Woke up today and some of my throat symptoms were back. Dear lord- isn’t a zpack supposed to cure it all and then kill some healthy bacteria too!? I did the best I could to push through the pain, but truthfully I am tried of feeling like a hot mess and plus I cant be myself- singing/ dancing/ and all over the place. Instead I’m like some meek ol mice humming depressing slow songs in my head just trying to make it to 3 o’clock calling my dad every hour to complain (what’s new?).
Today I was in charge of the starch dish. That means I made the herb spaetzle where we sautéed it in this massive cooking machine- who’s name has completely slipped my mind. I melted the chicken fat or smaltz, as chef John likes to call it and also Jewish grandmothers, and also melted two pounds of butter. When I realized that the butter was starting to turn brown I panicked, called chef and that is when we went into full adrenaline mode (like when you see old lady’s lifting cars up to save little kitty cats) and dumped about 6 hotel pans worth of spaetzle into the cooking machine in a matter of seconds. I had to use no joke a paddle, like the ones you use when rowing or canoeing, in order to mix all the spaetzle, fat, salt, and pepper. When the spaetzle was nice and golden brown, we loaded them into new hotel pans to be delievere off to the different classrooms around the school.
The protein dish today was pork and Kielbasa with a sweated sauerkraut and onion ordeal on the bottom. Although I didn’t eat the pork, the kielbasa mixed with the sauerkraut was a homerun out of the park! I went in for thirds and then some. On the buffet, we also had a carrot/turnip salad with an herb garlic spread and fried shallots on top. Lashandra made a kale, chickpea, tomato, wild rice vegetarian dish for all those non meat lovers. Once all the dishes were done and ready to be sent out to the various levels, Tyler, Lashandra, and I took the cart. I felt like a room service lady at a hotel because no lie because the cart is the exact same heated one they use in hotels to go from room to room! I was having a ball pretending I was delivering at some exotic hotel in Bali... but, then I snapped out of it when the cold from the outside rushed in. After playing room service, we got to eat lunch from the buffet.
My afternoon duties were… are you ready for this…. Cut, trim, peel, ciseler, decore about 40 fennel! Chef John taught us to work like an assembly line. We must complete one task like cut all 40 fennel before moving on to trimming all 40 fennel. I must admit that the process was much faster, but still not fast enough; it took me a good hour and a half to finish all of them. I felt like I was in a mental ward around 30 fennels and the last 10 I was about to fly over the coo-coo’s nest. When I finished, I went to the bathroom just so that I could sit down for a few minutes. Well, the lights in the upstairs bathrooms are automatic, so I guess I was sitting for a while and the next thing I know ALL the lights turn off and it’s pitch black. Oh great! Just what I need to be sitting in the pitch black, so I figured if I made some movement they’d turn back on and they did after I stomped my feet. Just when I thought that I was done for the day, chef had Lashandra and I trim and cut up the chicken breasts for the fajitas tomorrow. Everyone else was doing other various tasks around the kitchen like butchering the meat, cutting vegetables or fruit, making the stocks etc. Prepping for the next day is no joke, but definitely needed!
Hasta la Vista baby!
E.L.I.A.N.A.