Coffee Coffee Coffee

Yesterday I woke up around 8, made some coffee, worked on my blog and took a shower. My usual morning, grabbed my knife roll and headed to work. The train was lurking with the dreary eyed hungover hooligans from the crazy clubbing the night before. Coffee mug in one hand, and bourdain's Med-Raw in the other with a knife roll on my back, ok yea maybe i'm going a little over board with this shit. I step off the train and light a smoke, Im only a few blocks from the restaurant at this point, and this guy says "Hey are you like a Chef"? I said, "NO, Im like A Cook". Then he followed with asking for a smoke and I "politely" rejected. Is this anger that I have or is it impatience for people in Portland, or is it both. I could have been nicer to that guy who was just trying to have a conversation, and bum a smoke, but I kind of was a dick. Oh well thats not going to ruin my day.

Once I get to the Restaurant, I change into my work clogs and put on a white cooks button up, grab a stack of towels, clock in, and get more coffee. As I walk by the breakfast cooks they look up with bags under their bloodshot eyes.  I head over to my station, the Wood fired Oven, and the Rotisserie. Its a long station, with two lowboys, and a ton of counter space, and a big boos block table.
First things first, Turn equiptment on! then I check my meez, Then check the walk-in for anything that the guys the night before would have put back there, Then I start in on Prep.
Chopping mushrooms, cleaning mussels, making croutons, crustinis, supreming oranges, heating up sauces, filling squeeze bottles of oil, dressings, and wine. grinding pepper, drinking coffee, bacon lardons, heating up the soup I made the night before, making a flour dredge for calamari. and the list goes on and on.

Its lunch time, but unlike weekday lunch, saturday is not that busy for lunch. usually 40-50 covers. But I was getting ready for happy hour. Its always busy for happy hour. from 4-6 we do anywhere from 75-250 covers. Then as I am getting ready for happy hour, my chef says, "hey your relief just called out, I need you to close!", I said "sure I like overtime."  So now I really have to bust my ass! We had 115 dinner reservations for dinner, so I cooked off 2 pork loins, and 12 chickens in the rotisserie.

Ok, So now I need more coffee, and a smoke.  Wow does time go by that fast, really its been 7 hours already and I have 6 more to go. Alright lets get back in there and do this shit. Happy hour is now in sesh. Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Goat cheese, Pate, Pizza, Escarole, Pate, Pizza, Pizza, Pate, Goat cheese, Pizza, Meatballs, Pate, Goat cheese, Pizza, Meatballs. The ticket machine doesn't seem to slow down. So since my relief didn't show up, I have to expo and make the food. As you can see in the picture, the oven can hold 6 or seven pizzas. so when I have 12 on fire I dont have the space.

This was not a typical saturday night, we had a banquet for about 120 people at 10:30, plated appetizers, desserts, and a pizza buffet. So after a busy night already now I have to make pizzas until 11:45. These little dainty ballerinas that just came from a performance, now ready to shove some greasy pizza down their throats. It was marvelous.

Well after a long busy day of chopping, stretching, tossing, slicing, plating, and drinking a lot of coffee. I made it. Now lets do it again!