First Week @ Work

     I've been working at the restaurant a week now and I'm sure some people are wondering what it is that I do.  Well here you go...
     There are three pastry cooks (including me) and the pastry chef.  The kitchen itself isn't very big but the pastry people have just as much room as the savory, which is unheard of.  The restaurant is huge and the main prep kitchen is upstairs. It's a steakhouse so the only savory foods being prepared in the kitchen are the sides and all of the meat is grilled in the dinning room.  There is a small kitchen behind what I would call the "grill bar" where they do all of the savory plating.  Pastry does plating in the dinning room in front of the "grill bar".  The restaurant is only open for dinner during the week and has brunch and dinner on the weekends. 
     This was my first week and I worked three mornings and one dinner service.  Mornings start at eight and it takes me about forty minutes on a train and a bus to get there, not bad (it's downtown in River North).  There are six plated desserts and five of them are served with ice cream and such.
     Everyday everything gets counted and you make sure there are enough desserts for dinner service.  The S'more Pie is a dessert that is pretty big and is meant to be shared, I'm going to use it as an example.  The pie itself has a graham cracker crust, chocolate ganache with marshmallow on top and it's served with peanut butter cookies and two flavors of ice cream.  These are not dainty desserts.  Anyway, everything is made in large quantities so if you need to make more pies you might already have graham cracker crust made but need to make more ganache and then build them and so on.  There are also a lot of large parties that book desserts ahead.  They'll order a variety of one bite desserts and we'll bake, cut and plate them, all ahead of time. 
     Saturday was my first dinner service and it wasn't too bad.  They have a cheat sheet with pictures of the finished plate though two of the desserts aren't on it.  The night started pretty slow and picked up at about 9ish and I was left alone for a short period of time.  I was glad it was a short time though, I got a little frazzled.  All in all it was a good experience, I think I'll pick it up pretty quick.  It's nice being out in the dinning room too.  The chef's walk around with all of the meat and fish and there are "harvest tables" with all of the sides.  Our pastry station is behind the harvest tables and in front of the grill bar where people can sit.  So during the slow times you can people watch but you're not really in a place where the customers are going to be talking to you. 
    From the questions some people ask I guess people don't really know what's involved in plating desserts.  Everything is already made and baked and you're just putting it together on the plate.  Some desserts are heated up in a little oven at our station.  Example: apple tart.  An apple tart gets heated just until it's warm.  The plate gets a flower of caramel drizzle with the warm tart, caramel ice cream scoop on top and an apple chip on top of the ice cream.  Ta Da!

Yay Me!

     A little over a week ago I got an e-mail asking me to come in for a stage at a restaurant called ZED451 and set it up for last thursday.  I had sent them my resume just the night before and was excited to hear back from them so quickly.  In the e-mails the pastry chef sent me, she seemed very nice and answered all my usual questions in one very informative and appreciated e-mail.
     So I was hoping she was awesome when I ended up being a little late (though I don't think she even noticed).  I'm always super paranoid about getting lost and I don't have a fancy smart phone so I have to do my research before I leave the house.  There is one thing you can't always be prepared for and that's stupidity, my own stupidity.  I took the blueline + a bus to get there and I've taken the blueline countless times yet I still got off one stop too early.  And it was rush hour on the el.  I had to wait for three packed trains to go by before I could cram my little body on one.

     Anyway, when I got there they were all super cool.  I basically spent my day cutting and assembling what I like to call teeny tiny tasties or petit fours.  They didn't make me feel tense or uncomfortable or anything, the mood was really relaxed.  Other people said hi and such, it's always nice when people who don't have to still acknowledge you. So when they offered me a job I said "Yes please!" not literally though, I was cool about it.
     My day ended with plating the petit fours.  They make those for large parties who order desserts ahead of time.  So those are totally ready to go and they rotate who works plating at dinner service.  The pastry chef said some people can be a little overwhelmed doing all the plating and such on their first day but I did great.  And I felt great, not flustered at all.

     So needless to say I'm super pumped.  I'm excited to start working and to get over the "I'm super new and don't have a clue" phase.  I'm also excited to think about moving out of the sisters place.  This is somewhere to be proud of, they really take pride in the quality of ingredients.  And look at this place, it's awesome!  Look at me all grown up (tear).
www.zed451.com

My First Cubs Game

     I grew up about an hour from Chicago.  Some people find it really annoying when other people say they're from the city when they actually live in or beyond the suburbs of the city.  I am one of those annoyed people.  I now live in the city and I don't know where to say I'm from.  I lived in one city from about the time I was two until I was a sophomore in high school.  I grew up there but I don't feel like that's where I'm from; it's where I was raised?  We moved to a tiny town an hour further from the city and that's where I had my first apartment.  That's where I lived when I became an adult.  The boyfriend lives there but still, I don't feel like that's where I'm from.

Hillary, Rachie, Jen and Me

     Yesterday I went to my first Cubs game.  It was actually pretty fun, went with the sisters and a friend.  I 'm not much of a sports person but when I think about it baseball is probably my favorite of the sports.  It's the only sport that I've actually watched my entire life and it's easy to understand.  Baseball is relaxing and yes, at times a bit boring but what sport isn't?  And the Cubs won(!) 5-2 against the Brewers.

We went to celebrate Jen's birthday this weekend!

     Also, I feel like it's something I can finally check off of my Chicago list.  I don't actually have a list but a lot of times I feel like a city "poser".  I don't know my way around at all but I think that's just part of who I am; I'm perpetually lost.  Maybe someday I'll live here long enough that I can say I'm from Chicago.  Even if it's not where I'm from, I think it might be where I belong.

And in other news...

     I love Etsy.  It's a website that people use to sell handmade and vintage stuff, pretty much anything you can think of.  So, I have a nook (e-reader) but I haven't been using it lately because I bought some books at a thrift store.  Anyway, I just got it out again and I remembered that I still needed to get a case for it.  I have one of those silicon covers but it does nothing to protect the screen.  Unreasonably long story short, I found adorable e-reader, ipad (whatever thingamajig you have), cover/case things.

   They're made from old books!  Maybe this is something people have seen before but I had not and now love them.  I wish I had more gadgets and therefore a need to purchase more covers!

   This particular cover came from a store called Retrograndma.  They have tons of them and you just have to measure your device and make sure the book measurements are right.  They range from $22-$40, depending on the cover.  I think it's a good deal ($22!) for the super funness.  Shop Retrograndma