The Grill (file under its all about organization)

So my loyal readers, I bid you welcome to the week that was. First off I worked approximately 75 paid hours and another twenty unpaid and chalk on another fifteen in travel time. No wonder I’m so beat. At any rate. This is the weekend that was…

Moving everything from the Restaurant to the Grill is a bit of a pin in the ass. Both literally and figuratively. First off I need to assemble the Tuna Burgers, par cook the regular burgers, get all of the various sauces together, buns, etc and move it across the cobble stones from our building to the patio which is about one hundred meters away. This is done, at least in part, with a crappy old cart which has wheels that fall off and of course is not ideal for doing the task at hand. Then I need to move over my cutting board, fryer baskets, propane tanks, sheet pans, regular pans, all types of containers to keep things in and of course, ketchup, relish and mustard. These are but a few of the things that need to be moved in order to even begin to set up my station.

Friday night was all right. I opened at five (though Chef J wanted me there and ready to go at 4:30). By the time I was actually ready it was about 5:15. I worked solid until 11:30 at the grill and then had to do my breakdown.

Saturday, let hell reign down. Or up as the case were. I got in at 9 am and started working right away. I first thought that the burgers were probably the most important part to get done so I set to work par cooking ten cases of them. This ate up approximately an hour and a half. I then had to portion sauces, cut lettuce and tomato, make quesadillas, etc. I opened on Saturday at approximately 12:15 and went non stop with only two cigarettes the entire day until approximately 11:15 at which point I broke everything down.

Prior to that though the day had a pretty nice rhythm to it and I began to feel a little more comfortable. Once you get the cadence of your movement down the rest just comes down to considerable amounts of coordination and forethought. At one point I had about thirty orders on the go at the same time ranging from Empanadas to Burgers. A couple of times I really found myself so deep in the weeds I could barely think. Both times (around 3 and 5 respectively) Head Chef came and bailed me out. Of course to the uninitiated it looks as if Chef is tearing me a new one unnecessarily but to the uninitiated it would be impossible to understand what Head Chef is doing in the first place. The second time I found myself in the weeds I had announced that I was in the crapper and our pastry Chef heard and called Chef for me. I did not intend to say it out loud and it struck me when she asked if I wanted her to call Chef. He dutifully came over and got me out of the weeds and the whole time was imparting the necessary information I needed in order to manage the details, clean the station, take the chits, etc. All the while his hands were moving and it is a truly glorious thing to see. I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN but am learning things both new and old everyday that I am there. By the end of the night I was beyond spent. My fingers were swollen, I had lost about six or seven pounds due to the heat and I had calluses covering every part of my hand. BUT I LOVE WHAT I DO.

Sunday was again behind the eight ball from the get go. I came in and did all my prep and then proceeded to move everything over to the grill. Head Chef had told me that no matter how deeply I had gotten into the weeds that he COULD NOT come and save me. Nobody could as we were slammed at every restaurant and there were no bodies to spare.

This statement caused me to prepare for the worst and expect the best. Of course when you know from the outset that there is no bailing you out you do things differently. I adjusted the set up, where I kept my Mise en Place, where I accessed things, the grill, everything. I looked at the things that I had to do in order to make my life easier. To make everything move smoothly and with the flow. Naturally, there were a few moments that I was so deep in the weeds that I wished for nothing more than Chef to come and bail me out. But I handled it with good grace and a smile and the people were entertained.

Two things I learned from the experience is how easy it is to get into the weeds and more importantly, how, with a little bit of timing and effort, how easy it is to pull yourself out. I HATE BEING IN THE WEEDS. It messes with my head and starts me doubting things that I shouldn’t me doubting. But when you put yourself on autopilot and let self doubt slip away you’d be amazed what you are capable of accomplishing.

At my worst (or best point depending on your point of view) on Sunday I had about twenty orders going at the same time. If I recall correctly I had twelve burgers, three chicken fingers, two empanadas, two fries and a quesadilla. No big deal you think, save for the fact that the fryer only has two baskets and I had three different items that needed frying and people that were less than willing to wait. But, I started developing a method to deal with this going forward which involves par cooking enough fries for five or six orders and then just splashing them down in the fryer for about thirty to forty five seconds and then serving. Same with the chicken fingers. It seems to work but I still need to do some fine tuning.

We’ll see how we go forward from here. It is a work in progress at any rate. I will be back in a few minutes with another post. But I will leave you with this thought from Helen Keller; “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”

I leave you with this thought because it relates not just to me but also to you and is clearly outlined in the next blog post.

I hope you are all well and loving life because that is the point of our journey on this rock floating through space, to find out who we are, run with and become more.

DREAM BIG AND INSPIRED.

A la prochaine

SDM

Bad a duh da duh (file under I’m lovin’ it and yes smiles ARE free)

As you’ll recall in the post To Grill or Not to Grill (http://newbieintheweeds.blogspot.com/2008/05/to-grill-or-not-to-grill.html) I was musing over the possibilities of the summer and what that meant around work. Well as it happens I was right that I would be on the grill, at least for the meantime.

The patio station is a difficult one, not only because of the variables but also because of the physical stamina and clarity of mind required to be there. This past weekend was the official opening of the patio and our little historical corner of Toronto was alive and buzzing with hundreds of people each day. On Friday not only did I have to ensure that the grill and the fryer were clean but I had to do some prep for a party and then prep for the patio menu.

The patio menu is uncomplicated in terms of its structure. The menu consists of the following;

Pulled Pork Sandwiches with spicy tomato and red onion salsa and BBQ sauce

Fire Grilled Ahi Tuna Burger with pickled ginger and garlic essence topped with dill aioli

Smoked Chicken and Gruyere Quesadillas with vine tomato and diced pepper pico de gallo and sour cream

Pacific Peel and Eat Shrimp with a house made cocktail sauce

Chicken Fingers and fries

Fries with pineapple ketchup and garlic aioli

Angus burger with smoked Gruyere

Nachos

Mini Empanadas with chipotle aioli.

