why hate having my picture taken, a very short recipe, and how to get out of a barfight
Because this is exactly what happens to me. From Achewood.com, by Chris Onstad.
The new jobs are swell. By "swell", I mean "good enough". I haven't been able to work much on the landscaping job, which is tough because my boss really needs the help ... but at least I haven't been frying in the heat. It's terrible how much heat resistance I've lost over the years since my two bouts with pneumonia and my move to the North. When I was a kid, I stayed outside all day, all summer and it never bugged me. I'm much more susceptible to sunstroke now. The pastry job has made for a frustrating week as I try to memorize the floor layout of three different floors cluttered with construction crew and A/V equipment and spend at least two hours of each day stepping and fetching. My chef and I seem to like each other okay, but we just aren't clicking when it comes to communication. I can tell he's frustrated with me and today was especially bad. It was my first day of morning pastry production and I got off to a slow start, which threw the banquet and club floor crews off schedule. I spent a valuable half-hour running around looking for the morning banquet order sheets, which I'd forgotten the chef had told me would be waiting for me in a particular place this morning. I don't seem to be retaining what he tells me, and it's making me feel like the kitchen gimp. This was my twelfth day in a row without a day off and I haven't been sleeping well due to the heat; I'm hoping that this short break with my family will be what I need to get my brain online again. Other than that, I like everyone I work with. The little Vietnamese laundry lady seems to have adopted me already, along with the cook from India that does the comida (staff meals).
Mostly thus far at the hotel I've been plating up petit-fours and minis. The open dirty secret is that at this point, with no stove of our own and our workspace spread across three floors, we've been ordering in a lot of product pre-made and just cutting and garnishing it to fit our needs. I spend a lot of time cutting up slabs of opera cake and lemon bars, then decorating them with whipped cream and berries and arranging them on trays. On Tuesday we're plating up dessert for a sit-down dinner of 1000, which means that for two hours straight four of us will be scooping out sorbet in the dish-up room, which has a little I-Love-Lucy-esque conveyor belt. I can hardly wait to use it and see if the requisite amount of hilarity ensues. I'm psyched about the winter holiday season: last year around Christmas, I posted a link to some amazing gingerbread house work on display in downtown Seattle. Turns out that's done every year as a joint effort by the Sheraton and a local architecture firm, and this year I get to participate!
Berries are in season in a big way in the PCNW, and we get huge batches of strawberries almost every day in the kitchen. This past week, I plated up a bunch of cheescakes for a Microsoft dinner, and made "crazy berries" (their lame name, not mine): strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries macerated with both granulated and powdered sugar (a little powdered helps soak up the extra juice) and balsamic vinegar. Add the raspberries and blackberries last, as they tend to fall apart. I actually think it looks and tastes better minus the raspberries, which fall apart quickly, tone down the pretty, vivid colors since their skins are dull and fuzzy, and make the flavor profile a bit too complicated. I also did a caramel creme freiche to go with it, or rather a faux freiche: sour cream thinned with whipping cream, flavored with caramel sauce. Man, it was good.
Speaking of berries, I took my family to Pike Place Market yesterday afternoon, and my sister was thrilled to see that - duh - Washington grows Rainier cherries. I really need to get her out of Michigan.
My folks made it in to town and it's been surprisingly fun. I'm always happy to see my Mom, but my sister and I have always had an uneasy truce that lasts about three days before we start fighting, or what passes as fighting in my family: lots of sniping, sighing, eye-rolling and passive-aggressive behavior. (I'm trying to make sure our family ACOA crap stops here at the third generation, as I'd hate to infect my kids in this way.) But I got a nice long hug from her when we saw each other instead of the usual A-frame, and I'd forgotten how kind and funny her husband is. It'd be a humbling experience to realize that the most annoying thing about my annoying family is my level of self-involvement.
Part of it's the fact that I haven't lost all my winter weight yet, but the fact that I've outgrown all my shirts has more to do with the fact that my landscaping job uses handsaws instead of chainsaws (the boss doesn't have any insurance to cover power-tool accidents), not to mention that I've been doing pushups to help relive my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (I trust you know how to Google). My chest and shoulders are getting huge and for the first time in my life I'm slowly getting guy-cleavage. I've sawn down three impudent forsythia trees already and spend a lot of time lifting heavy kettles and big silver trays.
My brother-in-law, who's easily six four and over 250 pounds, laughed when I told him about my shirts and told me that when he was working out constantly, drunk guys at bars used to pick fights with him since he was the biggest guy in the room. He'd deliberately go out in an old shirt he'd outgrown, and when he was challenged, he'd stand up, flex his arms, and the seams would rip with a nice dramatic effect. He said that no one seemed to want to fight after that. Word to your mother.
