So, the other night I was reading through everything which has been floundering in "draft" (for the past 2 1/2 years! I can hardly believe it!).
And so, I've decided - for better or worse, to share these long-unpublished things. They are long, so I've had to employ the dreaded click-through.
Here's a teaser!
The following piece was written on August 26, 2006:
"Restaurant Life"
For your amusement, here are a few more things about my life in the restaurant, a continuation from another post many moons ago . . . This train of thought started when a fellow server and I were discussing the plight of the service industry in America. I work in a pretty nice restaurant where our youngest server is 25. We all either have college degrees or are working on one, most of us have had "real" jobs at some point in our lives. In many European countries, we would just be working people like everyone else, but here in the states it's just something to get you through college. I think it's a great job for those who have to pay the bills but aren't getting paid to do what they love. Yet.
- A guest once told me he was impressed that I could correctly use the world "infuse" in a sentence.
- I once spilled an entire plate of rainbow trout on a visiting artist, designer of quarter million dollar corporate art pieces. He was not, in the slightest, amused.
- A guest recently laughed at me when I told him the white Burgundy he wanted by the glass was a chardonnay (he didn't want to drink chardonnay). He laughed as though I were some kind of idiot and told me, very condescendingly, that the two were mutually exclusive. I can let the guest think he is always right but I cannot change the fact that the primary white grape grown in Burgundy is Chardonnay.
- I tell the same jokes over and over. But then again, so do my guests. I mean, do you really think you're being creative when you clean your plate and tell me you didn't like it at all? Husband actually said this in a restaurant once the then a look of horror came over his face and he said "I can't believe I just said that."
- Occasionally I have had to wait on people with whom I used to work in corporate world. Thinking about my cubicle at Giant National Retailer literally makes me shudder. A few of these people have worked there for over 8 years - they started in college and never left.
- I can never forgive someone for saying I am "just" a server. If you say that to me, we will never be friends. About a year ago, I met the (then) girlfriend of an acquaintance and at one point in the evening (I will grant that she was a little tipsy), she said to me "I'm sorry, I forget, what do you do? You're just a server?" I would never say to you "Oh, you're just in middle management?" "You're just an administrative assistant?" "You're just a bank teller?" "You just work for the city of Columbus?" You aren't just anything. When people say things like this I like to say "Yes, I am just a server who makes the same amount of money I used to at Giant National Retailer in 60% of the hours I used to work without having my soul slowly drained from me by the Dementers who were Middle Management. I decided to leave and pursue my dream of becoming a writer. Do you have any dreams?"
- I once told an Episcopalian priest that ordering fried chicken would be good for her soul. She just stared at me, kind of incredulously - "My soul?" She said. Ooops, I guess I our everyday thoughts on "souls" are probably a little different.
More after the jump...
I wrote the following the day I received my advance copy of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, but never published it for reasons I wrote about in my review. After some reflection, I still think it's worth publishing. This was written on July 2, 2007.
"On the Subject of Eating Solo"
I went to a very conservative university. At this university, surrounded by glisteningly clean, overly madeup Southern baptists wearing modestly outdated below-the-knee flowered dresses, nude stockings, and pumps everyday, I preferred to interpret the dress code by wearing a uniform of ironic tee shirts, long skirts, and my favorite steel toed combat boots. I perked up my hairdo not with the french braids and bows of my classmates, but with carefully applied streaks of pink and orange manic panic. I preferred a nice outline of kohl about my eyes, where the Betty Baptists liked the traditional blue, and unlike all of my comrades, I knew Nirvana to be both a band and a form of enlightenment attained by heathens. Concerned students wrote letters to the editor suggesting I might be more comfortable at an art college, rather than dirtying up the campus with my brand of creativity. I'm quite sure I would have been more comfortable at an art college, but sadly, this university had rather unfortunately (for both of us, I'm sure) offered me a full scholarship, and who was I to turn them down?
I liked to be alone. I avoided social events with such determination that my friends were known to actually cheer when I showed my face in the university dining hall, only to be devastated, I am sure, when I excused myself to the ladies' room and then went unseen for another 3 weeks. When I was granted permission to move off campus, I found the apartment through a friend and marveled at the size of the kitchen, whose rows of cabinets and counters remain unrivaled by anyplace I've lived since. Of course, all of the cabinets were empty, but that didn't matter. It was the possibility. I lived at the end of a charming street which dead ended into the James river; my apartment was the first floor of a large four square with French doors and a huge foyer and a very irritating buzzer for a doorbell. It was especially irritating because as a general rule, I didn't answer the bell. I had a group of similarly misfitted friends which I tended to avoid at all costs. I am by nature - or nurture, I've never been sure - a private person who gets antsy when exposed to the company of others too long. I get tired and zone out of conversations, I have too much of a habit of saying weird things or growing tired of listening to other people's stories or being incapable of tolerated irritating personalities to be very sociable. I suppose that's why I'm a writer, and why Husband and I are a good fit. Sometimes, I think that my performance as a server all these years deserves an Academy Award. How I am able to conquer my general fear and loathing of humanity and smile, converse, and actually care for people for the 2 hours I am in their service remains a mystery even to myself. But I digress.
I had no money. I made just enough to pay all of my bills and have a little left over for my entertainment budget, which included 4 $1 movies a week, 2 beers, and one pack of cigarettes (Mom, it was ages ago!!) Every once in awhile, I would go on a date with some criminally boring boy whose only qualification was his ability to purchase dinner in a decent establishment. I would endure these idiots with the hope that I might be taken to a restaurant where I could have a steak, or some duck breast - even once, escargot! Every once in awhile, I would allow myself to be herded off to the one club in town, where I permitted boys to buy me shots of lemon flavored vodka - my theory being, you are only committed to talk to the drink-buyer for the duration of the drink.
