The
past year, I worked part time at the greenhouse and part time at a catering
kitchen. At both places I work alone. If someone else is in the kitchen, we
work doing our jobs at our own prep table.
What
I like about my jobs is the rhythm of both of them. In the greenhouse, I love
working on planting the baby seedlings. First, I water down the trays and pots
of soil, poke a hole in the soil, place the baby plants and pinch the soil
around each. When I finish planting each tray, I place the trays in rows on the
wire plant tables, and then I water them again. Once I have the rhythm down,
the job moves quickly.
My
kitchen job has its own rhythm. First, I pull out the puff pastry box from the
freezer and pull out a number of sheets to thaw. Then I mix eggs, liquids and
spices and return the mixture to the refrigerator. I place the soufflé cups on
parchment on long baking sheets, cut the pastry to fit the soufflé cups,
pressing the pastry to the cups. When this is done, I sprinkle a mixture of
four different cheeses on the bottom of the cups and pour in the mixed egg
mixture, ¾ of the way. I bake the soufflés, rotating the sheet trays after 15
minutes. Once the soufflés are finished cooking, I let them cool down. After, I
wrap three soufflés in kitchen plastic wrap and place the soufflés in the
freezer to be used later at the Deli, in town.
I
love the rhythm of the jobs that I do, but I especially love the end results.