The new jobs are swell. By "swell", I mean "good enough". I haven't been able to work much on the landscaping job, which is tough because my boss really needs the help ... but at least I haven't been frying in the heat. It's terrible how much heat resistance I've lost over the years since my two bouts with pneumonia and my move to the North. When I was a kid, I stayed outside all day, all summer and it never bugged me. I'm much more susceptible to sunstroke now. The pastry job has made for a frustrating week as I try to memorize the floor layout of three different floors cluttered with construction crew and A/V equipment and spend at least two hours of each day stepping and fetching. My chef and I seem to like each other okay, but we just aren't clicking when it comes to communication. I can tell he's frustrated with me and today was especially bad. It was my first day of morning pastry production and I got off to a slow start, which threw the banquet and club floor crews off schedule. I spent a valuable half-hour running around looking for the morning banquet order sheets, which I'd forgotten the chef had told me would be waiting for me in a particular place this morning. I don't seem to be retaining what he tells me, and it's making me feel like the kitchen gimp. This was my twelfth day in a row without a day off and I haven't been sleeping well due to the heat; I'm hoping that this short break with my family will be what I need to get my brain online again. Other than that, I like everyone I work with. The little Vietnamese laundry lady seems to have adopted me already, along with the cook from India that does the comida (staff meals).
Mostly thus far at the hotel I've been plating up petit-fours and minis. The open dirty secret is that at this point, with no stove of our own and our workspace spread across three floors, we've been ordering in a lot of product pre-made and just cutting and garnishing it to fit our needs. I spend a lot of time cutting up slabs of opera cake and lemon bars, then decorating them with whipped cream and berries and arranging them on trays. On Tuesday we're plating up dessert for a sit-down dinner of 1000, which means that for two hours straight four of us will be scooping out sorbet in the dish-up room, which has a little I-Love-Lucy-esque conveyor belt. I can hardly wait to use it and see if the requisite amount of hilarity ensues. I'm psyched about the winter holiday season: last year around Christmas, I posted a link to some amazing gingerbread house work on display in downtown Seattle. Turns out that's done every year as a joint effort by the Sheraton and a local architecture firm, and this year I get to participate!
Berries are in season in a big way in the PCNW, and we get huge batches of strawberries almost every day in the kitchen. This past week, I plated up a bunch of cheescakes for a Microsoft dinner, and made "crazy berries" (their lame name, not mine): strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries macerated with both granulated and powdered sugar (a little powdered helps soak up the extra juice) and balsamic vinegar. Add the raspberries and blackberries last, as they tend to fall apart. I actually think it looks and tastes better minus the raspberries, which fall apart quickly, tone down the pretty, vivid colors since their skins are dull and fuzzy, and make the flavor profile a bit too complicated. I also did a caramel creme freiche to go with it, or rather a faux freiche: sour cream thinned with whipping cream, flavored with caramel sauce. Man, it was good.
Speaking of berries, I took my family to Pike Place Market yesterday afternoon, and my sister was thrilled to see that - duh - Washington grows Rainier cherries. I really need to get her out of Michigan.
My folks made it in to town and it's been surprisingly fun. I'm always happy to see my Mom, but my sister and I have always had an uneasy truce that lasts about three days before we start fighting, or what passes as fighting in my family: lots of sniping, sighing, eye-rolling and passive-aggressive behavior. (I'm trying to make sure our family ACOA crap stops here at the third generation, as I'd hate to infect my kids in this way.) But I got a nice long hug from her when we saw each other instead of the usual A-frame, and I'd forgotten how kind and funny her husband is. It'd be a humbling experience to realize that the most annoying thing about my annoying family is my level of self-involvement.
Part of it's the fact that I haven't lost all my winter weight yet, but the fact that I've outgrown all my shirts has more to do with the fact that my landscaping job uses handsaws instead of chainsaws (the boss doesn't have any insurance to cover power-tool accidents), not to mention that I've been doing pushups to help relive my Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (I trust you know how to Google). My chest and shoulders are getting huge and for the first time in my life I'm slowly getting guy-cleavage. I've sawn down three impudent forsythia trees already and spend a lot of time lifting heavy kettles and big silver trays.
My brother-in-law, who's easily six four and over 250 pounds, laughed when I told him about my shirts and told me that when he was working out constantly, drunk guys at bars used to pick fights with him since he was the biggest guy in the room. He'd deliberately go out in an old shirt he'd outgrown, and when he was challenged, he'd stand up, flex his arms, and the seams would rip with a nice dramatic effect. He said that no one seemed to want to fight after that. Word to your mother.