Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Plating



After enjoying my last weekend off for presumably the rest of my life, I worked a 10 and a 12-hour shift on consecutive days. I need to come clean right away and say that both of those numbers are exaggerated, but only by minutes. The hardest part was getting home at roughly 10pm last night and waking up just after 5am to go work at the laminating factory. I was tired, and I very simply didn’t want to go to that job anymore. Although it is probably necessary to sustain my income, I can’t see myself as a laminator for very much longer. I quit last week, and I’ll do it again, I promise.

Two days into this new experience with Levy Restaurants, I can tell you that I like it. After doing nothing but prep for the first 18 hours of my tenure there, I finally got to plate my first order last night shortly after 6pm. The Wild hadn’t started yet, and I was placed in a small kitchen on the suite level at the Xcel Center. I was given a menu—the same menu given to the customers—and told by my boss that I had enough experience as a line cook to do just fine. He said it would be slow, and he was right, but either way I jumped right in and felt right at home behind the line. The menu was simple—only ten items—and all I really had to do was assemble all of the ingredients I had spent all of that time preparing.

Here’s the menu from memory (I have a copy of it at home, but I’m gonna try anyhow).
1.       Spicy dry-rub chicken wings.
2.       Sirloin-swiss melt with chips.
3.       Pork belly steam bread “tacos.” (Yum.)
4.       Mac and cheese
5.       Bacon-jalapeno-cheddar pretzel (Remember I’m still serving in a stadium.)
6.       Olivino mozzarella flatbread with balsamic reduction.
7.       Some kind of chicken salad.
8.       Hmmmm. I guess I should have taken the menu with me.

I know there was more, I just can’t recall. I also know I didn’t make everything on the menu last night, so that’s what I blame on my forgetful memory.

I’ve always had a knack for plating. What that means is the presentation of the food on the plate. The wait staff seemed very pleased with the limited amount of work I was able to do last night, and asked if I could work up there every event. They said that it looked like I cared and was enthusiastic, based on the plates I was putting out, and, I’m sure my charming demeanor. I’m one of the best chefs in the state, just ask me!

I was dead-tired when my alarm went off this morning at 5:20. I got up, let Willie out, let Willie Jr. out, and headed out to laminate. My feet were killing me, so it really hurt when I ran into a bolt that was sticking out of the floor, about three inches, and for a brief minute, I thought I had a broken foot. I suffered through that and when I was done with work, I took my tired feet for a 35-minute run around Lake LA. My Fitbit claims that I have taken 66,135 steps since midnight, Monday. It feels like it. Tomorrow, Thursday, I’m not working anywhere. I’d love to sit around the house and watch T.V. all day, but I have too much to do. Tomorrow night I’m speaking at the Center for Victims of Torture on my experience with segregation. Growing up a black boy in a white world I have a lot of experience with that. Just kidding. Segregation in this case means the hole—my anus. Ok fine, I’ll stop. I’m speaking on my experience with isolation in prison. The hole is a terrible place to live, even though it was only for six days. I have to talk for ten minutes on my experience and how it relates to my relationships with people after my release. So, I have my plate full, so to speak.

Tomorrow, for the first time in months, I won’t have an alarm set. Yep, I’m going to sleep in as long as I can. Usually that means I’ll be up at 5, but I’m going to try to go back to sleep if that happens. Now I’m just rambling, so I say good day.

And Counting

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