Working for the Coach

More than any instructor we've had thus far, Chef Glenn is a coach. We're running a restaurant, he's in charge, and he's always looking out for us. He's brusque, sarcastic, and committed to excellence. As he was talking about what we can expect tomorrow, when the dining room is open and we'll be working the line, I could feel the pit growing in my stomach. I've never worked in a restaurant before. I'm trying hard not to act like this is all new to me. And then he said, "But hey, if we make a mistake, what the heck! We're students! When some old duffer in the dining room starts complaining about how long he's waiting for his entrée, I remind him that he's eating in a teaching establishment. Then I comp his dessert."

We've been broken up into three groups, each of which is responsible for about 5 menu items, and a dish for staff meal. The menu changes weekly, and on Friday, there's the Grand Buffet. Basically, it's constant work from 7am til 2pm, with 20 minutes for staff meal about 10am. I'm in a group with two women I know slightly from Advanced B&P, and a woman and a man who I've not worked with before. At the end of today's shift, it was obvious that Cho, the guy, is the slow cog in the mechanism. He spent about three hours making marinade for chicken satay. Gratifyingly, Chef noticed, and called him on it. We'll have to keep that in mind when we divvy up jobs, going forward.

Our group is making the aforementioned chicken satay, with peanut sauce (Cho only got that part-way made today), and crab rangoons (the Trader Vic's creation) with sweet chili sauce. We're also responsible for veal milanese (pounded thin, breaded, and sautéed, with a green salad on top), mahi mahi with roasted red pepper salsa, and cobb salad. Today, we did whatever prep we could do: made the rangoons and the chili sauce, pounded the veal and made the vinaigrette, fabricated the fish and made the salsa, and cooked the poultry for the cobb salad, and made blue cheese dressing. I made two quarts of mayonnaise by hand, and roasted and peeled a dozen bell peppers, and skinned and portioned fish, and folded wonton wrappers around crab filling. Among other things.

It's great to have some new classmates. Miggi apologized early in the day for her English; she's only been in the US for three years and Mandarin is her first language. Her husband is Caucasian, based on her last name. She's planning to work at The Inn at Spanish Bay for her internship, and she teaches ballroom dancing. She's tall and focused.

Of our original 15, there are five of us left in this class: Andrea, Andy, Silvia, Derrick, and me. I feel like the ghosts of our classmates past sometimes join us; I could have sworn I heard Tashana in the student dining room last week.

Before we left class today, Chef Glenn reviewed our performance today: "I'll give you an A-. You worked quietly, there wasn't too much joking, and everything got done." He did call us "a herd of turtles" while we were sweeping and mopping, though. And he's already got some preconceived notions: "I don't know why none of you seniors can make mashed potatoes," Chef said. "You haven't tried ours yet," I said. Andy looked at me and gave me the thumbs up. "Please, prove me wrong," said Chef. That's on Group 1's list of things to do for tomorrow.