The Journey Continues

03-15-20

Now that I had made up my mind as far as what I wanted my career to be, I had to figure out how to do it. First thing I had to do was find a job. I knew that I was way more knowledgeable about food than most entry level culinary students but I also didn’t want to get ahead of myself and make an ass out of myself. I’d help my father grilled steaks at least a dozen times and I had grilled as well a handful of times so I decided to shoot for a Steakhouse. How hard could it be right?! Boy was I in for a treat.

I went into said steakhouse with my head held high and the mentality that I owned the place. The Sous Chef who interviewed me was very nice although in the back of his mind I’m sure he thought I was a total douche. I got the job and started the following day. Ecstatic about my accomplishment I went to bed early that night and got myself ready for the next day way before I had to be there. My brain was so clouded with arrogance it wasn’t even funny. “I’m gonna show these people how it’s done I thought” when in reality the only place I’d ever worked before this was a Subway Sandwich shop.

When I arrived at the restaurant that day they showed me the ropes and went over the menu, they took me back to this little tiny stainless steal table in the back of the restaurant and told me to grab a cutting board. I asked one of the servers where they were kept and when I grabbed one and turned around there was the chef again with a black cart with 3 50 pound boxes of Idaho Potatoes on it. He tossed me a potato peeler and said “Holler at me when you’re done”. I looked around the room to see if anyone had seen what just transpired and there wasn’t anyone in sight. Here I am walking in with my head held high thinking I’m going to grill some steaks only to find out my sole purpose in the restaurant, was to peel potatoes.

If there is one thing that I’ve learned in the years I’ve spent working in kitchens it’s that no one man is more important than the other. Sure some are more skillful and everyone has their weak points but we are a team in the kitchen, or that’s how it should be. I felt so down for the weeks following my first day at the steakhouse. I felt I was better than that, cursing the chef under my breath for making me do this. Eventually the chef started throwing small tasks into my daily routine, I was now skewering vegetables for a grilled vegetable skewer thing and making sure everything had a proper date and label. I felt like he was just giving me the tasks he didn’t want to do.

It made it hard to come to work some days, my hands were starting to have this weird almost grainy texture from all of the starch in the potatoes. One thing I did notice though is that I was getting faster. What used to take me 4 hours was now taking me 3 hours. One morning when I arrived I decided to time myself how many potatoes could I peel in 5 minutes? I was able to get 8. If I went full speed ahead i figured I could peel all 3 boxes in 2 hours. Buckling down and hustling as hard as I could I got it done in 2 hours and 10 mins. The next day I tried to get two hours. I was still over 4 mins. I kept challenging myself until I got to two hours, it took about 4 days to get there. It kind of started to make work a little more fun. Each day I tried to beat my time from the previous day. Around 2 weeks of my little game the chef approached me and told me “ I was going a great job and to keep it up”

One morning I arrived at work to find an ambulance parked outside the restaurant and immediately I rushed inside to see what was going on. Our veteran grill cook Jaime had slipped on an oil spot and fell, hitting his head on the broiler on the way down. Apparently it was a pretty nasty fall. Out of nowhere the chef grabs my shoulder and tells me “go grab an apron, I’m teaching you grill today”. Stupidly I replied “what about the potatoes” And he looked at me with this glare of discussed and said “I’ve got the dishwasher on that one”. This was it! This was my time to shine and all I could say was what about the potatoes? I quickly scurried back to the linen closet and grabbed an apron and rushed back to the grill. Finally my hard work had paid off.

To Be Continued……