Potential Listening: As my soul heals the shame, I will grow through this pain. Lord I’m doing all I can to be a better man.
To finish the story that I started in the last chapter, I called the cute Indian girl from Beer Summit on Tuesday afternoon. There was no answer on the cell phone, so I left a message saying again that I enjoyed meeting her and that when she gets the message, she should call me if she would like to and if she doesn't want to, that's cool too. It was a "Ball's in your court" move. Low and behold, what happens? What happened is what I was somewhat expecting when she didn't return the first call. She didn't call back.
Although I'm a little bit disappointed, I'm not heartbroken or anything. I think she missed out, but that's fine. She's young and will have many more chances, as I will. After all, she was only twenty one.
I think one of the reasons that I'm not as bent out of shape over this, as I would have been a year or two ago is because I think I'm in a good place without a woman. For as long as I could remember, I could always find something wrong with myself or with my life, and, really, who would want to date someone like that? How is someone like that ready to date anyone? Right now, I feel like I have fixed all of my fixable problems. The only real "problems" that I have with meeting women are the superficial ones. I can't do anything about my height, ethnicity or my predication to shoot from the hip. I think that it's all just numbers at this point. (Strangely, I think that the last statement would make my brother proud.) It doesn't mean that I can stop trying to meet someone. It just means that I gotta run through a few in order to find one that will stick around for a while. It's really all about potential. There are so many potential people out there that could click with me or that I can click with, but it's all about the aligning of circumstances and the willingness to be open to the possibilities of something. It's all about trying to figure out what that potential is.
As of late, I have also been thinking about the other connotation of potential. Growing up, my brother was the smart one of the two of us. He was the brains of the outfit and I was the schemer. I was the one who wasn't at the library when I said I would be. I was the one who didn't get into honors or AP classes. I was the one who was always stirring up trouble. My parents would always tell me that I wasn't living up to my potential and would even call me Mr. 89, because I never got that one more point that would push me up to getting an A.
I'm not entirely sure what they thought my true potential was. I'm not sure what they want me to be when I grew up. A few years ago, they were pushing for lawyer. I think that when I was in fifth grade they (and I, I guess) thought that I would be a marine biologist and in high school, a writer. The truth of the matter was that as I grew up, I realized that I despised the sciences and that even in the small ponds that I traveled in, there were writers that could conjure much bigger fish than I ever could. It was all very discouraging. What was my real potential?
When I was a child, I'm sure my parents never thought up the words "Food Stylist," "Restauranteur," "DJ," "Cook," or "Promoter" when thinking of what I could potentially be, but for sure, they came with a smile when I said "accountant" after a year of being unemployed after college.
The thing that I have realized in the past year is that potential isn't something that someone else has a grasp on for you. Sure, they can have ideas on how to use your talents, but when someone is born, they have the potential of anything. They have the potential to live a long life, but then again, they may die in a car crash. They have the potential to like spinach, but then again, they may dislike it. They mayve the potential to be the President of the United States, but that might not be what they really want.
One needs to realize for themselves what they are and what their potential is. One has to decide where they want to take their talents and their edges and go with it. The real potential doesn't have anything to do with school. School is the benchmark for the boring. This is not to say that education is useless. I feel that if someone judges themself on the standards of others, they will always be unsatisfied with who they are. There's always someone better at something than you are, just because that's the case, it doesn't make you a failure. One needs to set the bar for themselves, not based upon how that bar compares to everyone else, but how reaching that bar will make that person feel.
One of the reasons that I have been thinking a lot about potential is because I see people crumbling around me. They're broken. Some of these people, I consider much smarter than I am. Some sit around with no job smoking pot, just trying to get through the day living with mom and dad. Some people talk the talk, but aren't walking the walk, just wasting time every day that they wake up. Some people are going through the motions of day to day life with a good job and with good friends, but they have no real fire.
Some people, I want to grab and violently shake while screaming, "WAKE UP! THERE'S LIFE TO BE LIVED!" Some, I have layed into a bit, but really they're the only ones who can do something about their situation. I know this from experience. I know this, because I used to bitch and moan a whole lot, but I never did anything to go in any direction. When I send out those e-mails and cover letters in December, I took one step foreward. When I got the internship, I took another step foreward. Getting hired was another. Paying off debt was another.
I guess I was lucky though. I didn't misstep yet. I have taken a few paces in one direction and I have built up momentum. I'm sure it doesn't always work that way. I'm sure some people make horridly bad first steps and have to recover. The point is though, you always need to have personal goals and you always need to keep moving with your life, whether it's the right direction or not. Otherwise, you're dead in the water, and I know way too much to be dead in the water again.
I wish that I could nudge these people a bit, but I know it's really none of my business, just like it was none of my parents' business. These people have to realize what they want out of life in order for them to get going. I can't help them realize that. These people need to get unstuck. I know that they are more than potential stay-at-home wives or meanial unskilled labor. Believe me, I realize that the world needs those types of people, and there are some people who are just meant to go to any kind of work, come home and live a full life. My problem is that I hear and I see these people and I know they want more, but they're not willing to do anything about it. To that, I say, "Suck it up and do SOMETHING."
Anyways, enough of this diatribe on potential and going somewhere in life. Right now I'm not worried about meeting my potential mate. I'm concerned with reaching that bar that I have set for myself and living up to my own expectations in what I want to achieve. A girl? Well, that's all gravy. Dates would be nice and would be fun when I have the time, but I'm not gonna break my back over getting them.
