My KP Duty and More

For the past few days, I have been going into my daughter’s catering kitchen to help out. Two of her full time workers at the Deli ended up in the hospital. While she worked at the Deli, I was left with a list of things to do.

I worked alone and off the list and pretty much got things done. I wasn’t as fast as I could have been but I didn’t want to make any mistakes or screw anything up. Like a military person on KP…I quartered a box of redskins and then tossed them with salt, pepper, fresh garlic, and olive oil. I baked five sheet trays of potatoes. I pureed the cloves of garlic, and mixed sausage with other ingredients. The mixture would be used to stuff mushrooms. I made 25 small soufflés using puff pastry, cutting each down to fit, sprinkling three cheeses on the bottom, preparing the egg mixture, and baking them.

 Finally, I pulled out the box of sweet potatoes and started working on them. I had to cut them into half-moons and place them in pails of water. The sweet potatoes were huge and were hard to cut. When there were two buckets filled with the half-moons, my hands were too sore to finish the nine other potatoes. In between all of this, I ran the dishwasher and put things away, wiped down the counters and called it a day. My hands and fingers and I would have tomorrow to recuperate. But I would end up babysitting.

I returned to the kitchen on Friday, and started working on my list. I got to stuff the mushrooms, cut up pita bread into wedges. Then I tackled the vegetables…I pulled out a hotel pan and placed damp paper towels on the bottom and added rows of vegetables for a Pasta Primavera that would be assembled for the wedding. My pan held black olives, cut up zucchini, squash, onions, tomatoes, and roasted red peppers. This would be covered with damp paper towels, wrapped with plastic, and placed in the Walk-in.

I also cut up more vegetables…red peppers, orange peppers, green peppers, squash, zucchini, carrots and celery and arranged two vegetable platters. Those, too, were covered tightly and stored in the walk-in.

Next, I pulled out a large plastic tub and mixed the salad for 170 people, cutting up cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes, adding olives, mixing it up and them placing it in a huge clear salad bowl. I added tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and onions to the top, wrapped this tightly and stored it on a shelf in the walk in.

While I added the ingredients to the commercial mixer for the Spinach Dip, I started on the 14 dozen dates, removing the pits from them. These would be used for the Devils on Horseback appetizer.

Finally, my fingers and hands became so sore that I couldn’t complete this job. I had been in the kitchen since 7:45, and it was now 3:30. In between the food work, I kept running the dishwasher, putting everything away, and wiping down the counters.

Just an after-thought…I realized that when people look at the food that is served at the weddings, they probably think that it takes a few hours to put it together. I really don’t think they realize all the hours and days that go into prepping, cutting, and making the food taste and look good at the wedding.

I left the kitchen in high spirits knowing that it would be closed until March for all catering events. There are no more weddings until March. Hopefully my hand, fingers and thumbs will be pain free by then. For now, I’m going to enjoy my time away from the kitchen.