I still wake up to my daily cocktail of 3 tablets of aspirin and a double shot of espresso. I thought this morning ritual would finally stop (at least the aspirin part) when I moved back to home to my native California from the Center of the Universe (i.e. New York City), but no it keeps getting worse. Every night I return from being in a kitchen that either gets through service on a string or is an utter shit show. My sous and I nicknamed our famous celebrity chef restaurant The Chop Shop, because that is what it is. Our new captain (i.e. Chef De Cuisine for the famous Executive Chef) is an awful unbalanced dish of being too young, too immature and in over his head. Night after night I allow myself to be intermingled between two males (that is sous and chef) that act like children. I am just a line cook, hourly pay, no real obligations except to show up, be on time and do my job, but somehow I became the middle (wo)man of a cock fight. I just wanted a job, I just wanted to learn something different from the other kitchens I have been in before, but somehow I have landed at a place that I thought only existed in Kitchen Confidential. This blog is not for cute cupcake pictures I baked on my day off from the office, or that my finace proposed to me after a night of dining at The French Laundry or Taillivent. It is a story of love, hate, and all the other emotions that flow through the nightly service of getting my ass kicked on whatever station I am on. Whether it be sweating over a grill flipping steaks, dealing with over-garnished salads, catering disasters for wedding receptions at the hotel, or wondering how I am going to get through the night with out killing the guy next to me; it is all one big game that has become my life. The unpaid hours I come in to make up amuse-bouche that is often forgotten about when the runners become too busy, the salmon we run out of and run to the near-by grocery store that we still call "wild" to paying customers, the braised meats that have been left out all night then vacuum sealed not to mention how much cornstarch I have to add to make a proper sauce because no one can make a decent stock. The amount of bullshit I put up with is unbelievable, but I keep going back for more hoping all this hard work will pay off one day.