Smooth Operator Listening: *"One By One" by Wynton Marsalis... Just try to imagine it... Now tap your feet to it.*
Well, this has been an eventful week. It's Monday night at midnight and I have been home for quite some time now. No, I didn't get fired and I didn't quit my internship. Chez Henri was closed for the Patriot Day, also know as Marathon Monday. Apparently, last year, they did around ten or fifteen covers for the entire night, so they didn't think it worth it to get anyone to come in. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed. I realize that this evening, I did a fair bit of relaxing, which is a good thing. However, I missed being in the kitchen a bit. There wasn't anything overly miraculous happening today. I'm sure I needed to relax a bit after this past weekend, but I really didn't want to. I never want to anymore. I want to keep on living life as it happens around me. I want to participate with life. When I relax, I don't really seem to do much. I watch TV or cruise the internet. I sit dormant. I feel like I'm wasting a lot of my time when I just sit there by myself watching TV or cruising the internet. I don't really like that feeling. I would rather be interacting with something or someone. I would rather be learning something new or experiencing something different.
Tonight, since I had the night off and no prior plans (which I wished that I had, but the reason for that will come later), I had dinner with my roomies The Violent One and Photogenic. Whisper was the only one that was missing of our fun-filled household, but he was in class making himself a better person. I guess that's more than I can say for myself. Anyways, we went to Sugar & Spice, a Thai place down the street. I had roasted duck on rice. I love duck. Duck is like Chicken 2.0, much like Lamb is Beef 2.0. I actually thought it was going to be a soul food place, but it was Thai. I'm not a huge Thai food fan. Maybe I just haven't had the right stuff. Maybe I should go to Thailand and get the real thing. That would be hella cool.
There was something kind of strange that happened at dinner though. I was just minding my own business when a table of girls (not so attractive girls, but girls nonetheless) ended up staring at my table (meaning the three of us eating). I notice them looking at our table. I give it a few seconds, because maybe they're just sort of checking out what we're eating. That seems highly unlikely, seeing as we are almost done eating. They're staring to the point where it's getting rather rude, so I turn to them, flash them a smile and a nod in the middle of conversation with The Violent One and Photogenic. They thought it was completely random, but I thought that the acknowledgement was a good way to get them to stop staring. Sweet bajeezums, don't people teach their kids any manners anymore. The funny thing is that they look older than I am. I'd have figured that people older than me would have learned some manners. Not so much so for the younger whippersnappers.
Anyways, after dinner, the three of us headed to Harvard Square to enjoy the weather and to poke around some stores. We ended up spending a good amount of time in Urban Outfitters' basement just checking things out. I almost bought a t-shirt that said: "I am god." on it. They both said that they could see me wearing the shirt around. Alas, they didn't have the size that I really wanted, so I didn't buy it.
After Urban, Photogenic went home to do some homework (not to be confused with housework, which she does regularly). The Violent One went on to get ice cream at Toscanini's and to browse around Newbury Comics. She walked out with nothing, but I walked out with three discs. All three were used and cost me a total under twenty dollars. It was a score. I got two Wynton Marsalis discs and a Save Ferris disc. I guess I have just been feeling the horns a lot lately. There really is something wonderful about a good horn section.
So, we got home at around ten o'clock or so and that was the end of my evening. So, as you can see, I had a rather uneventful evening. The events of this past week were off the hook though.
I guess we can start on Tuesday, my first day at sautee station. I ended up helping out everyone, but I did spend a lot of time checking out what Mark was doing. I learned a lot of new dishes and new techniques. I learned that when you want to pan fry fish, start it by heating up some blended oil. Once it's hot, but not too hot (if it's too hot, cool the pan off by touching the bottom of the pan to a pool of water like a full sink) put your fish in and drop some clarified butter in the pan. As the fish is cooking, use a spoon to baste the fish with the oil and the melted clarified butter. What this will do is it will seal the top of the fish, keeping the fat inside the meat, making it more moist and tasty. I thought that was a killer tip. I guess the sad part of the evening is that I didn't get to actually do any of the sautee cooking. I think that tomorrow I'll get to do some.
Wednesday night, I went out on a date with a girl who answered an ad of mine from a few months ago. We e-mailed. It seemed fine, but when we got together for dinner, I quickly figured out that she was boring and unattractive, two things that really spell disaster for a date. I was neither enthralled with the conversation, nor her physical appearance. It blew. At least The Violent One had locked herself out of the apartment so that I had an excuse to really make the date dinner and that's it. I had no desire to see her again. I don't think she had any desire to see me again either. I guess things worked out just fine then.
Thursday was kind of cool. On Thursday, I bounced out of work as early as possible to meet Emeril at the lobby of The State Room for a charity event that we had bought tickets for. It was a fundraiser for The Friends of Boston's Homeless where they had a bunch of different restaurants serving up quality food while Kendrick Oliver and the New Life Big Band played some killer music. There were a number of swing dancer there, maybe ten of us in total, who tore up the floor and wowed the onlookers. Emeril busted out some balboa. There was a little bit of charlestoning, but I mostly stuck to the mid-tempo lindy hop friendly tunes. I think the highlight of the evening happened while forraging for grub. I was at Hammersly's Bistro's table getting some duck when I recognized the girl spooning the orzo salad onto a plate. I met her last week at The Taste of the Nation. I asked her where the Hammersly's table was and she told me that they had run out early. I remembered her name and everything. She recognized me too. She said that she thought that I looked familiar. Then, just before Gordon Hammersly was about to give me my portion of duck, he ended up turning to another chef behind him and giving her the portion that was supposed to go to me. He then turns to me and says, "A fellow chef... We feed each other." "I know," I said to him. That's when the girl popped back in and said, "Yeah, he's in the biz." "Ohhh," said Chef Hammersly. "I think I remember seeing you last week at the Chez Henri table, right?" I now request a moment of silence. Chef Gordon Hammersly recognized me. How CRAZY it that? I was so not worthy.
