First time doing "buffet" service. Mother's day Brunch... 214 people or so came into Uproot. We overprepared wayyyyy too much stuff. Shit everywhererere. But it was kinda cool to see so many people coming and going and being able to walk out onto the floor for a second or two during a meal service (cooks aren't really allowed///isn't really proper to do that).
Workin' the oven is pretty awesome. Lot of organization of ingredients to reheat and fish/quail fish/octopus to cook. Fun/quick plates. Tasty stuff. It's not just the "cooking" aspect that is enjoyable it's like the mass organization and speed of production // efficiency in physical movements and keeping shit clean while producing plate after plate. Time flies.
i love how my political incorrectness from elementary school into college fits perfectly into our kitchen banter. You're here to do a job, not to bitch and complain about "OMG THAT IS SO RACIST", "WOW, THATS NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT". Love it. It's like a sports team, without the usual faggotry of one or two rejects who can't take a racial slur or stereotype.
We had a lesbian, and black dude (CLARENCE), portuguese guy (DAVE), polish girl (MARTYNA), buncha italian/american whatever types/mexican dishwasher, Muslim roommate/front of the house guy (TORRES), etc etc. What a fucking mix.
Drinking. Working lunch in the morning. Probably manning two stations because of typical wednesday slowness. Meh. Good times.
Quarter of a century old. Kill me.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Two Months Later...
Wow, has it really been two months.
I'm too lazy to type anything nowadays. Lot of shit has happened.
1. Moved from Salad/Cold station to Oven station
2. Lost my license for 8 months
3. Moved into a new apartment in Piscataway!$@
4. Hitchhiking for rides everywhere. Or paying with blow jobs.
Watching copious amounts of How I Met Your Mother... 24, lost, community. Jeezuz. Southpark. Last few episodes weren't as funny, but still enjoyable.
Epic burn on my left forearm.
Chat Roulette is hilarious. Don't do it alone. Wear a condom.
I'm too lazy to type anything nowadays. Lot of shit has happened.
1. Moved from Salad/Cold station to Oven station
2. Lost my license for 8 months
3. Moved into a new apartment in Piscataway!$@
4. Hitchhiking for rides everywhere. Or paying with blow jobs.
Watching copious amounts of How I Met Your Mother... 24, lost, community. Jeezuz. Southpark. Last few episodes weren't as funny, but still enjoyable.
Epic burn on my left forearm.
Chat Roulette is hilarious. Don't do it alone. Wear a condom.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
It's been a month... but I'm typing/blogging again.
For the last month, I've spent most of my non-working time at a nearby bar/pizza sports bar the staff hangs out at. Pretty, friendly bartenders. Cheap drinks. Tasty pizza. This stop every night kept me from getting home before 2 am every morning... but that all changed last Tuesday night.
After a massive snowstorm two Wednesdays ago (Feb 10th), the Wed before Valentine's day, I worked 5 days in a row straight. Minimum of 12 hours a day and Valentine's day Sunday was about 14 hours. Finally on Tuesday I thought it would be a good idea to relax with all the staff and grab a few drinks and shots at the bar. Drinking went on as usual, but I was riding off of 4 hours of sleep every night for the past 3 - 4 nights... and I guess that is what really fucked me up. I stopped drinking around 1:15, but we stopped elsewhere. Didn't start driving until 2:00... but I wish I had never gotten into my car.
After driving 25 minutes, I eventually reached one of the only places on the side of the road that wasn't lined with mailboxes, trees, or guardrails. That's just the moment when I passed out for 10 seconds. I remember a faster car behind me and for some reason I blinked when I looked through my rear view mirror... and when my eyes opened, I went 40 yards into the snow and 20 yards away from the road.
Immediately got out of my car into the snow and for the next 15 minutes I dug with my frisbee around my front wheels... There was no way I was getting out of this one. So I called my parents at 2:45 in the morning, they rushed out of bed with shovels and triple A on the way... however, around that time, a police officer happened to drive by my scene... FML.
Was arrested, sat in a short sleeve shirt in a holding room and was interrogated and processed for 3 hours. Got home around 6:15 in the morning, slept for 3 hours and went back to work the next day. Car was towed/impounded. 400 bucks.
Court date is around march 2nd. great. Looking at a total of 4000+ including lawyer and all feeds and everything and maybe 1000 for car repairs.
