3 posts tagged “restaurant”

    This week, assuming it started on the weekend, has been a very varied roller coaster. There has been a decent mix of good and bad going on and up until today the good outweighed the bad.

Friday :
    I finished my first full week at my new job somewhere between two and three. I could probably have stayed later but I had just received my first check. It wasn't much, but it was some cash in my pocket. I was happy and feeling very accomplished. I was excited to get home, get some beers and spend some "buddy time" with Jamie. She drives me to the bank to cash my check and we promptly pick up some good beers, a good bottle of wine and just to make sure we ingested enough alcohol a twelve pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.
    Upon arriving home we kick back and start drinking, Jamie suggests we go out for some wings and who the hell am I to disagree. They were delicious wings with just the right amount of spice and it was just the right amount of food that it wouldn't interfere with our drinking.
    I built us a fire in the back yard, we drank and talked and just generally gave ourselves a good time with nothing but our friendship and a few drinks floating us along. I passed out on the couch watching Cruel Intentions much later that night and I was feeling okay but not great when Saturday morning rolled around.

Saturday :
    Jamie had a vicious hang over and was seriously dragging ass all morning. She threw up a little while I made a run for some coffee for me and muffins for us. The day was purposely lazy, we both sat around watched some television and didn't accomplish any of the hearty goals we had given ourselves the day before. I took a trip to the mall to go eyeball a knife set I plan to buy and price out some chef pants for work. A lazy day without much to speak of other than a feeling of contentment with my life.
    I had recently received an email from my ex girlfriend saying that she had been following this website and that I seemed very happy. I am and I have been, Tucson up until this day had been very good to me. I also was featured on two websites. One my roommate Ethan mentioned me and provided a link to me on his site, and the other was a piece dedicated to me by an old friend. I encourage you to check them both out if you are as interested in me as I am.
    With Jamie still not feeling well I had resigned that with all of this good feeling I was going to go out alone that night. I was going to have a couple of beers and people watch. I had full intention to do something I used to enjoy very much in my days in Baltimore. Without getting into too much detail I got drunk, drama ensued and I found my self generally annoyed with the world. I was so angry at the world in fact that I walked home with my anger on my back and found a random building along the way to take a piss on. This sort of passive aggressive lashing out is very satisfying to me, especially when I have a bladder full of cheap beer.
     Once again I passed out, this time in my bed and unfortunately alone, a little company would have made my night a lot more bearable, but like I said I passed out... so obviously I didn't lose any sleep over it.
   
Sunday:
    Another lazy day, not much of note happened at all. Jamie and I ate left overs, I caught up on Lost online. We called our mothers and made small talk for mothers day. Ethan came home from his conference in Prescott and Jamie got on a plane to Portland for an interview. At this point I would ask you to cross your fingers for Jamie to get the job, she is tremendously qualified, lets just hope this perspective employer realizes it. Anyway, I headed to bed as I had an early day at work, it was the first day we were opening for lunch service and I wanted to be well rested and alert.

Monday :
    With Jamie out of town she was kind enough to loan me her car as transport in replacement of my trusty bicycle and I arrived at work fifteen minutes early bright eyed and bushy tailed. After enjoying a cup of the free coffee owed to me just for showing up I immediately got to work with my trusty parter in crime at Italia Moni. In short we kicked ass, it wasn't horribly busy but her and I have a great vibe on the line and nothing slows us down. Once our day ended I offered Moni a ride home as I had the tools ( Jamie's car ) to provide a service of kindness for a coworker. I decide after dropping her off that in return for Jamie's kindness of loaning her car to me that I would stop and put in some gas so she wouldn't have to stop at six in the morning on her way to work after doing a 30 hour round trip to Portland.
    I find a gas station ( I'm still getting to know Tucson ) and after correcting my mistake of placing the gas tank on the opposite side from the pump I retrieve my wallet from my back pack to go and request ten bucks on pump three. To my dismay and the cause of my hatred for humanity at this exact moment my wallet was completely empty of cash. That morning when I stopped at Ike's for a muffin and coffee I had 85 dollars. My wallet had been emptied during the course of the day at work. Whomever made this trip into my bag did leave all of my cards and only took that which was untraceable. I sighed, my joy to work with the people I have been working with was instantly gone. I had been so pleased with the group that was hired along side of me and now suspected them all.
    Any and all good things that have happened to me in the past several days are gone. It wasn't much money, but it was all that I had. It wasn't much faith in humanity, but it was all that I had. I have two weeks until my next check, and a lifetime of mistrust.

    First of all for those of you that I don't exchange email or a little Instant Messaging with, I have officially re-entered the restaurant world and with it the life. I have been away from it for somewhere close to five years, and after a craigslist post, a few emails exchanged with the Chef I am enthusiastically jumping back into that world.
    I can't stress enough that before anything else you do in your life you must pick up a copy of Kitchen Confidential by one amazing man who goes by the name Chef Tony Bourdain. I will tell you one thing very honestly after reading this book roughly eight years ago, and that is that I felt that I was reading my own life and that this was the person I wanted to grow up to be. His intelligence and ability are unrivaled in my mind. His honesty about the world that all restaurant workers sink their teeth into it without parallel.
    That being said, I have joined back up into the union of the alcoholic, sex addicted, cuss every other word new pirates of this world. I can't wait to be burned, cut, bruised and have this world not know what I did to make their meal.  I understand that it's uncomfortable for some to think about the people hidden away behind those swinging doors, I personally am amazed by them and have missed everyone of them dearly since my departure.
    There is a comfort in a kitchen for me, there is a sense of being home. I become reborn there, I become what anyone whom has ever loved me has ever known, and somehow still can not tolerate.
    I see the world in a different black and white.

    These are your tools.
   

    These are mine
   

    Even through the simple events of watching this new restaurant come to life, I am watching parts of myself dormant for so long come back to the surface as well. I leered at the wait staff with lust, I figured out who in the kitchen I am better than, and who is better than me. I calculate what I have to do to procure the skills I need and the interest of things that interest me.
    No restaurant is different, everyone is always the same. I am the same again, and have given everyone I work with a different name. It interests me that my best friend in this world, someone whom I admire a great deal, when she heard me talking about my day and pouring over the details reached out and hugged me as if I had just been born. It interests me that I have been so stubborn to stay away from my passion for so long.
   
   

    Yesterday, while all of you were reading about penis and vagina sizes I was off into the greatest elevation I have been to in a number of years, excluding of course airplanes. Since I am starting my new job today, I figured I should get out and do something fun. I was mentally treating my last day off in my extended vacation as my last day on Earth. The last thing I wanted to do before is vanished back into the restaurant business was stand on top of a mountain. So the neighbor and I hopped in his pick up and headed to Mount Lemmon.
    It was wonderful, it's been a while since I looked down on the world and my ego wasn't involved... and well here are a few pictures to share. I won't bore you with geological history, or how this mountain has a lake at 7,000 feet. I will just share with you the pretty stuff, which of course will include a picture or two of me.
    Before I leave you to pleasant images, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the making of yesterdays post. While it may not have pulled in an enormous amount of page views, I relish in the reader participation. Comments and Emails are still coming in, and I hope to be able to reproduce yesterday again and again. Thank you to everyone.