So Far, Very Interesting
It’s been a very interesting week so far with the cooking radio show/video recording on Tuesday and the cooking class at the St. Joe library last night. Port 412 was doing a breast cancer fundraiser last night, “Burgers for Boobies,” a very fun and tongue-in-cheek way to raise money for the cause. Those who donated at least $2 got a full Port 412 hamburger, which is quite delicious, let me assure you. So the place was packed to the bra-strewn rafters and the kitchen was pumping out burgers like mad. Chef Tom, a grill wizard, had enough by 9p and turned the kitchen over to Jeff and the rest of the crew.
I cleaned up at the cooking class, got out of there at 9:45p, and headed over to the restaurant to help them close the kitchen. We weren’t done until 11p. Normally the restaurant closes at 9p, and the kitchen folks are the first ones out of there. We still were the first ones out, so that means the front of the house wasn’t out until much later. Hopefully none of the servers who worked last night have to work lunch today.
Tim, who usually works sauté on lunches, got a case of bean thread noodles that he didn’t know what to do with, so he asked me if I had any Asian dishes that used them. I thought “Ants Climbing a Tree” wouldn’t be the most appealing dish to the Port 412 crowd, and I’m not crazy about using them in salads, so I gave him the recipe for Pad Woo Sen, Thai Stir-Fried Silver Noodles with Chicken, which is one of my favorites. They don’t usually have oyster sauce laying around at Port 412, so I’m giving him all I have, including the vegetarian oyster sayce since it’s close enough to the real thing. And then I’ll cook it for him once so he can see how it comes together and what it’s like.
I’ll work from 3-9 tonight, and I have tomorrow off. Yay! I need to get a real day planner since the schedule I’m keeping now is like calculus compared to what I did before at the Buddha. Here’s an example schedule at the Buddha, at least for the first few months: Buddha is open = Colin is there.
Simple enough!
But with the cooking demo and class, it gets a lot more complicated. When I’ve got one, I can’t just show up at work, I had to have done a lot of research and/or prep, including typing up and emailing dish descriptions and recipes. Then I have to pack up the car with all the gear and ingredients I have, go to the restaurant for what I know they have, work at the restaurant as long as I can, and then head over to the demo/class.
So yes, a day planner would be a very good thing.
Next week, I’m going to be working the front of the house! Great stuff, all the way around!