After the charity event and talking to some rather attractive ladies who we wooed with our immense dancing abilities, Emeril and I headed over to Blu, which was supposed to be having an industry night for people in the restaurant business. Apparently not too many people knew about it, because there was very little traffic. Emeril and I did get a few free drinks and some rather nice cheese and pancetta out of the bargain though. It was a good time chatting with him. Back years ago, he decided that he loved programming and not library science, so he switched careers so that he could get paid doing what he loves, much like I'm doing now. We have a wide variety of things to talk about though, so we just chatted for a few hours, beverages in hand.
Friday was where the real fun started though. This past Friday, I was paid by Eurobrew to work their table at Beer Summit. It was a good gig. I set up during my lunchtime on Friday and was ready to rock at just around a quarter past six. Luckily, there weren't too many people in the house for the first fifteen minutes of the show. Before I knew it, though, things were in full swing.
This Beer Summit was different than Beer Summits of years past. My friend who started and branded the name Beer Summit sold it to another guy, so he and his crew weren't really running it this year. All of the old faces were there volunteering, but it didn't feel the same at all. The family that I had known and that I had grown with over the past few years had been replaced by these newbies, who, frankly, didn't feel like family. I think that had I not been getting paid, I would have only volunteered for one session and I would have used that to get in for free for another session. What was the most fucked up was that the volunteers that were new, they didn't recognize the old guard. I had a lot of "Excuse me, do you have a ticket?"s and a lot of "Do you know you're not supposed to be back there?"s. In the back of my head, as I'm hearing these guys say this, I'm thinking to myself, "For chrissake, I've been doing this for years. I know what I'm doing and I know how things are supposed to work." I miss the old guard running things. They were much more organized, much friendlier, and I think that they were just a little less football frat boy and more geeky frat boy. That's just how I feel though.
Probably the highlight of the weekend came on Friday night. The story never fails to amuse me. I think that it is one of the best stories of this year thus far, not counting the ongoing saga of becoming a chef. This is the story of the ZEN!!! Master attaining a simple phone number of a beautiful girl. And it goes a little something like this:
I had rationed out all of my beer so that it would last over the course of the three sessions. A third of the beer was allotted to each of the sessions. If I ran out of beer before the end of the session, then I ran out of beer. But at least I knew that I would have everything at the beginning of each session. Towards the middle to the end of the first session, which was the only session on Friday night, I ran out of my ration of Xingu, a Brazillian black lager that my company imports. This is probably one of the more sought after beers of the show. It is an extraordinarily different beer.
Anyways, I ran out of this beer, and low and behold, who is the first person to ask me for it once I've kicked my supply for the session, a cute little Indian girl. She has big eyes and a huge smile. She's about as big as my pinkie and about as cute as anything I can imagine. She strolls up to my table and asks me if she can try some Xingu. I tell her that I'm sorry but I'm all out of my supply for the session and that it makes it really hard for me to say no to a girl as cute as she is. She says okay, gives me the pouty bottom lip and walks off. I feel incredibly bad, because she was so incredibly cute. As the next hour passes, a number of people ask me for Xingu. After a while, I start to get worn down turning people down, until this one couple comes along. They're in their twenties, and are really insistant about getting some Xingu. They have to have it. They're not assholes or pathetic about wanting Xingu, but they seriously want to try it. They have read about it and they feel like their evening would have been a loss if they couldn't get to try it. So, being as worn down as I was and thinking about the first cute girl that I turned down, I made a deal with them. I told them that there was a cute little Indian girl wearing a blue fleecey jacket who was the first girl that I turned down after I kicked my supply of Xingu for the session. I told them that if they could find her and could bring her back to the table, I would open a bottle. And I would ONLY open a bottle for HER. There were a couple of people from the beef jerky table listening in on the whole deal, and they were psyched.
About fifteen minutes later, the couple comes back with the Indian girl and her girl friend in tow. I was quietly psyched. So, I open the bottle, everyone gets a taste, and the Indian girl and I start talking. I introduce myself and she introduces herself, all under the watchful eye of her friend. I made no effort to hide how cute I thought that she was. I think her friend thought that it was funny. We talk for a good ten minutes before she and her friend go off to try more beers.
Ten minutes later, she comes back to my table with a guy. I still have a little bit of Xingu in the bottle and she says that this is her friend and that he needs to try some. So I pour some for him, and we get talking some more. He then asks for another recommendation. I tell him about my favorite, the Black Sheep Ale. He tells me that he's not interested in that kind of beer and she elbows him. I don't know what that was all about. So while we're all standing there, he turns and starts talking to another girl. Clearly, they were just friends. So then she asks me, "So, do you remember my name?" I have to be honest, I only got a few vowel sounds when she told me, so I said, "Well, I think you said PiXXX, but I think it has a P and an I in it and it's really loud in here and I'm really bad with Indian names..." She tells me that it's wrong, but much closer than most other people get even without the noise and commotion of the Beer Summit. She tells me what her name is again. I ask her to spell it. After she spells it and I write it out, I ask her, "Do I get digits to go with this?" She stops, pauses, looks at me and says her number. Oh, man. It was poetry. I didn't mean to be as "smooth" (as Photogenic says) as I must have come off as. It was pretty cool though. More about this story later.
