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...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
No Time to Eat
I work in a very busy restaurant; in the summer there are days where you really do not have time to eat, days when you stuff a piece of bread in your mouth, or, if you are like me, start an apple, and then hours later, discover the warm brown fruit and in a state of desperation, finish it off. It is not healthy, and we all try and find ways to avoid feeding 120 strangers and starving ourselves.
After being told many, many, times that it is important to stop once in awhile, that you can take a break, eat something, make time for your own health and sanity, I am only just beginning to listen and understand. There is nothing wrong with needing to eat and then feeding yourself, no matter how busy: Willi is persistant about this, Monika the baker lives by it, and recently, Andrea insisted on it. Urs however...
I have been working at the Farmers Market in Kelowna since April, and every Saturday morning when we finished setting up, served a rush or two, did a little shopping, and served another rush, i would bring out my breakfast: a couple of old mustard jars of homemade mueslix with fruit and yogurt. I'd sneak bites between customers, scarf during short free moments on crazy days, the cereal generally lasting til the near end of the market, and hardly put before customers, rather resembling the afformentioned apple, plus soggy.
It keeps me going throughout, having those jars to munch on, and none of the customers seem to mind (in fact, some have offered to buy it off me). Besides asking what it is and how to make it, the most common reaction to me with a the jar up to my mouth--at times shovelling--is to carry on: "eat your breakfast girl, go ahead".
Yet Urs, in a message left on my phone tonight, said that my market schedule had changed, and that he would need me to eat my breakfast at home, before i came because it was so busy there lately. .... ????? Besides the fact that that would mean eating at 6 am and not again until 1:30 (not physically possible-- or even humanly, actually-- for me), eating breakfast (like a normal person, i must emphasize) has never interrupted my work there, or let things slide. It is not as though i sit down and let the chaos pile up as i take a half hour break (which, technically i am entitled to in a six hour shift), but i eat as i go, a bite here and there keeping me going. What would effect my work is being starving halfway through--which i would inevitably be having had to eat so early in the morning--and not allowed to eat. Can you actually tell someone that they cannot eat? Ok, sure, with a "not on shift" to follow, but then you get a break to prevent yourself from dying of starvation. i do not get a break at the market, a quick jaunt around to do my own shopping, but i get scorned if it is longer than ten minutes. He has been so funny lately, and this is just...
Granted, i am not the type of person who wakes up and has breakfast second to whatever happens in the washroom. I go for a run, i start picking tomatos on farm days, or baking dessert on days off, or serving customers at the market; my body needs time to wake up and get excited about the day, then ask for energy to tackle it. I would rather warm soggy cereal it too, then force it down when it isnt wanted or needed, no matter how busy i expect the day to be. Besides, it is not like i am pulling out a hotplate and whipping up pancakes...
Am i wrong? Is it just me that telling a person when to eat seems a bit strange? I know Urs is, but this is different, even for him. Then again, maybe he would understand if he ate once in a while...
After being told many, many, times that it is important to stop once in awhile, that you can take a break, eat something, make time for your own health and sanity, I am only just beginning to listen and understand. There is nothing wrong with needing to eat and then feeding yourself, no matter how busy: Willi is persistant about this, Monika the baker lives by it, and recently, Andrea insisted on it. Urs however...
I have been working at the Farmers Market in Kelowna since April, and every Saturday morning when we finished setting up, served a rush or two, did a little shopping, and served another rush, i would bring out my breakfast: a couple of old mustard jars of homemade mueslix with fruit and yogurt. I'd sneak bites between customers, scarf during short free moments on crazy days, the cereal generally lasting til the near end of the market, and hardly put before customers, rather resembling the afformentioned apple, plus soggy.
It keeps me going throughout, having those jars to munch on, and none of the customers seem to mind (in fact, some have offered to buy it off me). Besides asking what it is and how to make it, the most common reaction to me with a the jar up to my mouth--at times shovelling--is to carry on: "eat your breakfast girl, go ahead".
