The Simple Things

Well, normally I do all my blogging either at night or on my days off so this is a change, I'm blogging on a Friday morning! This week so far has turned out pretty well, just doing prep at night for Mother's Day. We do a brunch buffet but unlike for Easter (final count was 660 covers) I think we have 485 on the books so far. But we've been on track all week so I don't think we are behind at all on prep.

Besides the little update on life, what I'm really writing about this blog post are just thoughts on the simple things. Now on Wednesday I had to peel down a case of potatoes, it really wasn't anything big but when I picked my peeler, it felt so relaxing. Mind you I peeled down that case of potatoes in alittle under 20 minutes but the whole process of peeling potatoes it felt stress relieving. I got to talking to my friend Jon about it and if you think about it, sometimes its the simple tasks that feel really good and maybe we should make sure we do every once in awhile. Don't get me wrong, some tasks such as traying up 8 cases of bacon can seem mindless but I'm talking about peeling potatoes, making bread, making stocks and sauces, etc. Things like that, or I guess deep prep you could say, just doing the basics. Sometimes it really is the little things that can benefit us so greatly in our careers. Maybe the case should be, you need to relieve some stress, peel a potato, make some stock or  bake some bread. Like I said, the simple things.

In addition to this post, I just finished reading Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica and I would put it most definitely as a recommended read for everyone. I would compare it to Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain except for front of house. Its a great book and really shows the other side of our industry that would help give us a much better understanding of the inner workings of a restaurant.

And last but not least,  have a whole bunch of swiss chard stalks at work to play around with so that's exactly what I'm going to play around with. I'm going to candy it, pickle it, may even try to make a jam or jelly of sorts, who knows! The real question is, does anyone have a cryovac I can borrow?

Everyone have a great day!

-Garrett