The Punishment

Today, I went to work in the Kitchen.  At first I was seriously dreading it.  I was tired and just wanted to sleep…and the thought of working for nearly 12 hours in a kitchen was going to be a nightmare.

It turned out to be a pretty awesome day.

I have no kitchen uniform…which was freaking me out initially (since I’m Direct Entry into HOIII I wasn’t issued a Server or Kitchen uniform).

It turns out that the weekend Kitchen teacher is a really cool guy, very friendly, and fun to work with.  He’s no Chef Brian or Chef Paul…but he is a good guy.

Pretty quickly he realized that I wasn’t just some kid that didn’t know a fork from a spoon…so to make a long story short he excused nearly everyone for a break at 2, had me and 2 other experienced guys stay until three…and sent us home.  How about them apples?  Leaving at 3 is a HELL of a lot better than leaving at 7!

It was fun being back in a kitchen again too…using all that amazing giant equipment and being able to do much more than I ever could at home.  I’d compare the kitchen to the Pac Bell building (MUCH better than what we had at DVC)…and even then Les Roches kitchen is better laid out and MUCH better designed than Pac Bell.  Granted there were the usual kitchen issues…some machines not working, some equipment missing…but it was well organized, they had replacements for nearly everything that didn’t work, and time flew.

After he dismissed us all he pulled me aside as I was walking out…and asked me, very directly, what the hell was I doing there?  His words were (almost exactly), “Douglas, you are Management…you know your way around a kitchen…why the hell are you here?”

I explained the whole story to him and he laughed…

He said “come in tomorrow and we’ll think of something better for you to do than chop.  A Manager should lead.”

Oddly enough I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow.

PS:  There was a wine festival down in Sierre today…and I’m pretty grumpy that I missed it.  I really wanted to try the local Swiss wines and compare ‘em to what we get in CA.  Boo.