The rest of Beer Summit was pretty good. I went through all of my beer with the exception of the beer that I intended on taking to my chefs at Chez Henri. One of my coworkers from the Corporation came with some of his buddies and got completely trashed. I was peddling eleven or so beers for Eurobrew, and at about an hour and fifteen minutes from the end of each Saturday session, I did, what I called, "The Walk O' Beers," where I walked whoever was at my table at the time through all eleven of my beers from lightest to the darkest. We finished out the walk with the St. Peter's Old Style Porter and award winning Cream Stout, of which I only had three bottles of each for each session. I did "The Walk O' Beers" for both my coworker during the first session on Saturday, and for Shaft and his friends during the second session on Saturday. It was a good time and easy money.
After Beer Summit ended on Saturday night, I took my small stock of beer over to Chez Henri. I was hoping that there would be enough space at the bar in Chez Henri for Shaft and all of his friends. Unfortunately, there were about fourteen of them, so it wasn't really happening. But I had to bring the beer to Chez Henri and I had to get something to eat, so the chefs made me a Cuban sandwich and Shaft and his pals went to the Cambridge Common.
I really didn't mean to take as long as I did. It was just that the sandwich was large and the French film student who is filming a documentary project on Chez Henri was there. I ended up eating slower than usual, because I spent a lot of time talking with the French film student, Chef Bob, Chef Mark, and the French film student's friend. Our topics ran around the gammit, but mostly centered on the restaurant, food and cooking. Probably one of most interesting conversation was about whether Americans season their food too much. The French girl though they did, her friend, who was Spanish, thought they didn't season enough. It was pretty entertaining.
I do have to say that I have a small crush on the French film student. She's wikkid cute and she reminds me of Julie Delpy. Call it a fantasy of mine. We actually spent a large chunk of time talking one on one. It was probably about an hour (as you can see how long I abandoned my friends at the Cambridge Common over a chick with an accent). I found out a lot about her, though I can't for the life of me remember her name. We were both at the screening of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset at the MFA with Julie Delpy. I actually think that I remember seeing her there and she was shocked to hear that I was the guy who asked the dumb question. I'll let you dig for what the question was in the old entries.
But I had a good time talking with her. She ate plantain chips off of my plate. It was kind of nice having someone cute pick food off of my plate. I know Totoro would have probably been livid, but I think that it kind of shows a kind of confort level between two people. I welcome this girl feeling more comfortable with me. ^_^
By the time I was ready to leave the Chez, it was already one in the morning and my friends at the Cambridge Common were ready to go home to crash. So i sent them off in cabs and I ended up walking home, because I thought that it would have just been weird for me to leave to be with my friends and then walk back in to sit down and talk with the French film student.
Sunday morning, I had brunch at the West Side Lounge with The Violent One, Shaft and all of his friends. There were eleven of us and we had the worst service. It was absolutely horrible. Our waiter was near incompetant. As a restaurant worker, I give these people a lot of lead way. I know that bad things can happen and they'll effect the service, but this was just a bad waiter. I could tell. The food wasn't too bad, and the bartender was kind of cute, so I guess it was alright. I just needed to hang out with my buddy, Shaft, a bit more this weekend. It's tough seeing people when you have two and a half jobs.
After brunch, I tried to call the Indian girl from Friday night. I got her voicemail. I knew that I would be having tonight off, so I thought it might be a good idea to call her on Sunday to see if she wanted to have dinner tonight. Well, she didn't call back, but I didn't really ask her to. I told her that if I got out of work early enough, I would try her back later, but that didn't happen. I was going to try to call her today while I was in the office, but got advice to let it sit for a day. So I'm going to call her tomorrow to see if she wants to have dinner on Wednesday.
I got to work on Sunday at two o'clock, the time I thought that I was supposed to show up. It turns out that I was supposed to get there at half past two, so I spent a half hour listening to my iPod on the sidewalk in front of Chez Henri. It was so nice outside that I didn't mind it. Even after Chef Mark showed up, we just sort of hung out sitting on the sidewalk for a while before going in.
We had a nice conversation about women. It seems as if we have the same tastes in women. We both dig the French film student and we commented on women who walked by. It's a shame, because I know that if it came to looks, he'd win the girl every time. He's taller, blonder, more chisled, more outgoingly confident, and just a general ladies man. Me, I'm a guy you have to warm up to.
Anyways, I was a mess on Sunday. I didn't get half of the stuff done that I wanted to, but I made it through service. I was slow and rather disappointed with myself. I think that I was mildly exhausted from all of the action on Thursday through Saturday that it kind of caught up with me (which made relaxing today, probably my best choice). When I got home at half past ten, I plopped down on the couch and was promptly asleep on the couch by a quarter past eleven. I finally got my ass up at three in the morning and fell fast asleep in a hurry.
Well, that was my week. It was pretty damn eventful. This week should be significantly slower. I think it should be good for me. Hopefully, I'll have a date on Wednesday. Everyone cross your fingers and toes that I get a good reaction when I try to call the cute Indian girl tomorrow.
Movin' On Up Listening: Yo, I'm the type that's always catchin a flight and sometimes I gotta be out at the height of the night.
I can't believe this. This is like a fucking dream. Today, I walked into Chez Henri, and the Sous Chef, Mark, looked at me and said, "What the fuck are you doing here?" Apparently, Chef Bob didn't tell Chef Mark that I told him that I'd still come in on Mondays and Tuesdays unless they kicked me out of the kitchen. Mark thought that was awesome. So I worked a normal Monday night. At the end of the night, I end up sitting with Chef Mark, Dylan, the bar manager, and a guy who is a really well respected cook in Boston.
