoes on the dot of baba ghanoush, and stick a leaf of micro basil under the top of the tomato. The amuse would then me drizzled with a basil infused oil and lightly salted before going out to every single customer that we would get that evening. The finished product looked absolutely beautiful. I wish I could have taken a picture for y'all to see, but there was no time.

Since the line was pretty crowded with and extra body up there, I got to help out with dishes for some of the other cooks. As I was nearest to the deep frier, much of these extra duties including frying things for them.

It was a lot of fun observing, learning, and finally helping with a dinner service. I can't wait until next Saturday when I get to do it all again.

Till next time,

Ben

318 hours left