Yeah, yeah...

Okay so it’s been a while since I updated. There hasn’t really been much to put in here – I’ve been working 4 days a week at the Inn, and learning a lot of stuff. There are times when I feel like I am learning more in the past 6 weeks than I did in the 6 months I went to school. Speaking of, it’s already time to start planning for going back. I’ve been doing the online discussions, internship is going well for the most part, and it’ll be time to apply for another student loan. I’m still undecided as to whether I’m going to go back in June or take the summer off to get some medical stuff taken care of first (I may not get another opportunity.)

My God it’s February! Seems like only yesterday I was watching the ball drop on Dick Clark’s head. (Am I the only one who thinks Dick Clark is a Terminator from the future? How old is he now, 140? “World’s Oldest Teenager” indeed. He was hosting American Bandstand way back in 1860, and doesn’t look any older! The guy doesn’t age! He had a stroke and is still going strong. I’m waiting for him to peel off the fake skin and reveal that metallic face with the red glowing eyes…

Latest news from Gobbler’s Knob – spring is just around the corner!

So let’s see, what has happened in the past month… last Sunday we did a Wine Dinner, which involved putting up 30+ plates at a time. Far cry from “table of four wants this, table of 2 wants this.” Instead, we prepared identical dishes for a 5 course meal, plus dessert, and had to plate each course all at once. The servers then scrambled to get the plates out in a hurry, rinse, repeat. Definitely different for me. We’ll have a similar menu on Valentine’s Day, but that will run along with the normal menu, so we’ll be doing the “romantic” meals as well as the regular fare. Should be interesting to see what we come up with for desserts, what with the price of strawberries up to $90 a pound (when people start auctioning bushels of strawberries on eBay next to Playstation 3 units, you know you’ve seen it all.) Last night was probably the most hectic for me in terms of getting stuff out. The Chef was really sick – fever, some kind of lung infection, puking, etc. I ran the hot side of the line and he stood off to the side giving direction so I got stuff timed right. I really tried to manage it all, but he had to step in and handle appetizers and vegetables for me. It ran non-stop for an hour, because all the tables came in at the same time (one of them came in early because of the weather.) Hour goes by, and suddenly it’s like, wow, that’s it? Wash the dishes and go home!

Oh and of course there’s the snow. We got maybe 3-5″ last night, fluffy snow. Made driving home interesting, but no major problems. Made me SO happy for the remote starter, although my boss still flips me the bird as he’s trudging out to start his car and my truck obediently starts itself. 🙂 Today the sun is out, roads are clear, I go into work for maybe 6 people, and then three or four days off. I’ll probably end up doing some computer work – I still do that for some people, so there are occasionally weeks where I don’t really get a “day off.” Oh well, the money is good. 🙂

I’m being told at work that I need to spend more time preparing and being creative. We do a staff meal every night, which is sort of my opportunity to show off what I can do. Probably the most creative thing I have done is baked chicken breasts with a citrus glaze. I have to feed a difficult crowd most nights – two of them won’t eat fried food, one won’t eat meat, one of the owners is on a diet, one wants nothing but salad, the chef rarely eats anyway, and the owners’ kid eats twice his weight, so no matter how much I make, it’s never enough. Most nights I don’t even get to eat because there’s no food left. It reminds me of school, where people would load up their plates and then throw half of it away, meanwhile there are people who haven’t eaten at all. There is now a sign on the warming rack at work that tells people to make sure everyone has eaten before taking seconds. (Pretty silly that the sign was necessary, but apparently no one actually reads – we still have people coming in and taking three portions, usually the owner’s son who doesn’t even work there.) Typically, staff meal uses up leftover trimmings or stuff we need to use up that can’t go on the menu, so “make more” isn’t always an option – there isn’t more to make. During one of my review meetings, I was told that we don’t do special orders for staff meal, as they aren’t paying for it anyway. But I still feel like I have to keep people happy, after all the servers are the ones who deal with the patrons directly.

I was finally given the chance to make different bread than the normal dinner rolls. Yesterday I made lemon-tarragon rolls, and we’ll probably use those up tonight. Thursday I’ll experiment with something else, maybe toss some dried fruit in it.