Today was my first day in the kitchen.
I'm going to try and blog every day, because I know other wise I will forget, I am already having a hard time remembering today's events.
I started work at 7:30 this morning, so I got up nice and early at 5:30 (with help from a text/call from Chris), grabbed my shower and packed my bookbag. I brought my portfolio stuff with me, as well as my steel toe boots and my knife kit.
I headed off to work, in the drizzly weather that Halifax had (all day) today, arriving at work shortly before 7. Normally we are not supposed to be on the premises more than 15 minutes before our shift, but I knew I had to try my uniform on, and find out where and what I was to do today. As well as I had a few internship questions to go over with Chef.
I put on my uniform, and Jennifer, the girl who I will be shadowing during my internship, and Chef Dorthy, the Junior Sous Chef, noticed that my uniform was much too large. Unfortunately I was wearing the smallest size they have. With that I put on my boots, grabbed my knife kit and followed Jennifer to the uniform room where I got a green side towel, a stiff apron and a black skull cap.
I was led into the kitchen, where Jennifer informed me we will be working in Garde Manger, doing salads, sandwiches, and trays for the banquets, as well as Club Lounge. Club Lounge is a food lounge for guests staying on the 5th and 6th floors of the hotel. These guests are spending more money, to receive unlimited access to the food in Club Lounge.
I started off with making salads. I cut up baby tomatoes, to be paired with green onions and olive oil, salt and pepper. I learned that grilling cut lemons, produces a less-sharp lemon juice when squeezed, and I added this juice to the salad. I also made a pasta salad. The pasta was already cooked for me by Donald, he is in charge of soups and stocks, as well as he made Jambalaya today. I mixed black olives, Greek vinegrette and feta cheese with the pasta. The last "salad" I prepared was actually just mixed greens which the guests would add their own dressing to. I chopped up 3/4 of a box of Romaine Lettuce, and a full box of Raddicho. These were all thrown into a sink, which had a soap dispenser of Vegetable Cleaner, which poured into the sink in a similar fashion as the dishpan soap and sanitizer at school. After They were washed, the leafs were to be put into a "Green Machine", this was an electronic salad spinner, which took two loads to dry everything I had prepared. After they were dry I plated everything up into square cut bowls, wrapped them and sent them with the servers to cart up to the banquet rooms.
After all the salads were done I was to go for my lunch break. I was still pretty lost in the building, but the cafeteria wasn't that hard to find since it was between the uniform room and the locker rooms. The cafeteria doesn't take money, it takes meal cards, which are directly taken off your paycheck. I had received a meal card during orientation for the sum of $2.50. I wasn't expecting to get very much with this card. I went up to the woman who ran the line (I forget her name, she wasn't wearing a name badge, I'll have to ask for it again tomorrow) and saw the prices. I could get 2 eggs, 2 toast, bacon and hash-browns for $1.25! I was very excited. So I presented my card, and noticed they had chocolate milk, I asked how much they were and she answered $0.75 for the 500mL carton. So my entire lunch for $2!
I sat an ate for a bit, and then quickly headed back to the kitchen; while I had a 30 minute break, I knew we had a lot to do, and little time to do it in, so I hurried back.
When I got back Jennifer told me we would be starting on fruit plates, or rather I would start on them. She was still busy taking care of something else, all morning she had been making sandwiches while I made the salads, and now she had to finish something else. I didn't mind, I enjoyed being given the trust to do my own thing, with little guidance. I pulled out the cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon and pineapple. Or rather, I only pulled out the watermelon as the rest were already waiting for me at my station. I managed to drop one of the ten watermelons bringing them back from the walk ins (first mistake that cost the company money) and it split open and was thrown out.
Today I learned that cantaloupe are cut on a red cutting board. This is due to the fact that the rind is contaminated. The rind is porous, and the people who are used to collect cantaloupe from the field are severely under paid. They also do not get bathroom breaks, so they usually go to the washroom in the field. As you can imagine this waste is washed into the cantaloupe where it breeds. Morale: Always wash your cantaloupe after you have removed the rind!
I set about cutting and traying the fruits. Which was a lot more work than it sounds, as each fruit, there were 4 of them if you remember, needed twelve trays... each. By the end of the day my hands were raw from the acid in the pineapple, the new blisters from my knife, and the sheer repetitive motion. Yet I have never been happier in my life.
Jennifer and Nicole (Nicole is a CIC graduate, from the Culinary Arts program as well as the Pastry program) had a function to go to around 5, which was no problem since our shift was done at 4. Yet 4 was creeping up quickly, and we still had piles of stuff to do. Jennifer called Chris, the Sous Chef, over to see if he would give a hand, which he agreed to. She asked him to do the berries for the banquet that I had just cut all the fruit for, and he said he would once she had left. So with that I was given my final task of the day, which was to tray up some smoked salmon.
While I love the smell of smoked salmon, the texture is something I was never too fond of, and therefor eat it rarely, or in tiny pieces where the texture is less apparent. Dealing with it with your hands for 20 minutes, leaves no imagination to the texture your fingers are enduring. I plated up 4 packages of the smoked salmon, wrapped them and cleaned up. By now Jennifer and Nicole were gone, so I went to Chris and Dorthy, sous and jr sous respectively, to ask if I was okay to go. They checked to see if everything was done, and I said everything except the berries. Chef Chris eyed me and asked if I wanted to stay and do them, he wasn't pressuring me, simply asking, and while I was tired, I was still happy, and still motivated to stay and work a few more minutes.
By the time 6pm arrived, I was tired, my feet hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurt, my hands hurt, I was stained red from strawberries, and had taken a small chunk out of my finger; but I was still happy, and more importantly, I had finished the twelve bowls of berries, wrapped them, and put then in the fridge.
As Chef signed me out, with two hours of overtime already on my sheet, I was a happy, tired, beaming intern.
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