In my last post, I made the statement that I would blog more than once every three months. I also said something about no one sticking to their new years resolution. It has been three months and twelve days since my last post, so one of my statements was true and one was false.
I am still making minimum wage at the Watergrill and I am still working in the Oyster Bar station. I am still working toward getting promoted to the Salad and Cold Appetizer station, known as Garde Manger. I am also trying to become an Eagle Scout which involves a lot of tedious group involvement, a hard thing to manage with a 3p.m.-11p.m. work schedule. But I will manage.
The Watergrill is just starting to mellow out from the early-year rush of business. We served an unbelievable amount of people during the beginning of 2010, but we outdid our New Years Day numbers by serving more than 300 people on Valentine's Day. Nearly everyone who works at the Watergrill was there on the 14th, preparing for the onslaught of customers we were going to get slammed with. It was hard work, but it was all very exciting too so I didn't mind.
In the long run, things are still looking good. I'm still mapping out my future and the steps it will take to carry me there.
All is well. It kinda makes me worried.
Until next time,
-Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Its Been A While
So its the new year. 2010. A time of fresh starts, turning new leafs and other lies to make us feel good about ourselves. One of my especially good ideas was to decide to write this blog more than once every three months. So, I am going to write about anything especially exciting that happened in the particular day I'm blogging, as well as anything awesome in the past week. I hope this will not bore you too much, and if you want to you can skim over the posts a little.
Don't worry, I won't blame you.
Anyhow, to catch you up on what has happened since the last post, I was hired about half way through September. So now I make a whopping $8 dollars an hour! Yes! Awesome! I can't really complain though, considering it's $8 an hour more than I used to make. Plus, the Oyster Bar makes tips now! The O-Bar used to be in "the back of the house" (the kitchen), but now the station has really been revamped. Now we work in "the front of the house" (take a guess at what that means; if you didn't say, "the dining room", then seek help). The station looks really nice, all of the shellfish is out on displays, we carry a wider variety of oysters and we have our own set of refrigerated drawers to store all of our salt-water creatures. And, due to the ridiculous laws our Communist-like, left wing, California State Government has created, everyone in the front of the house gets a share of the tips. EVERYONE. Luckily I'm in the group implied when the word EVERYONE comes into play.
So, long story short, I no longer have to worry about paying for parking.
There has only been one other major change since I last blogged. One of our crew members, Ryan Vesper, no longer works at the Watergrill. Don't worry, he didn't get fired or anything. He worked at the Watergrill for over a year, and he knew all of the stations, the grill station especially. He had been saving up money for a while and decided to go on a soul-searching trip through Europe staying in hostels, trying new food and meeting new people. He taught me a whole hell of a lot the entire time he was there, and he is a really nice guy, so I just wanted to wish him luck and thank him for his help.
Other than that, things have been going pretty smoothly. Of course this is not to say it isn't exciting. It is exciting. I'm learning my basics. I have continued to learn about how a kitchen works, the responsibility of crew member, how to prioritize all of your time to get as much prep work done as possible before service starts and how to stay afloat during service. Both Chef Ted and Chef David have taught me new ways improve my work and keep my own quality control and timing at the expected level in order to progress.
For example, an interesting thing happened to me today. It was rather slow, so although I was stationed at the O-Bar I was also covering for Luis while he was on his dinner break (Luis being the cook stationed at the salad station). Chef Ted was running the kitchen as he does every Sunday evening. Things were slow, as I mentioned earlier, so when an order for a Pumpkin Blue Cheese Salad came in I took my time and really made sure the dish was perfect. And I mean fucking perfect. The blue cheese mouse was a perfect little circle on the plate, with a perfect ring of red wine reduction around it; the pumpkin was perfectly seasoned and perfectly arranged to hold the perfect amount of salad, and it was all topped off with a perfect piece of fried sage to garnish.
