A brilliant orator recently reminded, not just Americans, but all people, yes we can! We can take actions into our own hands to pull ourselves up. It reminds me of a statement that Frederick Douglass (whom you all should know if you don’t already… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass) once made; “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” And believe me he knew both struggle and progress. His story is truly inspiring and interesting and I entreat all of you to delve a little deeper into his impact on the United States.
Currently I am struggling. Struggling to pay my rent and to feed myself. Never mind buying myself some clothes or anything like that. I am struggling to pay to get to work. And I’m not saying all this in a woe is me kind of way. I merely use it to illustrate the point that when I moved from Reservation to Without Reservation that the move was to give me experience, a little more time in each day and the same if not more money than I made before. Unfortunately, as is often the case only two of the three are true. I have gained valuable experience and work less each week but my pay has consistently (with the exception of one week) LESS than I made before.
True I had to be at work for extended periods of time. True I had to bust my ass. But at least I made enough money to survive. It is with this in mind that I am currently looking at my struggle.
I came up with the breakfast idea at work largely as an act of self preservation. An act which in the process would help revenue at the restaurant. Dutifully, each day, I have risen, showered, gotten on the streetcar and made my way into work. Dutifully, I have opened for breakfast; set the station, made the bacon and sausage, whipped up a Hollandaise and whatever else needed to get done. I did what I had to do as I don’t know how to do anything else. This is where the plot thickens; as I left work today I had an exchange with the owner about my hours. I had already figured out that they were in the process of clawing them back yet again. He said that we were going to start rotating breakfasts. I am all for the spirit and practice of fairness and understand the very real realities of the day that are causing this. However, there comes a time, when the act of self preservation, above all else, is what is necessary.
So I grabbed the bull by the horns and made a few phone calls this afternoon. One exploratory, one with a firm idea in my mind and the other just to see what is up. I am sure that I will have more to report on this subject in the coming days. But for now, I really need to assess my needs and how to fulfill them while maintaining my spirit.
One thing I’ve learned from all this, is that it is very important to stay true to who you are. To be honest about what you need. And to live each day to the fullest. To try each and every day to be better than the day before.
I will keep you posted (pun intended).
Arthur C. Clarke once wrote; “It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired? Are you facing your fears, challenges and obstacles?
A la prochaine
SDM
Showing posts with label Frederick Douglass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frederick Douglass. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Odyssey (file under pulling off the impossible beautifully) Part 1
We had a lot to get done. It may have taken Odysseus ten years to get home and we surely had enough to do but we only had thirty six hours to pull of a miracle. Could it be done? Surely, one must understand that what separates cooks from other professions is that failure is not an option no matter the circumstances. Things have to get done. And this truly is the story of overcoming adversity with grace and showing the true spirit of cooks.
I arrived at work at 7:30 am on Friday morning. I decided to finish the chapter of Ruhlman’s “The Making of a Chef” before I started my day. With a coffee and a cigarette I quickly finished the chapter and then changed into my whites. I knew what was before us and knew that we all had to show up with our A, B and C games all at the same time in order to pull off what was nothing less than the culinary equivalent off Hammurabi’s climbing of the Alps with Elephants.
The first thing that I started working on was Sunday’s brunch. L and I knew that we were behind the eight ball and as such made sure to get as much done as humanly possible to off set the loss of some of our cooks and to make sure that Saturday went as smoothly as possible.
So starting at eight I figured that between L and I we should be able to knock off brunch by around eleven. By the time E, D and L arrived I had knocked off a couple of the salads. Executive Chef came in and I gave him a brief update as to where we were and how we were progressing. By around 12:30 we did in fact knock off most of brunch and we all started preparing the Mise en Place for Saturday’s event.
Conceive for a moment if you will what 23,000 canapés looks like. The event was going to take over the whole site. We were charged with making recipes taste good that none of us had ever seen before let alone done. We all were laughing and carrying on trying to make the best of the situation.
It was at this point that tragedy struck. Head Chef got a call saying that his grandmother, the woman who effectively raised him, had passed. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to him and his entire family not just for myself but for all of us that work with him. As such Head Chef was going to have to go. This left Pastry Chef J to take care of one of the most difficult canapés of the event.