Funny thing is, my parents weren't really mad. They were just glad I was alive... and hopefully that I learned a lot from the "Experience". I have. It just sucks now that I can't have more than a beer or two at a bar without my BAC going above the legal limit... oh well. That's permanent.
I was only about 10 minutes away from my house... but the road there followed the course of a river and is really dark and full of deer. If I hadn't gotten "caught" and passed out at the point I was at, I coulda went flying into a tree or the river. I guess that's kinda crazy. I was also lucky that the hill was UPhill and not DOWNhill... don't know where I would be if I were going down.
On a more positive note, I've been allowed to cook on the hot side of the kitchen some more. On a non-busy Tuesday or Wednesday I popped out like 15 orders of Gnocci and an order or two of scallops. Quite fun to make. On the cold side... Veggies I use for my salads are turning out really well every time now. Mostly sous vide beets and stuff for salad that are turning out perfectly cooked--tender, not mushy or have any crunch to it at all, but then again, beets have a lot of leeway... parsnips, on the other hand, don't but my parsnips aren't getting mushy.
and I've been attempting to take over more of the baking / pastry side for the sake of the Sous Chef. My souffles are rising higher and are more "uniform"... making brownie batters... made my first carrot cake batter. Oil/Egg base... Mine didn't turn out quite as well as the Sous Chef's... but hey, it was my first time and I thought I was at the right point at each step. Ho well.
Fully completed making a Foie Gras torchon today. 3 step process. woo... Good times.
Glad to have a day off tomorrow and that I got home before 4 in the morning on a Sat night for the first time in 3 months. Now maybe I can cook for my family for once...
Pictures!
soon?
Valentine's Day Steak Tartare! (well, this was the day after. Just a little first course)
Baby beet salad. Goat cheese mousse, honey/lemon dressing. Fun
Spermy Scallop Crudo (delicious).
Mass plating from our Minus 8 Wine Vinegar dinner.
More pics here!
After a massive snowstorm two Wednesdays ago (Feb 10th), the Wed before Valentine's day, I worked 5 days in a row straight. Minimum of 12 hours a day and Valentine's day Sunday was about 14 hours. Finally on Tuesday I thought it would be a good idea to relax with all the staff and grab a few drinks and shots at the bar. Drinking went on as usual, but I was riding off of 4 hours of sleep every night for the past 3 - 4 nights... and I guess that is what really fucked me up. I stopped drinking around 1:15, but we stopped elsewhere. Didn't start driving until 2:00... but I wish I had never gotten into my car.
After driving 25 minutes, I eventually reached one of the only places on the side of the road that wasn't lined with mailboxes, trees, or guardrails. That's just the moment when I passed out for 10 seconds. I remember a faster car behind me and for some reason I blinked when I looked through my rear view mirror... and when my eyes opened, I went 40 yards into the snow and 20 yards away from the road.
Immediately got out of my car into the snow and for the next 15 minutes I dug with my frisbee around my front wheels... There was no way I was getting out of this one. So I called my parents at 2:45 in the morning, they rushed out of bed with shovels and triple A on the way... however, around that time, a police officer happened to drive by my scene... FML.
Was arrested, sat in a short sleeve shirt in a holding room and was interrogated and processed for 3 hours. Got home around 6:15 in the morning, slept for 3 hours and went back to work the next day. Car was towed/impounded. 400 bucks.
Court date is around march 2nd. great. Looking at a total of 4000+ including lawyer and all feeds and everything and maybe 1000 for car repairs.
Funny thing is, my parents weren't really mad. They were just glad I was alive... and hopefully that I learned a lot from the "Experience". I have. It just sucks now that I can't have more than a beer or two at a bar without my BAC going above the legal limit... oh well. That's permanent.
I was only about 10 minutes away from my house... but the road there followed the course of a river and is really dark and full of deer. If I hadn't gotten "caught" and passed out at the point I was at, I coulda went flying into a tree or the river. I guess that's kinda crazy. I was also lucky that the hill was UPhill and not DOWNhill... don't know where I would be if I were going down.