So I bring this modest salad up to the pass, and Chef Ted gives it to a runner to bring to table whatever, but as I'm walking away he calls me back and asks me, "Sean, why did it take you 6 minutes to make a blue salad?" When I tell him that I wanted to make it perfect, he asks me another question, "How much time should it take you to make a blue cheese salad?" I answer that it usually takes me about 2 minutes. Then he says, "If you were a guest in this restaurant, would you rather have a well prepared salad in 2 minutes or a "perfect" salad in 6?"
If anyone who reads this knows me at all, they will tell you that I would definitely rather have my salad in 2 minutes. Hell, I order my steak rare in order to get it 3 minutes faster. So I tell Chef Ted I would rather have the salad in 2 minutes, and he tells me the guest would probably agree with me on that point.
Now after that conversation I learned a lot about time priorities and such, but Chef Ted decides I have another lesson to learn. The next ticket that comes in is a ceasar salad with sauce on the side, or S.O.S. So as I start to get the components ready in order to make the salad, Chef Ted asks me a question. He asks me, "Sean, how long should it take you to make a ceasar salad S.O.S.?", so I tell him it should take me about 2 minutes. This is stretching it a little bit, considering it usually takes me about 2.5 minutes. He then says, "Good. If its not up here in 2 minutes I'm going to suspend you for the next 4 days. Your time starts now."
It took me about five seconds for the blood to drain out of my head and for me to realize he is dead serious. If that salad wasn't at the pass in 2 minutes he was going to make me pack up, clock out and get the fuck out of his kitchen. So I instantly became a whirlwind, knocking anyone aside who dared to come near while I made this salad. I felt the pressure mounting as I dressed the salad, threw in the croutons and plated it, but before I sent it up I remembered something. The order was for sauce on the side. Meaning don't dress the salad. Which I already dressed. So, while the small amount of blood still in my head drained back down, I started over again, going twice as fast as I did before, knowing the entire time that it was no use. 2 minutes had probably come and gone, and the Chef was probably waiting for me to bring up the salad before he sent me home.
So I finished the salad and I sprinted to the pass and put it up. Chef Ted then looked at me and told me that it had been 1 minute and 40 seconds since the time started. I had plated the dish twice in less time it usually took me to do it once. All Chef Ted said was, "If you want to be a good cook, you have to have that kind of urgency all the time."
Words of wisdom; I learned a lot today.
Until next time,
Sean Martin - Aspiring Chef
Don't worry, I won't blame you.
Anyhow, to catch you up on what has happened since the last post, I was hired about half way through September. So now I make a whopping $8 dollars an hour! Yes! Awesome! I can't really complain though, considering it's $8 an hour more than I used to make. Plus, the Oyster Bar makes tips now! The O-Bar used to be in "the back of the house" (the kitchen), but now the station has really been revamped. Now we work in "the front of the house" (take a guess at what that means; if you didn't say, "the dining room", then seek help). The station looks really nice, all of the shellfish is out on displays, we carry a wider variety of oysters and we have our own set of refrigerated drawers to store all of our salt-water creatures. And, due to the ridiculous laws our Communist-like, left wing, California State Government has created, everyone in the front of the house gets a share of the tips. EVERYONE. Luckily I'm in the group implied when the word EVERYONE comes into play.
So, long story short, I no longer have to worry about paying for parking.
There has only been one other major change since I last blogged. One of our crew members, Ryan Vesper, no longer works at the Watergrill. Don't worry, he didn't get fired or anything. He worked at the Watergrill for over a year, and he knew all of the stations, the grill station especially. He had been saving up money for a while and decided to go on a soul-searching trip through Europe staying in hostels, trying new food and meeting new people. He taught me a whole hell of a lot the entire time he was there, and he is a really nice guy, so I just wanted to wish him luck and thank him for his help.
Other than that, things have been going pretty smoothly. Of course this is not to say it isn't exciting. It is exciting. I'm learning my basics. I have continued to learn about how a kitchen works, the responsibility of crew member, how to prioritize all of your time to get as much prep work done as possible before service starts and how to stay afloat during service. Both Chef Ted and Chef David have taught me new ways improve my work and keep my own quality control and timing at the expected level in order to progress.
