Stupid
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- Published on Sunday, 02 October 2011 17:14
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I had a pretty good cut on my finger this week. It was one of those why am I so stupid moments. A knife that I was working with was not put into its holder properly, and when a I reached to use the hand sink it bit me. Over 41 years working in kitchens and I don’t secure a knife properly. Stupid. When you work by yourself and you open in two hours you don’t get stitches, or any sympathy for that matter, you simply wrap it as best you can and wait for the lemon juice to remind you of safety procedures. When Thomas arrived for work he asked me what happened and I explained what happens when you don’t do the most basic things….standard speech given to adolescents by adults that have just done something stupid themselves. At that point he asked me what was the stupidest thing I had ever done in a kitchen. This is not a question I was about to reply to .Sordid information about ones past is not something you share with young folks.
It did make me think about what was the worst decision I ever made working in a kitchen.
In 1977 I was working on Cannerey Row making pizzas in a place called The Spaghetti Warehouse. I could write book about this place alone, lets just use the word bizarre and leave it at that.
Having grown up in New York and making pizzas in a Sicilian shop when I was 15 had made me into the ultimate pizza snob.
The procedures used in the Spaghetti Warehouse made me cringe.
It was a job I actually quit because I didn’t want anything to do with what they called pizza. So when you are an unemployed 18 year old pizza snob what do you do? Take a job as a night porter
in the first place that will hire you of course. A night porter is a nice term for a person that cleans kitchens from 10 p.m. until 4 in the morning getting ready for the breakfast cooks that report at 5. It was a large resort that will remain nameless to protect the innocent, and the guilty, as usual. I was part of a crew of four that would clean the main kitchen until 3 a.m., at which time three of us would go to other kitchens located on the property and one would remain to finish cleaning the ovens, stockpots, and hood filters until the shift ended at 4. I was usually the one left to clean the main kitchen as I enjoyed the solitude, but more likely because I was the only one that spoke English . The equipment in this place was gigantic compared to anything I had ever seen. The mixers, ovens, and stock kettles were like something out of a science fiction movie to me. It was the size of the soup kettles which ultimately led to my demise. In case you have never done a job like night porter, your mind tends to wander doing mundane chores, especially at 3 in the morning. Working in this resort I would think of the ads I had seen on T.V. for Mt. Airey Lodge in the Pocono’s when I was a kid.
You remember, the ones with the happy couple having cocktails in the heart shaped tubs. These thoughts were the beginning of my bad decision process. I felt that since I was over worked and under paid it would be a nice perk for me to have a little bubble bath at
4 when my shift ended. At 140 lbs you could have fit three of me in the kettles I was cleaning. They were the steam jacketed ones with the big black steam valve on the side. They had a cold water faucet to fill them, a drain valve on the bottom, and a large stainless steel lid that was hinged in the middle so it could be half open or closed. A little of that lemon scented pot soap, a glass of the cooking wine from the cooks station, and I could live like a king making 5.50 an hour. The kitchen was cavernous with the only sound coming from the night club and the house band that would go all night since we were a destination resort. I would see the occasional bartender that would come into the kitchen if they ran out of ice, which was rare. I would fill the kettle at 3:45 and barely crack the steam valve to have a nice hot Jacuzzi by 4 when I was finished. One morning, basking in my newly invented luxury, I heard the kitchen doors open and laughter from a couple walking into the kitchen. All I had on was my underwear, leaving my clothes on the prep tables about 10 feet from the kettle. At this point I “should have” jumped out, grabbed my clothes and made a dash for the locker room. I made a Nixon like decision and grabbed the lid and pulled it over the kettle for what I thought would be a minute until the couple passed through the kitchen.
Not my luck this night. The voices got louder until they were about 20 feet from the kettle. I lifted the lid about 2 inches and saw the food and beverage director, Hans, with a cocktail waitress from the night club. They seemed very happy to know each other. I put the lid down and received my first cooking/physics lesson. When you put a lid on a pot it gets hot a lot faster then when you have no lid.
I began to sympathize with lobsters and in about two minutes cracked the lid to see if I would be able to jump out any time soon.
Hans had obviously forgotten to shave his ass that morning and the cocktail waitress was definitely in line for a promotion that minute, enough said about that situation. Not having read the Kinsey report at this young age I had no idea how long this would last. What I did know was in a very short period of time I had to get the hell out of this stock pot if it cost me my job or not. If I ever had a “I should be back in school moment”, this was it. Being in a fetal position in a stock kettle listening to other people enjoy themselves will do that to you. Luckily for me, Hans had a very enlightened thought. This was a 500 room resort in which he was director of food and beverage. There are better places than the kitchen to abuse his authority. When I cracked the lid to make my escape I could see Hans and the waitress headed for what I assume would be more comfortable environs. Now out of the pot I wasn’t finished making bad decisions just yet. I grabbed my clothes and instead of going to the locker room , I made a bee line for the nearest port of privacy: the walk in freezer only 30 feet away.
Physics lesson number two. When you are soaking wet and your body is steaming, if you enter a sub zero environment your feet will stick to the floor. This can be quite painful. I know for some people the positive reinforcement thing works well in their education. My best lessons always seem to come from some form of humiliation. That night I thought this night shift stuff is definitely going nowhere. I need to work days and start preparing food again. Changing my behavior from acting like an idiot might help also. It soon became required as two weeks from that night I was promoted to the breakfast cook shift and met a girl named Elvi.