David was back at work today.
I was wondering how this would work out since I now had my own agenda of things that I needed to do. Turns out that it worked perfectly because now I didn't always have to ask David what I could do next. However, both of us would stop whatever we were working on whenever we got a new shipment of produce in so that it would get put away quicker.
First problem of the day was that I couldn't find enough oil to fill up the fryer for the potatoes, shallots, and parsley. After searching high and low and asking everyone if they knew where more oil was, I decided to wait until Woody or Jason got to work and ask them what to do. I did, however, continue to slice the potatoes and shallots on the mandoline so that I didn't have to do that when we were finally ready to start frying.
Eventually, Woody showed up to work and after checking to make sure that we were indeed out of oil for the frier, he sent me to Holeman and Finch to transfer some of their oil to us.
Next problem of the day was that I could not find the scoop that I had used to portion the pimento cheese fritters. I ended up using one of David's scoops and decided that I would go back and make sure that they were the right size once the official pimento cheese scooper showed up.
The official scooper never did show up, but I found one that was close enough and went back to make sure that all the fritters were the same size and shape. As I was reshaping the fritters, Ryan and multiple other cooks mentioned to me that Chef (Hopkins) was thoroughly pleased with the pimento cheese fritters from last nights service. I just laughed it off, said thanks, and went about my business. Then, as I was putting the fritters in the walk-in to firm up before breading, Chef Hopkins came in looking for something and told me, "Ben, the fritters are perfect. It was a pleasure plating them." I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Thanks Chef." and went on my way.
While I was waiting for the fritters to firm up, I helped David with preparing food for family meal. My gob was to trim the ends off of and cut up pole beans, which are like flat green beans. There was a whole deep cambro of them, so it took me a good while to get through them all.
Once I finished that, I cut up some squash, drizzled them with oil, and seasoned them with salt and pepper before roasting them for family meal. Later, but before they were finished roasting, David sprinkled some herb parmesan cheese on top of the squash and put them back in the oven to finish roasting.
By this time, I figured that the fritters should be firm enough, so I took half (38) of them out for breading. I floured them, dipped them in the egg wash, and floured them again before taking them back to the walk-in. I had decided that I would get all of the fritters to this point in the breading process and then bring them all out for the final step (one last dip into the egg wash and then into the breadcrumbs).
Last problem of the day. Turns out that I decided to set my tray of fritters on something that was slightly unstable and the tray fell onto the floor of the walk-in. More than half of the pimento cheese fritters for the nights service were gone. To add to the devastation of this mishap was the fact that we were about half an hour away from service and because the fritters are the amuse bouche, they would be the first things out to every single table.
I was angry and frustrated, but decided that I needed to make some more fritters and I needed to make them quick, so I got to work. From the time the tray fell on the floor, to the time that I had gotten the new pimento cheese fritters to the stage of the breading process that the fallen fritters had been on, only 20 minutes had passed. Somehow I had managed to get everything together just in time for service.
When I was finished with the pimento cheese fritters, David asked me to help him because he still had a lot of things to do before he could leave for the day. David quickly and masterfully threw together a mixture for squash dumplings which they needed for service. David put the mixture in a piping bag and gave it to me to pipe into molds. It took a while to pipe and bake all of the dumplings, but once they were all baked and put into containers, it was about time for me to leave.
As I was about to leave for the day, Ryan cam up to me and asked me if I had time to do something for him real quick. I said of course I did and Ryan showed me what he needed me to do for him. Remember those 5 different potatoes cooked in 5 different fats with 5 different herbs? Well, Ryan had been plating them and wanted me to cryovac the plates of potatoes and label them as large or small plates. This was easy enough and I was done and headed home in a matter of minutes.
Till next time,
Ben
219 hours left
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