Walk into the locker room and first thing I hear is Zandra. “Well, good morning Eliana- didn’t you wear that shit yesterday!?”. Actually Zandra, I did. I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed and found the first shirt I could find, put it on and didn’t think twice”. Golly! I can never get anything past that child, I tell you. The rest of the day till about 12 went a lot smoother. We switched recipes, so I got to make the potato soup today. My soup, with the help of Chef Joe (he doesn’t trust me with the salt because the first day I put WAY TOO much salt into the fennel puree and ruined it. So, now he is my official salt shaker) turned out delicious. No joke the potato soup recipe that we have is a good 5 pages long because it had 6 different garnitures that go inside. First, you have to make the vegetable stock. Then you sauté leeks, onions, and potatoes. Once those are translucent you add the vegetable stock in. You let that simmer for a little while- well a whole while until the potatoes are cooked and then blend it all together. Once in the blender you add heavy cream, milk, and crème fraiche—oh and Chef had me add butter. Once it is all mixed together, you have the perfect soup for a cold winter day.
The garniture is annoying. You have to make big croutons with goat cheese and fried parsley on top. There are little potato balls, sun choke puree, fried shallots, sautéed hen mushrooms, persevered lemon peels, and smoked celery root. The soup can be a pain to plate because you have to make sure that the other dishes that go with the order are prepared first, so that the soup doesn’t get cold. Today we had the most covers we’ve ever had—a whapping 58! There was a holiday party with 40 guests for ONE table! Doing that order was NO joke. Thank the lord I wasn’t on saucier station today. Poor things got about three orders sent back because either it was too cold, not the right temperature, or just because. No complaints on my potato soup, so I aint got no worries. At one point, I was making three smoked salmon plates and two soup plates at the same time. Talk about kitchen overload! It was fun though because Chef let’s me sing. He sings also. But, we don’t sing together. He typically stops singing when I join in and then gives me a face. Don’t give me that look, Chef!
(Tyler, Pandora, Me, and Chef Joe)
Tomorrow, I am moving on to the seasonal salad. Pandora complains that every single dish we make has butternut squash in it and she is sick of it. She even changed the words to the Christmas song- “you better not pout, you better not cry” to “you butternut squash, you butternut squash”. So, all day that jingle was on repeat in my brain! Darn you!
Keep on, keep’n on!
Eli Ana Nic Ole