Anyways, we start talking about people in the kitchen and who we like and who we don't like and why, when Mark turns to me and says. "Dude, since you're not getting paid, why don't you fuckin' come over and work with me and trail for sautee. Leave fuckin' Glen (whose real name is Greg) in the weeds to fend for his fuckin' self." I'm floored. The brother wants me to train for freakin' sautee. I have been at the restaurant for three months, employed for almost two weeks, and he wants to start moving me up. This is AWESOME! I am so psyched. I feel like they think that I have potential and talent. I feel like they have respect for me even though I don't feel like I deserve it yet. Oh, man, this is out of control.
The next awesome thing was this guy who was hanging out with Dylan, Mark and I. He has worked at numerous different restaurants, for numerous different chefs. He knows his shit. He's good. He went to Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island. We ended up talking a lot about what I had been doing for Chez Henri and about what I want to do in the future. I told him about wanting to get into the Craigie Street Bistrot. It turned out that he was the sous chef there for a while. He told me that the chef there was a complete prick, but he was by far producing the best food in Boston and that I would even be hard pressed to find comparable food in New York City. I've eaten there. I know what he's saying. I think that the Craigie Street Bistrot topped Les Halles by a landslide. He told me that it's a completely different environmment from Chez Henri and that I should go work there for a night or two a week, but be prepared to be yelled at, screamed at and degraded. Be prepared for a hostile environment. What he said, though it scared me a bit, it also made me want to do it. Not because I want to get yelled at and screamed at, but because I feel like I will need to deal with that at some point in time in the future. I might as well deal with it and get a thick skin about it while learning some classical French cuisine.
The second thing that this guy told me was that I, straight up, shouldn't go to culinary school. He said that all I need to learn, I can learn from the right chefs and the right restaurants. He felt that though he was a straight A student at Johnson & Wales, they were just a company looking to get their hands on his money. He felt that he learned much more from being in the right kitchens and so on and so forth. He gave me a lot to think about. I'm sure that I'll be able to talk to him much more over the next couple of weeks, since he is filling in for some of the people who left the restaurant. I hope to learn much, much more from everyone that I meet in the kitchen.
Another random thing was that when we were talking about people in the kitchen, we were talking about the new grill cook. Mark doesn't like the kid, because he's a dirty cook (meaning messy) and feels that he just doesn't "get it, so to speak. I told Mark to hold off until the end of August and that I would probably be available to take the position. Mark then said to me that he didn't really see me as a grill cook, but more of a sautee guy, which is why, I guess, that he wants me to trail with him tomorrow. Aww, man. So freaking cool.
Anyways, it's time for me to go to sleep. I have a big day of sauteeing ahead of me.
172 Covers, 3 Girls, Numerous Pints & Still Standing Listening: I got you on my mind. You take my heart and you run away. I got you on my mind.
Man, my posting becomes less frequent with every passing week. My time just keeps getting zapped and I find myself just sort of chilling out when I have the extra time. This week was insane. I worked four nights at the restaurant, two nights at benefits and one night I went out drinking with Special K. So, here goes the rundown for the week.
This Monday night was pretty slow. There just wasn't much to be said about. Tuesday night, on the other hand was a different story. The beginning of the warm weather brought the crowds out. We did somewhere between sixty and seventy covers that night in the dining room and the bar ahd pretty good traffic too. That's hella busy for a Tuesday night. Greg and I were rockin' it out though. Every day that I work, I get quicker and quicker. I think that I have the quality plating down to a science. I just need to work on my speed. I think sometimes, if I have a lot of tickets up and stuff is all working at the same time, I get turned around as to the order that I need to do things in, but I'm generally pretty good. I think my biggest downfall these days is that I keep forgetting to put the brioche in the oven for the galantine.
Wednesday night, I got a call from Special K while I was at work. Again, it was a hella nice night outside. Fortunately, I didn't have plans, so we went out to grab some grub at Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square and then we kicked it to the Enormous Room (which was hella lame that night), The Phoenix Landing (which played hella lame blippy loopy house), and to the Middlesex Louge (where we heckled the hell out of people). It was a good time. Special K adn I haven't really hung out much in the last few months. We've both been busy and so on and so forth. I have to say, it was so nice out that night. I had on my Joe's Grille jacket on and was perfectly comfortable walking from Porter to Harvard and then from Harvard to Central.
Thursday night was a big night for me. I went to Taste of the Nation as one of the three people running Chez Henri's table. Since I got there late due to my nine to five, I went in the front entrance where I was stopped by a security guard. He asked me for a ticket and when I told him that I worked for Chez Henri, he asked me if I was on the list. I told him that I should be and he left for a minute. He then asked me my name and my restaurant again. I told him and he left again. He was wikkid gruff the whole time. There was no politeness in him. When he came back, he handed me a chef's coat. I said thanks, as I started to walk into the convention room and he stopped me again. He said that I had to put on the chef's coat before I went in. So I had to strip off all of my gear and put on the coat before going in. What a freakin' arse.
The event itself was great. It was kind of overwhelming. I didn't get to eat at nearly as many restaurants as I wanted to. I did some good networking and ate some good food. Chez Henri was featuring creme puffs with a chantilly cocoa creme and a roasted habanero caramel. It was damn good, but messy as hell to assemble and plate. I had some great stuffed grape leaves from a place called Ithaki in Ipswitch and a great bit of terrine and some rillets from teh Craigie Street Bistrot.