Yet Urs, in a message left on my phone tonight, said that my market schedule had changed, and that he would need me to eat my breakfast at home, before i came because it was so busy there lately. .... ????? Besides the fact that that would mean eating at 6 am and not again until 1:30 (not physically possible-- or even humanly, actually-- for me), eating breakfast (like a normal person, i must emphasize) has never interrupted my work there, or let things slide. It is not as though i sit down and let the chaos pile up as i take a half hour break (which, technically i am entitled to in a six hour shift), but i eat as i go, a bite here and there keeping me going. What would effect my work is being starving halfway through--which i would inevitably be having had to eat so early in the morning--and not allowed to eat. Can you actually tell someone that they cannot eat? Ok, sure, with a "not on shift" to follow, but then you get a break to prevent yourself from dying of starvation. i do not get a break at the market, a quick jaunt around to do my own shopping, but i get scorned if it is longer than ten minutes. He has been so funny lately, and this is just...
Granted, i am not the type of person who wakes up and has breakfast second to whatever happens in the washroom. I go for a run, i start picking tomatos on farm days, or baking dessert on days off, or serving customers at the market; my body needs time to wake up and get excited about the day, then ask for energy to tackle it. I would rather warm soggy cereal it too, then force it down when it isnt wanted or needed, no matter how busy i expect the day to be. Besides, it is not like i am pulling out a hotplate and whipping up pancakes...
Am i wrong? Is it just me that telling a person when to eat seems a bit strange? I know Urs is, but this is different, even for him. Then again, maybe he would understand if he ate once in a while...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
A tomato graveyard
I just, just wrote of the surprising abundance of BC sockeye,and now i must tell you about the awful lack of tomatos.
last year was tomatos' time to shine. Entirely because the sun did its own shining. There were more than we could possibly keep up with on the farm or in the restaurant: green zebras, orange bananas, black crims, garden peaches, striped romas, and tons, literally tons, of little cherry varieties. I developed cold sores in my mouths for so much lunchtime tomato acid. Just dipped in salt they were liek a fix to me. This year though, not even a tomato mayo sandwich on sourdough and i feel today it all ended.
Today i walked througha tomato graveyard.
A bit of life was taken from me too, seeing the blight ravaged vines, laden with ripe tomatos that i know will only turn blemishy, black, and inedible. It was devastating, for it seemed like with just two more day so fsunshine we would have been up to our knees in them. Instead though, we got rain. And frost. And ended a summer we never really had.
I did, however, get to freeze a whole bunch of splitters (tomatos that literally break through their skin with juicy ripeness, not acceptable to sell to restaurants, but incredibly tasty), oven-dry two trays worth of cherry romas, and make a few desperate jars of sauce. And as i eat them this winter, i will hope to have plenty more next year to replenish this sad stockpile; no, to eat fresh on sourdough with gobs of homemade mayo and course salt, to make up for this year.
last year was tomatos' time to shine. Entirely because the sun did its own shining. There were more than we could possibly keep up with on the farm or in the restaurant: green zebras, orange bananas, black crims, garden peaches, striped romas, and tons, literally tons, of little cherry varieties. I developed cold sores in my mouths for so much lunchtime tomato acid. Just dipped in salt they were liek a fix to me. This year though, not even a tomato mayo sandwich on sourdough and i feel today it all ended.
Today i walked througha tomato graveyard.
A bit of life was taken from me too, seeing the blight ravaged vines, laden with ripe tomatos that i know will only turn blemishy, black, and inedible. It was devastating, for it seemed like with just two more day so fsunshine we would have been up to our knees in them. Instead though, we got rain. And frost. And ended a summer we never really had.
I did, however, get to freeze a whole bunch of splitters (tomatos that literally break through their skin with juicy ripeness, not acceptable to sell to restaurants, but incredibly tasty), oven-dry two trays worth of cherry romas, and make a few desperate jars of sauce. And as i eat them this winter, i will hope to have plenty more next year to replenish this sad stockpile; no, to eat fresh on sourdough with gobs of homemade mayo and course salt, to make up for this year.
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