This is going to be an entertaining post, more so for the reader, as the stories I am about to share are better told than actually experiencing. So much can happen over a few days in the Restaurant business, especially when its busy, this weekend reminded me of how much can occur that very few will ever know.
Shall we begin? Since my last post in this world of blogging (late Thursday night, early Friday morning) failed to address any of the happenings of Thursday night, I'll start there. So we had a large party come in for a 5 course tasting menu paired with wines, for Skye and her crew of L.A. and NY folks, which made for a challenging evening. We pulled it off smoothly; however, there were no shortage of challenges when it came to executing this dinner for 19 people in addition to all the regular diners that same night. Skye's crew was full of very attractive people, a modern and classy bunch, many of them around my age. This is their second year in a row of joining us for dinner and the second year they have invited me to their exciting party in Hungry Horse. Both times I was invited to this party, happening on July 2nd, I have been single. And low and behold both times I have been unable to attend. I had fully intended on being there this year, even feeling giddy about the opportunity. But sometimes grease gets trapped, and drains become clogged preventing the water from flowing through. More on that later.
It was a busy Friday night, one of those nights when the early tables show up late, the mid tables show up on time, and the late tables show up early. It was also a night when the kitchen was short staffed so no matter what happened with how many diners showed up we would still feel a strong push. We were unable to get ourselves set up in time for service so we faced the inevitable prospect of getting our assess kicked. It was about as difficult as night as we experience at the Kandahar. Whenever we begin the night behind, in other words not having everything in its place, we not only play catch up, we suffer with tasks piling on top of tasks. And just like a stack of color copies at a Xerox testing facility, the piles begin to accumulate quickly, as if we are just paper in the machine made to spit out continuous designs of whatever our customers order- only the ink is in need of toner and the printer is in need of service. A challenging night of this caliber requires more than pace, strength, knowledge, and experience, as those elements are merely the standard methods of performing at the level we operate at, a base starting point if you will. A night such as this, requires: dedication to staying the course even when there is no path, a willingness to accept things as they are even if you are in total disbelief at how screwed you might be, and an ability to maintain a tolerance for dealing with any mistake even when these intense moments happen to create a numerous amount of mistakes both big and small. These are the moments when my mouth begins to utter language often heard in jail cells and street corners, usually directed at the situation. The problem with this language is staff often interprets these words as communication towards them. This generally creates even more problems because staff is now upset, the pile keeps growing, and frustration intensifies.
So after finally surviving the 12 round heavyweight battle and winning by decision, perhaps with the help of some biased referees, I got dressed and prepared to make my way towards the party I was looking forward to attending. That is until I was informed that my jail cell language had severely upset one of our great employees. I spent the next hour-and-a half conversing with various members of staff to smooth over a situation that needed some serious attention. Ironically, though, I was not too bummed about missing this party for the second year in a row as I knew it was not meant to be. I accepted the fact about the importance of how my staff actually felt about the evening, as opposed to how much fun I might be having if I went to the party. Instead I bought the staff some beers and we enjoyed some laughter and reflection of a night that reminds us why we work harder than just about any other profession out there. And yes we can boast about it to, because our job is harder than yours, we work longer hours than you, and we get paid less than you do. But we do what we do to make you happy and offer a reflection of who we are. Sometimes this makes us happy also, but Friday night was not one of those nights.
And then Saturday comes. Funny thing about this business is that you get to do it all over again each night, despite whatever happens the night before or what may come the next day. Thankfully I was able to enjoy the World Cup games that day, two exciting contests, setting up mouthwatering semi-finals. At any rate I had a six person, seven course chef's table to execute on Saturday night. That is 42 plates, all from my station, while entertaining the guests. Not to mention it would be my sous chef's third night working in our kitchen (it has been over a year and a half since he last worked with us), handling the daunting station of Saute. My sous had worked with me for three seasons; however, we have evolved since then and there is still so much to take in. And we were heading into a busy Saturday night. Yikes! Well we were able to prepare ourselves in a much better manner than the night before and things were looking fairly good until around 4:30 (one hour before opening, scheduled time for the disher) and the sinking intuitive feeling encompassed my being. This feeling has to do with the awareness of missing the one position that every Restaurant can not do without out, the dishwasher. You see Friday was payday and apparently Saturday was play-day for our hydro technician. By 4:40 I knew we were in trouble so I decided to place the call to see if maybe there was a mistake or an emergency. When his mom apologized to me with no explanation other than a distinct sound of disappointment, I did what I could to take in deep breaths of oxygen and remember that it was not the end of the world. Considering that I would probably prefer the end of the world to beginning a night this way, the air I breathed did little to prevent jail cell language being sung at disproportionate levels. I dove in the dish pit and handled the pile until we were at least caught up in that department, just before the doors opened. Its not doing the dishes that is the problem, in fact I love doing dishes- its still probably one of my favorite things to do in the kitchen. Its doing the dishes on top of everything else that needs to happen. I still had a lot of setup to prepare myself for the chefs table. And then, just when the intensity and challenges felt like they were maxed out, the drains clogged due to the grease trap not draining properly. So now we had water to deal with anytime we wanted to run our dishwasher since each cycle dumps water down the drain, that same drain that no longer drains. Water accumulated quickly and we were forced to roll up our pant legs and deal with the new grease-mixed-moat covering our kitchen floor.
