Defrosting The Ice Cream Freezer

Before talking about work today, I should talk about going out last night, or I guess it was early this morning technically. Despite being a Monday, quite a few of the kitchen workers and servers were going out that night, and I decided to join them for some fun. I like to go to socialize with them outside of work, where you are free to talk and fool around a bit and get to know each other better. It was a good time.
Today began as a slightly odd day. I did my set-up, then was helping out others. I was asked to vac-pac a bunch of different filleted fish for the restaurant upstairs. While I was doing that, another chef from the restaurant upstairs asked me to portion eighteen liters of chicken jus into bags and vac-pac that as well. But then the cook from the bar asked me where I was working today, and told me to continue slicing onions for her. I mean, aside from attending to dessert orders, I do not have a specific task list to work from, so I just help out everyone as asked as I can, usually listening to the person highest in authority first.

Early in the afternoon, when it was quiet, I decided to defrost the ice cream freezer next to the pastry section. It was built up with a lot of ice and needed cleaning desperately. So I had to move all the contents to the large walk-in freezer on the other side of the kitchen. This may not sound too bad, but when seven of the eight desserts on the menu require ice cream, it is a nuisance to be running back and forth all the time – it takes longer to get orders out and the ice cream was melting more quickly. That’s why I tried to choose a less busy time of day, but of course the freezer wasn’t ready to use again in time for the evening rush. Tomorrow I will load it back up with ice cream before opening time. 

A few other events of the day – chef getting me to make the big batch of mashed potatoes for the restaurant service tonight. He left me with the hot butter-cream-spice mixture and told me to put the potatoes in piping bags. He didn’t specify to season the potatoes, and I wasn’t sure what he had put in the butter mixture, so I tasted them and seasoned them and tasted them and seasoned them. I had nearly finished putting them in piping bags when he came by and tasted them, and told me they were not seasoned or mixed properly. He should have specified he wanted to taste them first. He added a ton more salt and pepper, even though I thought I had already aired on the side of salty (but I forgot just how salty chefs like things). He then got me to help him mix them, as apparently it was a two-person job. Later, I was asked why one of my desserts did not have icing sugar on it, which I had never done before and was never told to do. And I was right – it was not supposed to have icing sugar. Why try to find faults I made when I haven’t made any?

Other than that, it wasn’t a bad day, and I even got to do a dessert of the day – lemon tart with raspberry sorbet and raspberry coulis.

Dessert of the day