The networking went well for me too. I spend a great deal of time talking with Marjorie Maws, Tony Maws' mother, who does the HR from the Craigie Street Bistrot. I told her that I had e-mailed and called the restaurant when looking for internships. She asked me if I had received a call back. I told her no. She said that that was strange, because she usually calls everyone back. Anyways, I told her what I was doing and she said that I should drop her an e-mail or a call and tell her that we met at the Taste of the Nation and that if I wanted to, I could come in and check out their kitchen. *gasp* Maybe I could pick up another place that serves strictly classical French cuisine. My, I if I do dare to admit it, I am getting butterflies at the though. To handle whole lobes of fois gras. *sigh*
I also ran into Tony, who used to work at Chez Henri. He had an amusing tale to tell. When he left Chez Henri, he went to work as the Executive Sous Chef at The Top Of The Hub. He liked working at Chez Henri, but The Top Of The Hub was offering an executive position with benefits and so he thought it would be a better move for him. It turned out that he hated the executive, big brother is watching atmosphere and started butting heads with his boss. All the while, he was being wooed by another restaurant. He had this other restaurant, Tryst, in his pocket, so one day he was having an arguement with his boss while cooking the line when his boss said, "Well, if you don't like it, then why don't you quit?" Tony, being the rockstar/cowboy that he is, in the middle of service, while cooking the line, rips off his apron, and says, "You know what? You're right! Fuck it! I'm outta here." and storms off the line. Many people dream of doing this, but Tony got to live it. Amazing.
Now I don't want to glorify what he did, because it probably wasn't a smart thing to do. It's slowly but surely getting around the Boston culinary scene, so now he's going to have to deal with that whenever he tries to move somewhere new. But I have to admit, it takes balls and I'm sure it was a great deal of instant gratification for him. A lot of my coworkers at Chez Henri don't really care for him. But this could be a symptom of why. He is a rockstar/cowboy. He acts like it. But he has always been nice, communicative, clean and gets his shit done. His platings always look flawless, so I liked working with him. I would hire him in and instant. I think you just need to know how to talk to him.
Besides my pastry chef, there was another girl working the Chez Henri table. She used to work Garde Manger at Chez Henri back in the day. She was wikkid cool. An asian girl from Seattle who worked at Chez Henri, then at Grotto, then at a coffee house, who has tattoos and piercings and is really really personable and intelligent. Wow. We ended up hanging out and drinking at Chez Henri after the event. We kind of hit it off, I think. She was supposed to come in to work with me on Saturday, but ended up getting swamped at her other job. We're also supposed to go out sometime soon, but I have to get her number or the place where she works from my pastry chef.
Friday night, I worked a star studded benefit for Urban Improv at Avalon with Chef Paul. We served quiche of all things. It was a pretty lame thing to serve, but, hey, I'm not the chef and it wasn't my call. One of my friends from college who is the pastry chef at Locke Ober was manning their booth. It was good to see her. She had on a pink chef's coat with her name, position and restaurant embroidered into it. Glamorous. I'm not quite ready for that yet, but I'm sure I'll get there someday.
The benefit itself was a comedy show put on by a number of Boston celebrities. Mayor Meninio was dressed up as Prince Charles and the bassist from Aerosmith played Camilla Parker Bowles. It was quite amusing. They took some major cuts on the democrats throughout the night. There was one where someone pretended to be Theresa Heinz-Kerry and proclaimed that her husband had "Electile Disfunction." There was also a person pretending to be Kerry Healey who proclaimed that no one believed that she existed. It was kind of amusing. There were just so many people there. Natalie Jacobsen was the M.C. for the night. I could have gotten my picture taken with the World Series trophy for twenty five bones, but I opted out.
After that benefit, I went home and did some laundry, before going out for dinner/breakfast at the South Street Diner with Photogenic and Whisper at around midnight. It was a good time. I didn't get to sleep until around three.
Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early at eleven in the morning. I got just the right amount of sleep, I think. I tooled around the apartment for a bit and ended up going to work an hour early at one in the afternoon. My thinking was that since last Saturday, I got my ass kicked, I would come in an extra hour early and I would crank out as much more work as I could this Saturday. It worked too. I was able to work around the pastry chef and there were only a few things that I didn't manage to finish, all of which were really simple tasks like wedging some lemons or picking some mint.
What was more important about this Saturday was that the reservation book for Saturday was completely booked up solid and that one of those reservations was a group of my friends and some of their friends. It was one of my friend's "Supper Club." Photogenic, Fester, and Digitaldewi were all there. It was the first time that Fester had been to my place of business. I wanted to send them out a bunch of stuff, but within ten minutes of them being seated, the rest of the dining room was full and the tickets started flying in. I was, however, able to send them out some empanadas. What I really wanted to do was send them out three mini ceviches, but it would have taken five minutes more of focus time that I just couldn't afford that night.
My table of friends were the talk of the night though. We were all gossiping about who was hot and who they would get down with. I know. I'm a slimy man, but, yes, I am a man. I think I might try to hook up one of the waiters with one of my friends. That could be really entertaining. I'll admit that a bunch of the women at the table were really attractive. One was scorchingly hot, but I don't think I'm anywhere near her type. It was funny hearing them talk about the girls though. Heh heh heh. It was pimptastic.
Anyways, Saturday night was the second busiest night that Mark, the sous chef, had ever seen at Chez Henri. We did about a hundred and seventy two covers all night in the dining room. They don't count the covers in the bar, but Dillon, the bar manager that night said that it was a zoo the entire night. We were serving dinner menu items out there as well. The miraculous thing was that Jose and I didn't get behind very much. We were under the eight ball a couple of times. For me, it was because the cheese plate took me forever to make due to my knife skills being not nearly as good as Justin's or Jose's at this point and the second time was because we had 10 creme brulees on the board and one of our torches burst into flames right in front of me (yeah, no bueno) and the other one's flame kept fluctuating so you had to keep adjusting the gas as you burnt the sugar. Sometimes it would flare up and other times it would die out. You had to adjust the gas accordingly. But yeah, it was a rockstar night for me that night. Jose and I got mad props.
