Longest and Best Day Yet

This morning started off a bit rough. I woke up plenty early, was ahead of schedule and decided to head to work a few minutes early for I could grab a bowl of cereal there, since it's free. Well I got about 10 minutes into my 25 minute walk, and realized my swipe card wasn't in my pocket where I thought I had put it this morning. I had already forgotten the card once, and we only get 3 chances before we get written up, so I ran home, to look for it. I tore apart my room, and could not find it. It was now 7:00 and I had to be in the kitchen, dressed, by 7:30. So I took off without the card, and ran to work. I got someone else to let me into the building, and ordered a new card from HR.

When I entered the kitchen, on time might I add, I noticed a beeping sound. This was the carbon monoxide detector. They didn't know if it was malfunctioning or actually going off, but we all had our work to do, so the engineers were called down and everyone went back to work.

Matt was in today, so there were three of us to work in Garde Manger, and thank goodness he was in, as we had a busy day ahead of us.

I got started on salads, I made the same salad as I did the first day I was in. The cherry tomato, green onion and grilled lemon. This time I made sure to remove all the seeds before I went to grill the lemon, as it is a lot harder to remove hot seeds from a hot lemon.

Afterwards I began to set up for a build your own sandwich bar. I plated up some rye bread, whole wheat bread and sourdough for the bread choices. I had a lot of left over cut up vegetables from the day before, all I had to do was slice up a few cucumbers. I pulled out the Mandolin and was shown how to set it up, and sliced away. I love the mandolin, it makes this job so much easier and quicker.
I also needed to bowl up some gherkins and dill pickles. After a long trip to dry storage, which is a few hallways away, I searched and searched and couldn't find the dill pickles. I went to F1, one of the walk-in fridges, where they should be stored. Here I was told that there were none, and the order for them would be in tomorrow.

I wandered over to 44 North's kitchen, where Pat pointed me towards a bucket of dill pickles. They weren't pre-sliced, but at this point I could care less. I sliced them up, bowled them up, and with that I was finished that order.

At this point I looked over to see what Jennifer was up to. She was rolling goat cheese into small balls, and then rolling them in toasted mixed nuts. I tried one and they were surprisingly, amazingly delicious.

When we came in this morning, we had to quickly bowl up 24 apples, 24 bananas and 24 oranges for the staff. HR was delivering healthy snacks to everyone throughout the day. This is my stash, veggie chips and Oreo thin-sations. They also had granola bars, the fruit, fruit-to-go snacks, and many 100 calorie treat bags.

Next on the list was a mix plate of grilled veggies. So I set off to grill up my vegetables.I was just grilling away, having the time of my life when Chef Brian came over, and I noticed the whole room was smoky. The marinade from the portabello mushrooms, was flammable, so when I saw flames, I didn't worry, but I had forgotten to turn of the vents. Oops. I finished the grilling up, now with the vents on, and a good chuckle shared between Chef Brian and I. Turns out I was too short to reach the vent switch anyways.

In the middle of my grilling, I was pulled away, as we were doing a plate up. This is when most of the current kitchen staff gathers around a conveyor belt, and we do up plates. Each task is broken down so it can run by quickly. For example, my task was sprinkling roasted almonds onto steamed beans. These plates were going up to a banquet, the difference between this and previous banquet orders, is that it's a sit down, as opposed to guests serving themselves.

I put the grilled veg into the oven for a bit, let them roast, and then cut them up into rather large batonnettes and trayed them. Must say, the mushrooms were very delicious. These will be served cold, which confuses me a bit. I wouldn't enjoy eating a soft roasted vegetable, unless it was warm, or hot. Cold, it just seems like a forgotten leftover.

These mushrooms were also delicious, and I was very proud of myself for making them. They were marinated in balsamic vinegar, which I love to death, so they tasted divine. (This is saying a lot since I HATE cooked mushrooms.)

I also made sandwiches today :)
Turkey with cranberry mayo and mozarella.
Ham with Dijon mustard and swiss.
Tuna salad, that I made myself. (I still strongly dislike the smell of tuna.)
I really enjoyed making the sandwiches, they were fairly easy to make, and once I got a system going, I'm sure I could bang out a bunch of them in no time at all. Just like making suppers with Gramp, all I need is a system and everything will run smoothly. All in all I think I am getting the hang of things, although so far nothing is at all too challenging to have to worry about being thrown under the bus. I know I ask a lot of questions, but for the most part I'm just double checking, confirming that what I know is right, is actually right. Also I'm finding that things I was taught in school, don't apply here, as they have their own way that they want to do something.

All in all it was a long day, I worked 11 hours today, on my feet, and it is bed time, for sure. At the end of the day, Chef gave us cab coupons, so we could take the cab home. Very rewarding; after working all day, I was dreading the walk home... uphill.