Naturally the menu sounds easy enough right. Well when you consider the amount of space that you have in order to have your prep contained in the fridge and freezer the question becomes how do you set up the station properly. I was thrown into it on Friday and was given little instruction as to how to prep appropriately for the station. Being disorganized and having to run your station is probably the worst nightmare of anyone who works in a kitchen. The work itself was not the issue as to prep was not difficult. The difficulty arose in ensuring that the station was set and ready to go.

To put this into perspective the station consists of an eight foot stainless steel fridge which doubles as my production and assembly area. A four foot freezer that is used to store the chicken fingers, empanadas, fries and burgers. A bread warmer that is doubling as a storage unit. On the opposite side there is the grill and fryer and a space of about two and a half feet between both sides ( I’ll include a pic after this weekends service). All told the total area is maybe thirteen feet long by two and a half feet deep.

Further complicating the station is the fact that currently we are using wax paper lined plastic baskets that have little to no area for storage and limit the possibility to assemble more than fifty to seventy five at a time. That said by the time that your baskets start dwindling you have NO time to assemble more as by that point you are fielding orders ten or twelve at a time.

Our current set up requires people to buy tickets from the bar and then to present them at the equivalent of the pass. This means that from the time of ordering to the time of starting the order there is absolutely no lead time and it is a pick up window with no service. Thus it is necessary for you to plan ahead perfectly in order to make sure that people are not waiting forever for their food.

This would be all well and good if the fryer was not in constant use and therefore was not keeping temperature that made it next to impossible to prepare the orders in a timely fashion.

Friday went smoothly enough as I was only open for five and a half hours. I was able to service the orders without any assistance and felt as if I would be able to wrap my head around all of the issues I have outlined. I felt as if on Saturday I would be able to overcome some the issues by setting up the station properly.

Well Saturday morning came and not only did I have to transport everything over to my station I also had to prep a lot of things in order to be ahead of the game. I realized that without shelves in the fridge that my space was limited and I had to come up with a workable solution. From the time I got to Reservation to the time I had to open I had two and a half hours during which I also needed to drain a remi, start a demi and start a new stock. Thus my time was very limited. I did seem to manage it well enough though.

At this point Head Chef had come over and the two of us worked both the grill and assembling the orders for the next six hours without a break at all. No time to eat, drink and in a remarkable twist we were still both merry. It was great watching how he worked under the circumstances and gave me an opportunity to see how I need to handle certain things. We spent the whole day effectively on the patio burning off calories and serving more than 200 burgers, at least twenty chicken fingers, one hundred orders of fries, ten orders of empanadas, twenty nachos and about ten pork sandwiches. We both realized that there would need to be some tweaking of the station for the next day. He left me around 7 to go and work the line at Reservation and I was alone for about the next two hours and had steady business but nowhere near what we had had during the day.

Again as I broke down the station and started transporting everything back to Reservation I started considering what I could do differently on Sunday. My first issue that I had to overcome was that I had lots of prep that needed to get done as we had gone through so much the day before.

As I sliced tomatoes, lettuce, made burgers, assembled sauces, got baskets, wax paper, cutting board, fryer baskets and everything else I needed to get the station set I started to imagine how I would set everything up. I thought I had set it up in an appropriate way given the circumstances but lo and behold by the time the lunch rush had come (starting at around 1 o’clock) I was WAY out of my league. For a multitude of reasons as I have already explained I had a line that was thirty people deep and orders coming out the wazoo.

Sunday presents a new set of challenges. The first being that we are also running a full brunch that means that we have no bodies to spare. Chef had come in in order to assist me that day again. He spent the first while showing me the best way to set up the station. And his system did seem to make things better. But again we got slammed. I thought I had done enough prep that I clearly didn’t and it reflects poorly on me. Though who could have expected that we would get slammed just as bad again. A kept on coming over to check out how Chef and I were doing. As he watched what I was doing he was giving me some good advice to help me speed up and let me know that I was doing fine. That this problem was not limited to me by any stretch. By about two o’clock Head Chef and I were in the shits again and the Saucier, A, had to step in and help us.

With Head Chef on the Grill, A taking orders and assembling, and me doing assembly and frying we seemed to be okay. I do say just okay though. We were slammed. I stood there putting sauces into two ounce cups, putting together baskets and always making sure that the fryer was full. It was a little disheartening and with A’s lighthearted jabbing my moxy was certainly being tested. But it was good natured. It was interesting watching how Head Chef and A worked and I did pick up a lot of pointers that I will save for another time.

By the end of the day I was tuckered. I had spent the last thirty seven of seventy two hours at work and my legs were feeling it. Though after I had broke down the station all of us (who had worked just as hard) assembled on the patio for a beer or three. A reassured me that everything would be okay and that I just needed to keep doing what I was doing.

Today, (after working on Monday and Tuesday) after a six day stint I was extremely tired. My body literally wanted to give out on me. I wanted to sleep in but of course, as Murphy, that prick with some laws mandates, there was excessive amounts of noise that caused me to get up. So today I’ve caught up on blog posts, read about one hundred pages of Marco Pierre White and now I really want a nice glass of wine or a beer and to spend some time loving C. But I need to write one more post so I will be back.

I remember a quote from Anais Nin which seems very appropriate right now; “I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

I am so thirsty for the marvelous that I live it everyday. I LOVE MY DREAM and AM LIVING IT TO ME FULLEST! Are you?

Dream big and inspired!

A la prochaine

SDM