i have this pal. he lives in Berlin now, Rome when I met him, and is from Croatia. He booked parts of both our Euro tours - the italian bits, and the slovenian/croat/serbian bits. i am crazy about him. and now? now, i'm helping him edit his first novel, and could NOT be more happy. He. Is. Awesome. #adam

evol

I typically try and avoid difficult things as long as i can. Sometimes, the difficulty is all imagined in my dark, twisty brain; and sometimes it's genuinely hard work that requires effort. Lately, my dodging of the saute bullet has been harder and harder. First off, I mastered and owned pantry pretty immediately, and the only thing keeping me from running a real pastry program right now is an actual lack of dishes to serve things on, and, of course enough hours in every day to get everything done. However, we lost two saute cooks in the space of 2 weeks. One we knew was going to leave, the other bailed without any warning (except for the couple of weeks in a row when we didn't get paid on time, and all the overtime he was looking at because of the other guy leaving). So when Chef asked me last night to bite the bullet and take the station when yet another stage didn't show up, I did.
I know I can cook. Well, even. It's what I love - I take it seriously, and want it to be amazing. I know, with enough practice, i can multi-task on the hotline to get proteins and sauces and the landings done - if I can juggle desserts and pantry, i can certainly do that, given a few times at the wheel, enough practice to get a rhythm. Also, with us bringing in new people, it's better for the continuity of the restaurant for me to step up, rather than aside, which was what I was trying to do, because it worked so well with Dewie that way. So, last night, I officially stepped up to the plate (hah, a pun), and didn't suck too hard at it. I had already been picking up the octopus and stuff (getting alot of kudos from guests on that dish in particular), and have certainly done risottos for Dewie, and started the proteins for him as well -  last nght I picked up the market fish, the chop (sorta), a shit ton of chicken piccata, and even the lovely branzino itself, which, even if I do say so myself, looked epic. lucked out on my first grillmarks. though, truth be told, i had an affinity for that back at pangea.
I have a talent for this - it's the physical toll that's actually kicking my ass right now. Trying to find a way to deal with that snag is the hardest part of all this. I like how it felt last night at the end of the night, and being able to send Chef home early was great. Hopefully, I'll only need to fill that roll a couple nights a week and go from there, though i suppose if Smitty works out well enough, i can teach him more actual cooking/prep stuff. hopefully. though with my luck he'll land a job in finance tomorrow.
also, i should probably look into starting to butcher the fish too - haven't done that in a dog's age, but am kinda up for it now.