For example, an interesting thing happened to me today. It was rather slow, so although I was stationed at the O-Bar I was also covering for Luis while he was on his dinner break (Luis being the cook stationed at the salad station). Chef Ted was running the kitchen as he does every Sunday evening. Things were slow, as I mentioned earlier, so when an order for a Pumpkin Blue Cheese Salad came in I took my time and really made sure the dish was perfect. And I mean fucking perfect. The blue cheese mouse was a perfect little circle on the plate, with a perfect ring of red wine reduction around it; the pumpkin was perfectly seasoned and perfectly arranged to hold the perfect amount of salad, and it was all topped off with a perfect piece of fried sage to garnish.
So I bring this modest salad up to the pass, and Chef Ted gives it to a runner to bring to table whatever, but as I'm walking away he calls me back and asks me, "Sean, why did it take you 6 minutes to make a blue salad?" When I tell him that I wanted to make it perfect, he asks me another question, "How much time should it take you to make a blue cheese salad?" I answer that it usually takes me about 2 minutes. Then he says, "If you were a guest in this restaurant, would you rather have a well prepared salad in 2 minutes or a "perfect" salad in 6?"
If anyone who reads this knows me at all, they will tell you that I would definitely rather have my salad in 2 minutes. Hell, I order my steak rare in order to get it 3 minutes faster. So I tell Chef Ted I would rather have the salad in 2 minutes, and he tells me the guest would probably agree with me on that point.
Now after that conversation I learned a lot about time priorities and such, but Chef Ted decides I have another lesson to learn. The next ticket that comes in is a ceasar salad with sauce on the side, or S.O.S. So as I start to get the components ready in order to make the salad, Chef Ted asks me a question. He asks me, "Sean, how long should it take you to make a ceasar salad S.O.S.?", so I tell him it should take me about 2 minutes. This is stretching it a little bit, considering it usually takes me about 2.5 minutes. He then says, "Good. If its not up here in 2 minutes I'm going to suspend you for the next 4 days. Your time starts now."
It took me about five seconds for the blood to drain out of my head and for me to realize he is dead serious. If that salad wasn't at the pass in 2 minutes he was going to make me pack up, clock out and get the fuck out of his kitchen. So I instantly became a whirlwind, knocking anyone aside who dared to come near while I made this salad. I felt the pressure mounting as I dressed the salad, threw in the croutons and plated it, but before I sent it up I remembered something. The order was for sauce on the side. Meaning don't dress the salad. Which I already dressed. So, while the small amount of blood still in my head drained back down, I started over again, going twice as fast as I did before, knowing the entire time that it was no use. 2 minutes had probably come and gone, and the Chef was probably waiting for me to bring up the salad before he sent me home.
So I finished the salad and I sprinted to the pass and put it up. Chef Ted then looked at me and told me that it had been 1 minute and 40 seconds since the time started. I had plated the dish twice in less time it usually took me to do it once. All Chef Ted said was, "If you want to be a good cook, you have to have that kind of urgency all the time."
Words of wisdom; I learned a lot today.
Until next time,
Sean Martin - Aspiring Chef
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Some Time Has Passed...
Since I last blogged, but don't worry; I have a plethora of excuses why. I think I'm just going to go with the classic "I've been busy". It's true, I have. Kind of. Nevermind.
Anyway, instead of babbling excuses for the entire post I'm going to tell you about how it has been going with the externship in the Watergrill.
The place is great. It really is. I have learned more about a kitchen working there for one month then all of my 17 years before I started. I have learned everything from the different sizes of pans and containers to how to caterwrap to the differences between West Coast and East Cost oysters; I even learned how to properly use a knife.
