Tastings As Second Nature

This morning I got in early again, as it was my third-last day, and I thought I had a lot to do with two tastings and all, but after being at work for ten minutes I quickly realized I didn’t have that much to do after all. I immediately made pavlovas and madeleine mix for the tastings, and organized the bread, crumble, bread pudding, and petit fours as well. Then I scooped my sorbet (passionfruit) and decided since I didn’t have much else to do and was running low on it, to make chocolate delice mousse. While I was getting that on the go, the sous chef came and told me the breakfast chef was going to come help me for an hour or so before leaving. He told me he never worked pastry before, so to give him some easy jobs. I said, ok, but I don’t really know what to get him to do – as I already had the sorbet scooped, the bread dough weighed out, and a bunch of fruit cut for fruit flowers. The sous chef seemed impressed and said, “Wow, you really are in good shape. Very organized. That’s what makes you a great worker.” In the end, I got the chef to make goat’s cheese tortes for us to freeze and have on hand for the cheese plates to bake as needed. We weren’t out, but now it is one task we won’t have to worry about for a while. 

 While he was working away, I also made lime confit, lime foam, passionfruit emulsion, assembled more delices, and baked and trayed the petit fours. I checked for orders, cut some cheese, and cut up some delice biscuit. I rolled some passionfruit jelly roll, then made my breads (tomato basil, cranberry orange, smokey bacon). I had two servers comment on my breads again today. They were saying how it’s the first thing everyone asks when they walk in, “What kind of breads do you have today?” and how they look forward to trying the new kinds and how good the honey one was, and how yummy the cranberry orange sounds, etc. I am not sure what they will do after I leave and it is back to onion, fennel, bacon, Parmesan, and golden raisin in rotation, but I love the praise.

My breads of the day - cranberry orange, tomato basil, smokey bacon

I noticed the crème brulée seemed really soft, like the first time I made it and didn’t cook it long enough. It had been made on my day off, so I asked the chef how long he cooked it, and just mentioned it seemed soft so he would know better for next time. He then remembered he forgot to put the custard powder in, but then accused me of blaming him. I’m not blaming him, I am just pointing it out for future reference as they always did with me! 

I prepped the desserts for the tastings, cleaned down, set up for service, and even did the chef de partie a favor by making mint crème fraiche (I wouldn’t have if I had known he had time but just wanted to go for a smoke break). This was after he had been teasing me all day, and tried to tell me we had 95 diners booked for tomorrow (it’s really only 27). Service went well – I wasn’t very busy since the sous chef was helping with apps and starters as well, though he didn’t seem to want to do much and was mostly on his phone. So I did pitch in with starters and veg, and he told me to slow down because I was making the actual starter chef look bad. We had twenty-seven tables of two and one table of four and I did all the pastry orders, and the only thing the sous chef picked on was the cleanliness of the plates. I wipe my plates when I make a mistake, but I shouldn’t have to wipe them before plating. Something is clearly wrong with our dishwasher if they aren’t coming out clean. 

The sous chef is off the next two days, so it was my last day working with him. At the end of the night he gave me a hug, and asked when he would see me again – next summer? He said I was welcome back and had a job there anytime, that I was a really good worker and the best commis the ever had, which I took as very high praise, especially coming from him.