Unplanned

I've always been a planner--laying out my days so as to prevent boredom, mindless doings, and feeling like I've accomplished nothing (I am a work-aholic planner to boot); also to keep from forgetting important events and 'to-do's' and to ensure i eat healthily and enjoyably throughout my busily overbooked but planned out days.

I cannot plan a day at work though (sometimes i dont even plan to be working, but one call changes that quickly), as something as every day as the weather can change when i go home, and how tired i am when i am leaving.

Take yesterday for example: with summer over and business slowing down, we have cut down from two Garde Mange shifts (a lunch and dinner cook) to one, who starts a bit later, works both meal time rushes, then leaves first of everyone; If there are few reservations at night, they leave even earlier, setting up for dinner, but not needed to see it through. That was me on Tuesday, home at the very lovely hour of four o'clock. I expected more of the same yesterday, as we had no one on the books for that night, and planned to bike home, do some grocery shopping and orchard hopping, and can the last of my tomatos. Bad idea, that planning. A party of twelve called to come at 5:00 (no big deal, i would leave after appies went out); they didnt all arrive until six, didnt order until just before seven. Then there were all of the other walk-ins and last minute reservations that decided a sunny evening is best spent on our patio, and before i knew it we had sixty people to make dinner for, and me without a light on my bike to make it home. Plus, i had spent the afternoon practicing my next competition dish (no i have not been bitten my some bug, i am helping out my boss whose putting the whole event together) in the lunch that cleaned me out of all my dinner prep, so was scrounging to re-fill before five, plus make (and souffle to uselessness) mini-chocolate brules for a set wine fest menu. No tomatos were canned, and i rode home at 8:15 with a flashlight in the bike of my basket, hoping no deer would run me off the uphill track home.

The only thing keeping me going through this day taht just kept going was fresh halibut from Codfathers that we just got in, and i planned to have it for dinner. But the same sixty people who kept me working four hours longer than expected ordered the hali special for dinner. No fish for me. Instead i had the leftovers from my competition prep, and not the way taht i planned to serve it that day. It was better, so much better, coming together under a desperate need for comfort and sustanance and for just one thing to go right. I plan to share this recipe after the competition...