It Gets Hot in the Kitchen

Every time I take off over more then one or two days and return to work with my daughter in her catering kitchen, my cooking brain cells seems to have forgotten to accompany me. I guess they are still in their days off mode. When I go into the kitchen and seem to forget everything. The first job for today is to cut up 20 pounds of potatoes and put them in two buckets of water.

My next job is to make the broccoli cheddar salad. I pull out the broccoli and onions from the Walk- In Refrigerator. I walk over to the prep table and start to ask my daughter, “Do you want me to mix all or the broccoli and onions for the salad?”

The Chef says, “Don’t ask me. You know how to do it. Just do it”

I smart from the reply and decide to use it all, and cut up one more purple onion, add crumbled bacon, shredded cheddar cheese and the salad dressing. Sample it to make sure that it tastes good.

I help to prep other dishes, like make fresh pasta, cool it down and cut up yellow squash, green zucchini, add pepper jack cheese and salami, along with black olives. Then I add the balsamic dressing and mix this up, cover it with plastic wrap and label it, and put it on a shelf in the Walk In.

Pull out the Romaine lettuce and cut it up, all 24 heads, soak it in a big plastic container. After I will drain it, cover it and put that into the Walk In.

My other jobs are to cut up three red peppers, three green peppers, and two white onions and sauté these. They too will cool down and be placed in a small hotel pan and put into the refrigerator. In between I rinse and wash whatever is waiting to go through the dishwasher and put those things away when they dry. I finish with putting cheese puff pastries on sheet trays, cover, label, and put those in the Walk In. I do the same thing with the fried chicken. Finding places in the refrigerator is tricky; some will be staked on shelves, carefully on top of one another.

Ever so often my daughter snaps at me about something I did or didn’t do. I try not to react or talk back. Later, I walk by and watch her working at the deep fryer. I tap her lightly on her shoulder and say, “Good job. Good job.”

She looks at me and says, “You are a pain today.”

But at least she is smiling. Hey…everyone needs that tap on their shoulder, reinforcing that they do a good job.