On a more positive note, I've been allowed to cook on the hot side of the kitchen some more. On a non-busy Tuesday or Wednesday I popped out like 15 orders of Gnocci and an order or two of scallops. Quite fun to make. On the cold side... Veggies I use for my salads are turning out really well every time now. Mostly sous vide beets and stuff for salad that are turning out perfectly cooked--tender, not mushy or have any crunch to it at all, but then again, beets have a lot of leeway... parsnips, on the other hand, don't but my parsnips aren't getting mushy.
and I've been attempting to take over more of the baking / pastry side for the sake of the Sous Chef. My souffles are rising higher and are more "uniform"... making brownie batters... made my first carrot cake batter. Oil/Egg base... Mine didn't turn out quite as well as the Sous Chef's... but hey, it was my first time and I thought I was at the right point at each step. Ho well.
Fully completed making a Foie Gras torchon today. 3 step process. woo... Good times.
Glad to have a day off tomorrow and that I got home before 4 in the morning on a Sat night for the first time in 3 months. Now maybe I can cook for my family for once...
Pictures!
soon?
Valentine's Day Steak Tartare! (well, this was the day after. Just a little first course)
 |
| From 2010-02-19 Uproot |
Baby beet salad. Goat cheese mousse, honey/lemon dressing. Fun
 |
| From 2010-02-19 Uproot |
Spermy Scallop Crudo (delicious).
 |
| From 2010-02-19 Uproot |
Mass plating from our Minus 8 Wine Vinegar dinner.
 |
| From 2010-01-23 Minus 8 Dinner |
More pics here!
 |
| 2010-01-23 Minus 8 Dinner |
Thursday, January 21, 2010
FUCKEN Eh?!
Oh CANADA!
I barely have had any "time" to post anything of "value". I love quotation marks. But. Yeah.
I really need to write up about my trip to Santa Monica for Lei Out 2010. I have like 50% of my 200 photos uploaded to Facebook. Fucking time consuming.
I also have to write about what's going on in the kitchen and how we're hosting a Minus 8 Vinegar dinner next Tuesday. Google Minus 8 Vinegar. It's some badass shit.
http://blog.nj.com/artful_diner/2010/01/minus_8_dinner_at_uproot_resta.html
Yeah...
I made it home tonight, again.
IT's my 7th day in a ROW of heavy consumption. Kinda bad, but I'm not hindered by it at work. Going until Sunday and then going dry til May/Alumni Day at UCLA. Epic?
I hit 100 MPH today on RT 287. I was pretty proud.
I also got the opportunity to work the Hot Appetizers lastnight. fucking amazing. I got to cook off scallops, boar belly, gnocci, etc. Fucking loved it. Not many orders, not too busy, but got some valuable info about working a station near the stove. Fucking awesome. Sizzling scallops and shit. EVerythings hot as fuck and you use your hands to cook. Love it. But whateva, salads and desserts are pretty badass too.
Can't believe it's already Thursday. Freaking 7 hours at home to sleep, don't see any of my family, wake up go to work, after work, go to Avelinos, then go home tipsy. rinse/repeat. Time fliesssss
Woooo
I barely have had any "time" to post anything of "value". I love quotation marks. But. Yeah.
I really need to write up about my trip to Santa Monica for Lei Out 2010. I have like 50% of my 200 photos uploaded to Facebook. Fucking time consuming.
I also have to write about what's going on in the kitchen and how we're hosting a Minus 8 Vinegar dinner next Tuesday. Google Minus 8 Vinegar. It's some badass shit.
http://blog.nj.com/artful_diner/2010/01/minus_8_dinner_at_uproot_resta.html
Yeah...
I made it home tonight, again.
IT's my 7th day in a ROW of heavy consumption. Kinda bad, but I'm not hindered by it at work. Going until Sunday and then going dry til May/Alumni Day at UCLA. Epic?
I hit 100 MPH today on RT 287. I was pretty proud.
 |
| From Random January 2010 |
I also got the opportunity to work the Hot Appetizers lastnight. fucking amazing. I got to cook off scallops, boar belly, gnocci, etc. Fucking loved it. Not many orders, not too busy, but got some valuable info about working a station near the stove. Fucking awesome. Sizzling scallops and shit. EVerythings hot as fuck and you use your hands to cook. Love it. But whateva, salads and desserts are pretty badass too.
Can't believe it's already Thursday. Freaking 7 hours at home to sleep, don't see any of my family, wake up go to work, after work, go to Avelinos, then go home tipsy. rinse/repeat. Time fliesssss
Woooo
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