Even though I was broke, I was a grocery store snob. I refused to shop anywhere except Harris Teeter, which had low lighting compared with the Food Lion in town, and it had an excellent array of gourmet foods which I couldn't afford, but whose labels I read carefully and committed to memory, for such a time when I would be able to afford such delights as lox with capers, crackers imported from England, and cookies made from the finest Breton butter. I became a whiz with the pay-by-the-pound salad bar. for .79 cents, I could purchase just enough black olives, broccoli, cubed ham bits, and pre-shredded cheese to make an omelet. Every once in awhile, I would opt for spaghetti instead, employing the same salad bar to purchase minuscule amounts of Parmesan and bacon crumbles, which I turned into a crude version of carbonara without even realizing.
At my most extravagant, I could turn one chicken breast into 3 meals, carefully sprinkled with lemon pepper seasoning, doused with a little butter, folded into foil and baked. I would boil spaghetti and toss it with the buttery chicken juices created during the cooking. As a grown up with a nice kitchen and enough money to keep my belly more on the roundish side than not, I reinterpreted this dish without even realizing it, roasting chicken and tossing various starches - potatoes, gnocchi - into the schmaltzy pan drippings.
Being alone is a hard habit to break. I like to be alone with my thoughts. I'm incredibly fond of sitting alone and watching the world go past, uninterrupted. Perhaps it's for this reason, when I'm cooking for myself these days, especially when I'm feeling lethargic and uninspired, tired and in need of some comfort, I sometimes simply boil spaghetti, and toss in some butter and Parmesan, salt and pepper. Occasionally I'll even toss in some bacon. There comfort in familiarity, in being able to eat something so simple, so ridiculous you'd never serve it to a guest, but something you long for, nonetheless.
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I wrote this after Husband asked me why I couldn't get a camera store to give me a camera for free advertising. I shill lots of things; if I were a legitimate journalist, I would get loads of things for free. People are constantly questions the validity of blogging anyway, so why worry about my credibility? It was written on June 25, 2007.
"Open Letter to PR People"
I have decided that I am not above schilling products I love. I mean, after all, celebrity chefs do it all the time. They never have to pay for a thing; all of those knives and pots and pans they use on their shows are free. So why should I, someone who is paying for everything I write about, be any different? When I was discussing buying a new camera with Husband the other day, he said "can't you find someone to sponsor you? It's like free advertising." Brilliant! Not that I'm a celebrity chef or anything, but there are products that I do, indeed love, would feature on my website, and would like for free...
So, here's a list of things you can ask to send me:
Helio Fin
Canon Rebel xti, along with a macro lens
Dansko shoes
Simple shoes
Shun knives
Cookbooks or other food-related books, except anything by Rachael Ray or similar
Food-related DVDs
A trip to cooking school in Bangkok
Any trip anywhere
FoodSaver products
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This was written on June 4th. Obviously, after the season premier of Hell's Kitchen. This is good advice, thought for anyone working in a kitchen.
"Lessons Learned from Hell's Kitchen"
- If you don't know how to do something, ask. If you think risotto should be boiled like rice, you probably have no business thinking you should be on a cooking show. (Make risotto)
- Never, ever cry in the kitchen. Ever. Especially if you are a boy. Should you feel the need to cry, go outside and smoke a cigarette. Stand in the walk-in and scream. Eat ice cream out of the freezer. Take deep breaths. Whatever you do, DO. NOT. CRY. Especially before service has even started. When I began my last job, the owner made me promise to never, ever let Chef see me cry. "If you feel like crying, come cry to me. Don't ever let him see you cry." Wise words. I never did let him see me cry. I did stand toe to toe and scream profanities in his face (see lesson #5), but I never cried.
- Let other people display their talents. Think the short order cook can't do anything because she's no gourmand? Chances are, she could probably cook enough eggs to feed the entire restaurant. Especially if you are a boss, you are only as good as your worst cook. Let people shine where they can.
- DO. NOT. CRY. Especially if you are a girl. What is wrong with you people?! Suck it up!!
- Think of creative insults. In my current kitchen, I'm always amazed that the cooks seem to have no noticeable sense of humor. Although I can't repeat ANY of them here, the line cooks I used to work with turned insults into a whole new art form. I remember a few nights stopping everything and saying "that's the funniest thing I've every heard." It's a shame there isn't a single one I can think of that I would allow my mother or 13 year old niece to read. You'll just have to take my word for it. Insulting your coworkers in a creative manner, which will make them laugh before they can think of hating you, where they are going to high five you for your brilliance, keeps some people going through the day.
- No one cares what your hair or makeup looks like in the kitchen. Put your hair up and leave the makeup at home.
- No one leaves the line until the food is out. No amount of heat, tears, burns, blisters, need for nicotine, irritation, fighting, urge to use the loo or yelling is enough reason to leave the line. The only excuse for leaving the line is bleeding. And then, only long enough for Chef to superglue your wound.
- Libations, in whatever form, are for after work.
- 9 times out of 10, Chef knows more than you do.
- Here's another note, which doesn't come from the show: the dishwasher has the worst job in the restaurant. They should always have a drink purchased for them, care should be taken to not splash them with the silverware water when putting things in the dish area, and whenever applicable, you should take the time to greet them in their own language.
