Kitchen Controversy

This morning I was on breakfast shift with the same chef again. Luckily when I got there I saw he was rerolling the shortbread and not making me do it. He got me to do the same jobs as yesterday, and I feel I put the orders away more quickly this time, although there were more of them. So I did a few more jobs for him as well. Then he showed me how to plate three items, saying I would be working with a different cook tomorrow and she might make me do the pass. I didn’t think this was a good idea since I have virtually no training on breakfast, and all my breakfast experience lies in the castle where things are done differently, but this is a different cook who may need more help under the pressure. Though his three quick explanations, all of which involved the phrase, “See? Easy peasy.” Aren’t really going to help much. He told me the cook would get mad at me for ‘just standing around’. I never just stand around, but I’m kind of scared to do anything without you telling me exactly what to do, since whenever I try you tell me it’s wrong. Like today when I was told to clean up, but not to clean up things until service was done. Does this make sense? No, it really doesn’t. Then he accused me of ‘playing’. I don’t play, either, though sometimes it is important to experiment and have fun in the kitchen. He asked me to tray up some more pastries, ensuring there were a few of each type. So I carefully put some of each on a tray, when he comes up and dumps the container (consisting on only one type) onto the tray and says, “I told you, there is no time for playing! It’s busy!” Yeah, that’s why you have tome to flirt with the servers. 

I was so excited to finish breakfast service and switch to pastry. I was working with another cook, as the one from yesterday had the day off. He seemed surprised I was working with him, and got me to make croutons to start. Then he came up and told me I had to go down to the bar and set up the pastry section, then make the puff pastry tartlets for the main course section. I was confused, I would never get around to training on this pastry section, and I was supposed to know it by the end of the week. Upset and frustrated, I went downstairs to find a prep list on pastry.
- Make chocolate sauce – we already had three bottles of it!
- Fill bottles – what bottles? What does that even mean?
- Make two tubs of apple crumble mix for the weekend – First of all, it’s Tuesday. Second of all, we already have three bags of it. Third of all, we have no raisins so I can’t.
- Fill cream canister. – It’s already full and that’s a two second jon that goes without saying.
- Cut peaches. – Well that was fun.
- Make berry compote. – It just simmers on the stove, the others in the bar can do that while they work.
- Ask pastry cook to make 3 kg crumble. – Well considering you wrote this list for me, I am assuming you will do that, thanks.
I finished these jobs and setting up the section, which wasn’t in great shape. But the best part was how I was greeted by the head chef in the bar today. “When you put away orders, you can’t just put things where you find an empty space. They have to be put away properly.” I was confused, as I knew I put away the orders properly, including freezing my butt off to put away the frozen bread order. I asked him what was not put away properly, and he named items I had not seen in the orders I received. I told him that it was not me who dealt with the order, and he said, “Who was it then? I’d like to speak to them.” I don’t know who it was, but that company did not arrive when I was around, although the breakfast cook then did try to tell chef it was me. Thanks for assuming I am to blame before asking me, I really appreciate it. Luckily I have the guts to stand up for myself. 

The dreaded puff pastry!

Then I moved on to the puff pastry job. This involves scoring and cutting large sheets of puff pastry into rectangles, brushing with egg wash, and baking them for our goat’s cheese tartlet menu item. I haven’t ever done them myself, though I’ve seen them done plenty of times. I’ve also seen them done differently and seen them argued about plenty of times. I asked the cook on mains, and first she told me ten per sheet, then twelve per sheet. You can’t trace already prepared ones because they shrink during baking, so they have to be made bigger. I scored them, then cut them two by six, when one head chef told me I was supposed to brush them with egg first, and the egg had to have milk in it too. Then the other chef told me they were all wrong, all the wrong size and not consistent, and where was my ruler, and didn’t we have a template for this, and why did the mains cook tell me to do it this way, etc. etc. I don’t know what happened to our template, a ruler would be great if anyone could tell me what size I am supposed to make them, and did you want me to throw these out, make forty more of them, or you the ones I have??? I went upstairs to check with the pastry cook, who was no help and instead made me wait for his crumble to finish baking just so I could carry it downstairs. Yeah, thanks, I’m busy too. The mains cook, who was just as annoyed at chef as I was, told me to try 7 by 18.5 centimeters. After cutting and baking four trays of them, she realized they actually shrunk too much, and had done the math wrong under the pressure of chef yelling at her, and now we would have to tell him they were too small and start all over again. Finally, I cut one 9x18 centimeters (larger than her next suggestion) and baked one as a test, and we decided that would do. It took me a lot longer to finish that job than anticipated, but the good news was I ran out of time to batter the fish and onion rings which would have been my next (crappy) job.

All day I listened to chef, who seemed to be in a very bad mood. He got mad at the new starter cook, who is expected to know everything by now after working for less than a week. He got mad at him for working too slowly and doing things wrong or not knowing how to do things, no his fault the pastry cook trained him and he doesn’t care much about the bar at all. But who he REALLY got mad at was the pastry cook. He had been working the bar yesterday, and apparently got NOTHING done. “You got absolutely NO prep done yesterday. How can that be? You weren’t doing orders, because the new guy was. So you were supervising him doing orders all day? And now we (the head chefs) have to do all your prep work? All of this should have been done yesterday. What are you getting paid for? And I like how you haven’t even apologized to us down here that now have to do your prep. You just amble on back upstairs and do your important jobs. And why is this batter lumpy? Oh, because you ‘forgot’ to pass it? I am going to have a talk with the executive chef to review your pay. You aren’t getting paid for getting nothing done!” 

I put away two new orders that arrived, then got the heck out of there!