Back To Starter Section

Today I got into work for 11:00a.m. Since it is Friday, it would probably be fairly busy. The restaurant upstairs was closed today, so there were nine of us in total in the kitchen today, though not all of us were there for the entire day. I expected with so many chefs around that I would just be doing the prep work still needed for the rush of the weekend, and handling some dessert orders as well. And I was fine with this, as I didn’t really want all the pressure of handling the starter section on such a busy day. But when I got there, one of the chefs de parties decided she did not want to be on the line today, she wanted to do prep, leaving the other chef de partie on the mains section, and me on the starter section. Time to get my head in the game and prepare for service.

The new cook had been on the starter section all week, but was off today. As always, everyone in the kitchen has slightly different ways of doing things and organizing things, and I had to figure out what kind of shape he left the section in. I haven’t worked on this station in a while, so I didn’t know where everything was kept, how much back-up of everything we had, and what needed to be done. I looked for the prep list, but he hadn’t left one, and I heard chef getting after him for that just the other day. The fridge was a mess, and labels were missing or out of date. I had my work cut out for me today. Luckily, we weren’t in too bad of shape – the only items we needed immediately were battered onion rings and fish and salad mix, and other prep cooks were already on those jobs. Good thing, because it took me the hour before service began to organize the station, make my own prep list, and come up with a starter special of the day. 

Special duck terrine starter

It was fairly busy at first, but I handled the orders smoothly myself. Then it got really quiet in the middle of the afternoon – hardly any orders at all. I tried to get some prep done, but didn’t want to get too involved in any major tasks. I put some orders away and cleaned. I assigned the other intern jobs to complete. I think chef thought I was not doing very much or moving very fast today, but after not being on busy service for a while, I was just trying to ensure everything be done properly.

We were expecting three big groups today – a group of ten, a group of fourteen, and a group of thirty, all to order starters, mains, and desserts, but from a reduced menu. We knew what times they were coming too, so around those times we were crazy busy and chef said we had to buckle down and prepare for it (plates, garnishes, etc.) as much as possible beforehand. I did not handle many of the mains during the crazy rush of thirty, as the chefs de parties were cooking and head chef expediting, but I did most of the starter orders and a lot of the desserts.

Overall, working the line was not so bad today, and everyone else left early, leaving me (in charge) with the other intern to finish cleaning and closing up.