At the end of the night, it felt so good to sit down with a beer and the staff meal that I had saved. I felt like I accomplished something. Apparently, a lot of people sent compliments back to the kitchen. Ahh, it felt so nice to be appreciated. It really was a natural high working on Saturday. I really feel like I'm earning my wings and that once I'm ready to fly this coop, I'm going to be able to say, "Yeah, I worked G.M. at Chez Henri. I rocked out a hundred and seventy two covers in a night not including all of my bar food. I'm tough as nails and I can push through when in the weeds." Garde Manger is definitely a character building station. We have the most number of dishes, the smallest area, and the most shit from the rest of the line when we don't get our stuff out on time. Saturday, though, hurt so good.
Sunday, on the other hand was slow as shit. Prep went perfectly fine. Everything was neat and clean. And everything was slow. I actually got sent home at eight o'clock, so I only banked a total of sixteen hours this week. I worked twenty one billable hours last week, and that check paid for about two thirds of my rent. Rockin! This extra paycheck is going to make it so much easier to pay everything off.
Since I was let go early, I ended up going out for dinner and ice cream with The Violent One and Ebonically Linguistic. We got home at around eleven o'clock in the evening and I proceeded to vege out for a few hours in front of the television (something I haven't done much of in the last few weeks). And that was the end of a weekend.
Something else that happened this weekend. There was some sort of plumming issue above our kitchen in the apartment. Scalding hot water kept pouring down from the ceiling above my sink and my refidgerator. The Violent One and Photogenic set up an elaborate water catching system made of trash bags that flowed off into the sink and called the builing manager and stuff. They're going to fix it this week though. Unfortunately, I won't be able to cook for the rest of the week at home.
But all in all, life is good. I'm busy to boot. I'm beating off women with a stick. Well, not really. There was the girl I went out with last week, who I haven't really had time to call, and then another girl from craigslist that I'm blowing off, because she just doesn't seem to be all that interesting or attractive. I may try to hook myself up with a friend of a friend or the girl from the benefit, or maybe I'll even meet someone at Beer Summit this weekend. Who knows? All I know is that it's all good. I'm still having a great time with life, amazingly enough. A good run, I tell ya, a good run.
This week will be interesting as well. I'm working Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I have off, but I might go on a date with craigslist girl though I'm not really feeling it. Thursday I'm going to a benefit with killer food and an impressive big band (from what I hear). Friday and Saturday are Beer Summit. Shaft and his girl are coming up for that. And Sunday, I'm working at Chez Henri again. Cool stuff!
Raped, Pillaged And Then Reclaimed Listening: Who made up all the rules? We follow them like fools, believe them to be true, don't care to think them through.
It's twenty past one in the morning and despite my multiple handwashings, showers and eating of other foods, my fingers smell like scallops.
Here's a quick rundown of the week before I get to to juicy stuff. Monday, I worked at the Corporation as well as at Chez Henri. Things were weird as hell on Monday. From the time I walked in the door, we were being slammed. Justin was running on adrenaline and I ended up having to go down to the prep area in the basement to make more Cuban sandwiches. By the time I came back up, things subsided a bit and then picked up again as all of those folks who Justing made apps for ordered desserts. However, after all of those desserts were out, the place was dead. It was absolutely a ghost town.
Tuesday went much the same way, except for the fact that it was Justin's last day. Chef Paul was in the house and he pretty much fed us wine all throught the service. By the end of the service, Justin was pretty loopy. It was pretty funny all in all. There were times in the service where Chef Bob would call Justin on a mistake that he would be making or that his apps were hitting the window a little bit slower than they should be, and his response was, "Sorry, Chef. This is the last time it'll happen." It was hilarious. Chef B, Chef Bob, and Israel were all cracking up at that.
After the service, we all sat around the bar and drank. It was myself, Justin, Chef Bob, Chef B, Laura (one of the bar managers, her boyfriend, Chef Paul, and Robby K (one of the servers). Mark came a little bit later as did Justin's girlfriend and brother. It was a good time and it was a good way to send off Justin. I'm gonna miss that goofball. He taught me the most about the job and about how to effectively operate a station. For that I will be forever grateful and I'm sure that if and when I make it, he'll probably be one of the top people on my list of people to thank.
I didn't get out of the bar until sometime around two in the morning. Justin's sober brother gave me a lift back to my place. The next morning I was exhausted though. I got into work about five minutes earlier than I usually do. It was strange. Since it was a Wednesday, I had all of my weekly reporting duties to fulfill. And thus the day was rather busy. When I got home, I made turkey lettuce wraps for the roomies and for Ebonically Linguistic. We ate and watched Alias. It was an altogether uneventful night, but since I had events planned this weekend, I opted to keep it chilled.
Thursday was the beginning of month end and Month End reporting. Luckily, my manager asked the guy who got the promotion over me to help the Fobby-FOB with his monthly reports. I was able to do my stuff and take care of everything on my own. Ahh. It felt nice not to have to worry about that useless waste of misfiring neurons.
Thursday night, I went out on a date with the girl I met at Soul Revival. Again, she seemed really cool, but I'm totally not sweating her. I don't know if I'm vibing her or not. We have a ton in common. We have good conversation. She's nice and she's wikkid into me. Me, well, she's cool and all, but I have a lot of other things that are priorities in my life. I'm definitely not looking for anything serious, for once in my life. I guess that if she was looking to get down, I probably wouldn't say no. I would have to schedule it weeks in advance, but I guess that's how things go for me these days. I think that I'll probably end up seeing her again, though.