The day kept moving and time seemed to be at warp speed. Slowly but surely we all were knocking off everything that we could. When Chef J arrived we were all well on our way. All of us had been assigned our own things to do. But in the absence of our “jail birds” we started looking at what needed to be accomplished and just started doing whatever we could. To my mind it was incredible. We simply put our heads down and worked. No complaint. No arguing. Just working beautifully. I kept on saying throughout the day and the night before; “That’s why we’re the Yankees.” And I truly believed it.
Chef J had scheduled his vacation some three months before. And of course no one could have anticipated the events of the previous couple of days. After finding out about Head Chef’s loss I approached Executive Chef and let him know that I was in for the long haul. That I was going nowhere. We had work to get done and I could not justify something as silly as sleep when we had so much to do.
Friday went smoothly. We had some volunteers come in to help. Later in the day most of our missing cooks had been sprung without the aid of L’s cake bomb or Pastry Chef J’s cake with a file in it. We then went from full speed to warp speed. At around midnight Chef J was getting ready to go. Executive Chef came into the kitchen and gave us a pep talk. Looking around the room I was thrilled to see the faces that I did. Executive Chef gave all of us in the room the option to go home. He said you can stay or you can go. Three people made the decision to leave. The rest of us looked at each other and basically without words; “Soldier on.” And we did.
The next post is going to cover what I know term as; “The Miracle of August 16, 2008.”
Frederick Douglass once said; “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” To my mind, the struggles of this past weekend revealed true progress for our kitchen.
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
I arrived at work at 7:30 am on Friday morning. I decided to finish the chapter of Ruhlman’s “The Making of a Chef” before I started my day. With a coffee and a cigarette I quickly finished the chapter and then changed into my whites. I knew what was before us and knew that we all had to show up with our A, B and C games all at the same time in order to pull off what was nothing less than the culinary equivalent off Hammurabi’s climbing of the Alps with Elephants.
The first thing that I started working on was Sunday’s brunch. L and I knew that we were behind the eight ball and as such made sure to get as much done as humanly possible to off set the loss of some of our cooks and to make sure that Saturday went as smoothly as possible.
So starting at eight I figured that between L and I we should be able to knock off brunch by around eleven. By the time E, D and L arrived I had knocked off a couple of the salads. Executive Chef came in and I gave him a brief update as to where we were and how we were progressing. By around 12:30 we did in fact knock off most of brunch and we all started preparing the Mise en Place for Saturday’s event.
Conceive for a moment if you will what 23,000 canapés looks like. The event was going to take over the whole site. We were charged with making recipes taste good that none of us had ever seen before let alone done. We all were laughing and carrying on trying to make the best of the situation.
It was at this point that tragedy struck. Head Chef got a call saying that his grandmother, the woman who effectively raised him, had passed. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to him and his entire family not just for myself but for all of us that work with him. As such Head Chef was going to have to go. This left Pastry Chef J to take care of one of the most difficult canapés of the event.
The day kept moving and time seemed to be at warp speed. Slowly but surely we all were knocking off everything that we could. When Chef J arrived we were all well on our way. All of us had been assigned our own things to do. But in the absence of our “jail birds” we started looking at what needed to be accomplished and just started doing whatever we could. To my mind it was incredible. We simply put our heads down and worked. No complaint. No arguing. Just working beautifully. I kept on saying throughout the day and the night before; “That’s why we’re the Yankees.” And I truly believed it.
Chef J had scheduled his vacation some three months before. And of course no one could have anticipated the events of the previous couple of days. After finding out about Head Chef’s loss I approached Executive Chef and let him know that I was in for the long haul. That I was going nowhere. We had work to get done and I could not justify something as silly as sleep when we had so much to do.
Friday went smoothly. We had some volunteers come in to help. Later in the day most of our missing cooks had been sprung without the aid of L’s cake bomb or Pastry Chef J’s cake with a file in it. We then went from full speed to warp speed. At around midnight Chef J was getting ready to go. Executive Chef came into the kitchen and gave us a pep talk. Looking around the room I was thrilled to see the faces that I did. Executive Chef gave all of us in the room the option to go home. He said you can stay or you can go. Three people made the decision to leave. The rest of us looked at each other and basically without words; “Soldier on.” And we did.
The next post is going to cover what I know term as; “The Miracle of August 16, 2008.”
Frederick Douglass once said; “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” To my mind, the struggles of this past weekend revealed true progress for our kitchen.
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
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