Thankfully the chefs table was an enthusiastic bunch and welcomed the entertainment of knowing how incredibly difficult the situation was for us that night. This table sat at 7pm. They left at 12:30am. A five-and-a half hour chefs table. Part of this was due to the fact that anytime a dish was ordered, any of the six dishes on the menu that I had yet to train my sous chef on how to prepare, I was forced to run around to the front kitchen and prepare these dishes. To give some perspective- the chefs table is located in our back kitchen where the diners literally sit in a private area and I prepare food for them before their eyes. It is a very exclusive and intimate way to dine. At one point I left the table for forty-five minutes to essentially cook food for all the guests in the dining room. Once again the chefs table were absolutely wonderful people and they enjoyed every moment of the experience. Somehow Saturday night paled in comparison to the night before in terms of an ass kicking in your face kind of night. The kitchen staff was completely on point and handled adversity in a championship style manner. I was very proud of the staff and shared these feelings with them afterward. The staff enjoyed a drink together and once again laughed off the insanity that decided to return for an encore appearance after an unprecedented show from the night before. I stayed out fairly late that night and celebrate the fact that on Sunday, July 4th, the Restaurant would be closed!!
I enjoyed a family brunch at Loula's that morning with my: grandma, mom, dad, two brothers and sisters in law, two nieces, nephew, and three aunts. Good stuff! So much fun to be around my nieces and nephew, what a treat to be able to spend time with such carefree children. That night I attended a truly epic event at the DeBartolo home, a Star Wars themed party, roughly a $250,000 July 4th party. Boys to Men was the band who played the party, there was lobster tails, steaks, and cornish game hens for a sample food menu, with a full bar, beer, wine selection, and a fireworks display that was the most impressive I'd ever seen. It made Whitefish's firework show look like a backyard sparkler show. I had loads of fun on this night, a great way to celebrate our independence.
Fast forward to Monday and a very tired crew showed up for work that day, including myself. I was able to get some folks to come up and clean out our grease trap in order to fix our drain issue. Unfortunately they were not able to fix the issue and we had to spend yet another night in the trenches of "soaking wet floorville". This night turned out to be worse than Saturday because there was easily three inches of water on the floor. And once again I had to perform a chefs table, this time a four person five course meal, although 20 plates are much easier to execute than 42 plates. The chefs table was far more subdued than the festiveness of Saturday night's crowd which made for a more manageable evening. Did I mention our dishwasher is not coming back? That means we had no disher on Monday night either. And tonight we had no disher again; on the other hand, tonight was a lot more fun as we were closed to the public for my Mom's 60th Birthday celebration. It was a surprise birthday party and all who attended had a blast. We did 10 different passed Hor D'Ouevres and attempted to get caught up with the majority of projects that were left behind after a crazy weekend. So now we have a little bit of steam moving forward as we towards another crazy stretch.
Its 3am now and this post of grease, trapped, has surpassed all previous posts in length. Congratulations if you have read all of this. Now go and do something special for yourself as you deserve to be rewarded for such discipline! I do have a pseudo day off tomorrow. What is a pseudo day off? It is a day off when one still works but doesn't really have to cook online. Nah, I just have to make a wine dinner menu for Thursday night, a menu for the WASDA (Western Association of States Departement of Agriculture) event off-site on Monday for 85 people, and the usual ordering of products, scheduling, organizing, emailing, etc.. That being said, a pseudo day off might entail some yoga! And it also may include some running! Laundry, grocery shopping, and various errands too! I am gasping at the possibilities! Perhaps I might even get a good night's sleep tomorrow and wake up early for Debra's three hour yoga class in Polson! Imagine the possibilities! So despite having grease, trapped, in my brain, I still realize that life is happening as it may, as I choose, as it were. Who, though, has the recipe for clearing drains?
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