The Grill (file under I’m not McDonald’s)

My loyal readers let me just tell you that working the grill for five days straight is enough to make anyone crazy. Of course when I saw the weather forecast I was excited at the thought that I might get a little break from it. But of course, what other profession can you be wrong sixty percent of the time and people still like you. Sometimes I think it must be great to be a weatherman.

Sunday started off brilliantly. As I got to work my bones were killing which is usually a sign that the rain is coming. Sure enough I started getting my prep ready and the skies opened up. I went to the Director of Operations and asked him what the plan was and he told me that he was closing me for the day no matter what happened. Of course I was glad that I would get to be inside working brunch acting as a runner. But as soon as brunch was close to being over the rethought their decision and decided that I would be open in an hour.

To give me an hour to get the grill station ready is not nearly enough time. Fortunately head Chef decided that I would be running a limited menu. That did cut down the prep time significantly but it was still a tall order to get me out in an hour. I think it ended up being an hour and twenty minutes. I was a little miffed at opening as I felt as if the sky was going to open up again at any minute but in fact it ended up being a fairly busy afternoon and after the first rush at five, I had another at seven thirty and then it slowed down significantly.

Monday was crazy. We had a private party for the International Language Academy of Canada. 700 kids, who are all learning English as a second language. At first Head Chef had said that it would be W and I working the grill alone. Within a few minutes it was obvious that we would not be able to do it alone. As such L and D came out and we started moving very well together. It really was like an assembly line which basically looked like this;

One of us was putting down the baskets that we would put the food into. We were doing this twenty five or more at a time. The next person would follow putting the buns into place. The third was putting down the lettuce and tomato as well as handing out the food and taking tickets. Of course L, being the machine that he is was working the grill and placing he burgers down on the buns. This mad rush continued for almost three and a half hours. NON STOP. It takes a lot out of you running at that speed. Not only were we doing burgers but we also had chicken fingers and fries as well as Empanadas. All of this done with one grill and one fryer. It was madness but we all kept our cool and got things done quite effectively. I loved having L out there with me because he and I can say things like left and right and the other knows immediately that the other is talking about. We work exceptionally well together.

By the time I was finished on Monday I got home around 2:15 am and then had to be back at work for Canada Day at 11 am.

Canada Day. First off Happy 141 Birthday Canada. I love this country and the many opportunities it has given not just to me but to all those who have come to this great country. I hope you all had a great day. Mine was a roller coaster which ended very badly emotionally.

The day started easy enough. I par cooked burgers and started moving over all the prep that M and I were doing. Again we were running a limited menu with Hotdogs, Sausages, Burgers, Chicken Fingers and Empanadas. None of us thought that we would be overly busy but man were we wrong. We were almost as busy as my six hundred order day. Almost but not quite. M and I worked well together once we found our rhythm.

The day was going smooth enough and I even got to have a cigarette or two. Most of the people that we work with were on site enjoying themselves and Canada Day. Head Chef was there, as was Director of Operations, A and lots of Front of House staff. Everyone was truly enjoying the weather, the music and of course the booze. I was having an alright day right up until around 5:50 pm.

There was a man in a wheel chair who was on site. I had seen him a few times throughout the day. His wife came to get a hot dog from us. It was a hot and humid day and she and her husband were spending time in the sun. After they had eaten I watched as the passed my station and I could see that something was just not right. I looked at the security guard and he sensed what I was looking at. I felt around in my pocket as my spidey sense was going off. Sure enough a few moments later someone came up and said that the man was in distress. Without missing a beat I opened my phone and dialed 911, the time was 5:58pm. I arrived where the gentleman was only as few moments later and could see that his eyes had rolled back in his head and that his tongue was sticking out. I relayed to 911 all the pertinent information and tried to take his pulse while a nurse that happened to be there started doing CPR in his chair. We decided that it would be better to get the gentlemen out of the chair and continue CPR. I directed the Security Guard to go to the entrance to guide the emergency vehicles in. I stayed on the line with 911 but was not feeling a pulse at all where only moments before it was there but really faint. He began to turn purple and I knew at that moment that it was too late. There was nothing that anyone could do for him at that point. I immediately made sure to get the wife sitting down and drinking a bottle of water trying to console her letting her know everyone was doing everything they could do. 911 thanked me for my calm and cool and let me know that I should just continue doing what I was and that it was okay for me to get off the line now that responders were on site.

I informed the emergency responders all the pertinent information and watched as they quickly transferred him to a stretcher while trying to get him breathing and clearing his passageway. I also made sure that security pushed everyone back from the scene.

After a couple of minutes they had moved him to the ambulance but I knew it was too late. I knew he was gone. I knew that he had gone as I was taking his pulse. But in an effort to maintain the relative calmness I said nothing.

I remember this one man, a complete asshole, who was wearing red biking shorts and a jersey who was in the way of the responders trying to tell them how to do their job. It’s funny what you recall at moments like that. I remember that I wanted to knock him out just to get him out of the way.

I lit a cigarette and waited for a responder to come and ask me a few questions. I asked what we should do with the wheelchair after identifying myself. She asked if we had somewhere that we could put it. I said yes and instructed site security to take it there. The effects of what had just happened had not really hit me yet.

The Director of Operations came over and asked me to give a statement to security. Which I did when he came over to me at the grill. The last thing I wanted to do after watching life fade away in front of me was sling burgers to somebody. I walked over to where Head Chef and everyone else was and said that I was going to have a smoke. I went into the cubby hole where we keep the ice machine, took off my hat and lit a smoke.

What goes through your head at moments like this. For me, no stranger to death, I started feeling badly for the wife. I felt badly that I could not do more. I felt horrible that I had in some way contributed to his death (not in reality but it is how I felt). I was reminded of my own mortality and how quickly it all can just go away.

D, who works front of house, walked up to me and could see that I was not in a great mental place and he said to me what does this tell us. That none of us are promised anything.

I finished my smoke and went back to work. Though I didn’t want to. I wanted to curl up into a little ball and start crying. I wanted to release all this angst, tension and thought that was balled up inside of me. I wanted to punch a wall. I wanted to punch the guy in the biking shorts. No I think I wanted to head butt him but you get the idea.

I spent the better part of the next five hours that I was working thinking about the events that transpired. I was really upset. Still today I am really upset. A and Head Chef tried to take my mind off of the events by really laying into me. A more than Head Chef, but as it was happening all I could think of was how someone died in my arms, effectively anyway. And how useless I felt. How there was nothing I could do differently. Though I took everything that was being said to me in stride I was in some sado-masochistic way grateful to not be thinking about the man on the cobblestones who died in front of me.

I did everything I could. I say this by way of not trying to convince you but myself. I am asking my employers tomorrow when I go back to work to pay for me to get my Life saving certification and to get a defibrillator on site. I feel with a defibrillator I could have saved him. But maybe that is just what I’m thinking and it is not true. But nonetheless I do plan on asking tomorrow.

So as you can all see I had quite a weekend. It was, quite the example of the ups and downs of the industry I have chosen to be in.

Another post is imminently coming. For now;

Marcus Aurelius once said; “Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good” It’s how I feel. But I can still do good.

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