Everyone who works there is very helpful, and they understand I am trying to learn. They have to bypass me sometimes when things get backed up, but most of the time they show me how to do things instead doing them for me. More then that, there is not one hostile person in that kitchen (except for Paul, but he's a scumbag anyway). Everyone gets along well with each other, and there is a lot of teamwork involved with getting through each service.
I started by doing basic prepwork for the cooks while they worked the line. I set up my station so I could see them while they worked, and I asked a lot of questions (everyone there is happy to answer my never ending rush of questions).
Soon after that, I was taught how to make my first dish: the Mixed Green Salad! Impressive, right? Not really, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I still had a few mess-ups with that simple dish. I learned how to properly dress a salad, and how to plate it so the vegetables show and the bowl doesn't get smudged. I have since learned the Beet Salad and the Blue Cheese Apricot Salad as well.
All of those dishes are on the cold appetizer station, but I have been focusing more on the Oyster Bar station. I have learned all about East Cost and West Cost oysters, and I have been getting faster and faster at shucking them both, as well as Littleneck Clams, Taylor Bay Scallops (so f***ing good), Uni, Dungeness Crab and Lobsters. I can cook and prepare Shellfish Platters, Samplers, many different Oyster Platters, Mexican Shrimp, Spot Prawns, Uni, Scallop Platters and Clam Platters. I can make the three basic oyster sauces: Cocktail Sauce, Fresh Horseradish and Mignonette (a sauce made of champagne vinegar, shallots and herbs).
Tonight I had a solo flight on the O-Bar, and I did pritty good if I do say so myself. Sous Chef Ted is going to talk with me friday about the possibility of hireing me on, so I will be getting paid to work. That would probably be the best thing I can think of to happen to me.
If you are reading this, please knock on wood for me, I don't want this post to jinx me.
So when I say I have been busy, maybe you will cut me some slack, yeah? Especially when I say I'm writing this at 1:10am and I just got home from work.
In conclusion, I want to thank Chris and Greg Nolan for helping me land this amazing opportunity, and I would like to thank everyone down in the Watergrill for teaching me everything I know (even you Paul, you creep).
Until next time,
-Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef.
Anyway, instead of babbling excuses for the entire post I'm going to tell you about how it has been going with the externship in the Watergrill.
The place is great. It really is. I have learned more about a kitchen working there for one month then all of my 17 years before I started. I have learned everything from the different sizes of pans and containers to how to caterwrap to the differences between West Coast and East Cost oysters; I even learned how to properly use a knife.
Everyone who works there is very helpful, and they understand I am trying to learn. They have to bypass me sometimes when things get backed up, but most of the time they show me how to do things instead doing them for me. More then that, there is not one hostile person in that kitchen (except for Paul, but he's a scumbag anyway). Everyone gets along well with each other, and there is a lot of teamwork involved with getting through each service.
I started by doing basic prepwork for the cooks while they worked the line. I set up my station so I could see them while they worked, and I asked a lot of questions (everyone there is happy to answer my never ending rush of questions).
Soon after that, I was taught how to make my first dish: the Mixed Green Salad! Impressive, right? Not really, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I still had a few mess-ups with that simple dish. I learned how to properly dress a salad, and how to plate it so the vegetables show and the bowl doesn't get smudged. I have since learned the Beet Salad and the Blue Cheese Apricot Salad as well.
All of those dishes are on the cold appetizer station, but I have been focusing more on the Oyster Bar station. I have learned all about East Cost and West Cost oysters, and I have been getting faster and faster at shucking them both, as well as Littleneck Clams, Taylor Bay Scallops (so f***ing good), Uni, Dungeness Crab and Lobsters. I can cook and prepare Shellfish Platters, Samplers, many different Oyster Platters, Mexican Shrimp, Spot Prawns, Uni, Scallop Platters and Clam Platters. I can make the three basic oyster sauces: Cocktail Sauce, Fresh Horseradish and Mignonette (a sauce made of champagne vinegar, shallots and herbs).