Friday, I finished the first two thirds of my monthly reporting at the Corporation and even stayed about a half hour after everyone else left just so I could get my crap photocopied. After work, I ended up grabbing dinner with Hulk at Brother Jimmy's. It was a good time. Since I quit dragon boat, we just haven't hung out as much as we used to. It was good to catch up with him and get the skinny with what was up. There was some interesting stuff and some stuff that was downright disturbing. I don't know. So many people mix business and pleasure and can't hold the line between friendships and business decisions. People take things personally and it isn't meant to have been. It was in the interest of business and is completely separate from friend relationships. Maybe I'm just a rare case, but even if I felt animosity against the club due to how I was kind of stonewalled out of the club, I don't hold any of my friends who were responsible for getting me out in contempt. I realize that that was business and we're friends outside of all of that.
Yeah, we had a long ass dinner though. We were waited on by this amazingly cute waitress who just seemed so stressed and rushed around. She still managed a smile and was even a little touchy feely, but she was exhausted. I really wanted for her to sit down for a second just to catch her breath. She not only had to wait on people in our dining room, but also had to wait on people in the room below and the room above. It was sick to the point of being poor management on whoever was running the front of the house. But she was amazingly cute. *sigh* * swoon*
Saturday, I got my ass kicked. Saturday was my first day ever prepping by myself. With Justin gone, I was hired on part time and this was my first day doing it all. I went in at two in the afternoon. I was going in early in an effort to get myself accustomed to doing it on my own, setting up my station and so on and so forth. Boy, was I unprepared. First of all, I had no clue what I was doing. Zero. I didn't know half of the recipes. I didn't know where certain things were. Oh man, and for the first hour and a half, I felt like I had my thumb plunged securely up my arse.
The second thing that threw me off was that the pastry chef was using the prep table behind my station, where I ususally house a bunch of my items for some of my dishes. I could barely set up my station with her there. It was like I was confined to a tiny little workspace that I had no maneuverability in. I barely got anything done at all.
Probably one of the biggest things to throw me off was the fact that my prep sheet was off. The guy who filled it out the night before pretty much told me that I needed to prep a lot of things that I had plenty of and failed to mention that I needed a bunch of things that I didn't have. Oh man, did I look bad.
The service that night was pretty insane. We did like a hundred and twenty two covers that night. We had some huge parties with tickets that were about a foot long, and that was just for the apps and entrees. All throughout service, I was kicking myself for being so freaking incompetent. Jose, who was my wingman from about four thirty on and usually was my wingman when Justin wasn't prepping, said that I did a really good job for someone doing prep by himself to closing for the first time. Mark, who was working the adjacent grill station, said that I can't be expected to rock it right out of the gates and that I wasn't getting my ass kicked nearly as much as I thought that I was. But, man, was it frustrating.
After the service, I sat down with a Cuban sandwich and a couple of Red Stripes and talked with some of the guys. I think that the most helpful guy I talked to was the sautee cook, Jason. He told me to get all of the time consuming and hard stuff first, that way, if you don't finish everything, you can just do that during service. That afternoon, I did things the other way around. I tried to get all of my easy stuff done early so that I could focus on the hard stuff.
After my beers and my food, I went home, broken and exhausted. I was tired and wrecked, and I cam home to an empty house. No one was home. After I showered, Photogenic came home and literally two minutes after she got home, The Violent One got home. Instead of going to sleep right away, I snacked and chatted with my roomies about random shit for an hour or so. But, before two in the morning, I was alseep with my clocks sprung forward.
Today was very different from yesterday. I was there, again at two in the afternoon. I was the first one there, so I had to wait for someone to get there to unlock the doors. When I finally got let into the kitchen, I was focused. I made my own prep list last night, so I knew what I needed and so on and so forth. I made a list and only made two trips to the basement, as opposed to the ten or twelve trips that I made the day before. The first things that I did was that I made two sauces that i had never made before. I made the roquefort sauce for the carpaccio and the chipotle vinegarette for the spinach salad with the duck tamale. The roquefort sauce that I made was far superior to the last one that was made. It just tasted better. The chipotle. The only things that I didn't have prepped before the service were my backups of mixed baby greens and mesculn, my radicchio. Everything else was good to go. Jose made the Cubans and the chipotle aioli, but other than that I had the rest of it covered. I think that the next time that I do the prep work, I'll be able to get even more done and I'll be able to make backups and so on and so forth. I know that when Greg goes in tomorrow, he's going to have to make a bunch of stuff. I don't know if Jose put it on the prep list, because I got cut at about nine thirty, but I would have mentioned the dijon vinegarette, lime juice, blood orange segments, croutons, a backup of chipotle vinegarette, red onion, poached leeks, avocado puree, and I think that's it.
As I said, I got cut early today, but between working nine and a half hours yesterday and seven and a half hours today, I clocked in for a total of seventeen hours. Woo! That'd give me some cash to be put towards my debt. It's not money that I haven't earned though. This week's war wounds include a burn on the back of my right ring finger from touching the oven door while trying to close it with the back of my hand while holding a sheetpan and a cut in my fingernail from almost taking off a digit while shredding radicchio.
Anyways, iit's late and I have to be going. This week promises to be one of the busiest in months past. I'm, again working four days at Chez Henri in addition to the nine to fiver. I'm also working two charity events on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, I'll be working Taste of The Nation with my pastry chef and on Friday, I'm doing some sort of event at Avalon with Chef Paul. It should be a good time. With Wednesday being my only day off, I had better make it count. For now, though, time to sleep.