Tonight I had a solo flight on the O-Bar, and I did pritty good if I do say so myself. Sous Chef Ted is going to talk with me friday about the possibility of hireing me on, so I will be getting paid to work. That would probably be the best thing I can think of to happen to me.
If you are reading this, please knock on wood for me, I don't want this post to jinx me.
So when I say I have been busy, maybe you will cut me some slack, yeah? Especially when I say I'm writing this at 1:10am and I just got home from work.
In conclusion, I want to thank Chris and Greg Nolan for helping me land this amazing opportunity, and I would like to thank everyone down in the Watergrill for teaching me everything I know (even you Paul, you creep).
Until next time,
-Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
One Step Done, One To Go
As of yesterday, I have an externship with the Watergrill restaurant four days a week. That is a very big load off my mind, as this is the perfect way for me to get experience in a kitchen. With the experience I'll gain, especially in such a high class restaurant, I don't think I'll have much trouble finding a job again.
This means I still have one big problem to fix in my life: making money. I have to have a way of creating income while upholding my schedule at the Watergrill. I have continued to apply to places, but it seems as if no one is hiring entry level people for any position.
The manager of the Grandville Cafe in the Americana in Glendale said they were looking to hire a busboy, so I went down there today to check up on that opportunity, but the manager was out until Monday. I have also been checking with a company called Fish King. They said they would call me if anything popped up, but I have been harassing them nonetheless.
Once I have these problems out of the way I can consentrate on learning as much as I can and working toward Eagle Scout.
Until next time,
- Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef
This means I still have one big problem to fix in my life: making money. I have to have a way of creating income while upholding my schedule at the Watergrill. I have continued to apply to places, but it seems as if no one is hiring entry level people for any position.
The manager of the Grandville Cafe in the Americana in Glendale said they were looking to hire a busboy, so I went down there today to check up on that opportunity, but the manager was out until Monday. I have also been checking with a company called Fish King. They said they would call me if anything popped up, but I have been harassing them nonetheless.
Once I have these problems out of the way I can consentrate on learning as much as I can and working toward Eagle Scout.
Until next time,
- Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef
Monday, August 24, 2009
For Free
So my uncle Chris, a gentleman and a scholar who's good looks are only surpassed by his kindness and generosity, has contacted his brother about my search for a job in the culinary industry, and in turn, his brother contacted one Ted Hopson. Ted Hopson is the Executive Sous Chef for the Watergrill Restaurant in Los Angeles, a well known, high class seafood restaurant. Long story short, Ted said he would be happy to give me an externship. I have no idea how long it will be or what the schedule will be like, but who the hell cares! I'm going to have an externship in an amazing restaurant!
While that is some very good news, it also comes with a (small) problem. How am I going to bring home the bacon? I need to be able to pay the rent, so I am trying to get a part time job working at Fish King in Burbank. Fish King is a seafood company that sells in bulk to restaurants. I love seafood, so I figured it would be a perfect job for me. Plus, I am friends with a Chef who knows the owner of the Burbank Fish King, so hopefuly he can get me a job there.
I am sick. Like the "cough cough I don't feel good" kind of sick, not the "hip and with it" kind of sick. I have a sore throat, I'm congested and I have a fever. I am going to rest it off and see how I feel in a few hours.
Until next time,
-Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef.
While that is some very good news, it also comes with a (small) problem. How am I going to bring home the bacon? I need to be able to pay the rent, so I am trying to get a part time job working at Fish King in Burbank. Fish King is a seafood company that sells in bulk to restaurants. I love seafood, so I figured it would be a perfect job for me. Plus, I am friends with a Chef who knows the owner of the Burbank Fish King, so hopefuly he can get me a job there.
I am sick. Like the "cough cough I don't feel good" kind of sick, not the "hip and with it" kind of sick. I have a sore throat, I'm congested and I have a fever. I am going to rest it off and see how I feel in a few hours.
Until next time,
-Sean Martin, Aspiring Chef.
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