Skip to main content

Today's Inspiration: Johnny Cash

My first week of employment on Mackinac Island is complete, and it has been an up and down of a magnitude that I cannot recall since the summer of 1993.  New living arrangements, new jobs, new faces, and new procedures are daunting...and I'm old and set in my ways (Cf. Yesterday's Post).  But, being older and wiser certainly has its benefits.  So, yay, for getting older.


The restaurant where I work is about four minutes beyond the cafeteria where I eat breakfast (the brisk 12-minute walk, remember?); thus, enough time to listen to one last song on my iPod before I clock in and start handling my kitchen business.  So, I thought it might be mildly amusing, yet inspirational, if I shuffled my playlist...and let the song that came up be my motivational anthem of the day.

Day One (the first day of serving customers and "real" work): Queen's "We Are The Champions".  Pretty damn fitting, I think.

Day Two: Enya's "I Will Find You" from the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack.  I assume this song refers to me finding my skills and groove this summer.

Today: Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line".  I had to ponder this...I finally decided that this meant to be respectful and patient towards my chefs and do exactly what they tell me to do.

I know at some point in time the tourists will arrive, and the comfortable routine I've got at the restaurant will turn on its head.  Until then, the days have been good. And I learned two things today...food-related, even:

1.  Julienne can refer to the size of a cut of a vegetable (i.e. julienne = 1/8", fine julienne = 1/16").  But I learned today that julienne can also refer to the vegetable is placed when it is cut.  For example, an onion.  When we cut onions for hamburgers at our family picnic, we slice them parallel to the root, or the hairy little end.  But, if we turn the onion 90 degrees and slice it perpendicular to the root, that's julienned onions.

2.  I also learned a really quick, kick-ass way to deseed tomatoes.  Quarter the tomatoes, and starting at the point furthest from the core, turn the knife nearly parallel to the tomato and carefully shave off the flesh and seeds (keeping knife parallel all the way).  I wish I had a video to demonstrate this...it's definitely a visual thing...but as our chefs are way against cell phone usage in the kitchen, I doubt they'd go for videotaping either.

I keep a close watch on this knife of mine.
I keep my eyes on the cutting board all the time.
Makin' cuts requires all my mind,
because this learnin's mine, I walk the line. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

(She) Blinded Me With...Citrus

Excuse my attempt at tying today's blog entry with an iconic Thomas Dolby song.  What a terrible pun-ishment. Har har har. So, we're on the backside of Winter Vacation/Christmas Break/Holiday Hiatus here.  The kids return to school tomorrow, the freshman and I start back to our respective colleges next Monday. The clock is ticking and suddenly, I am whipped into frenzy to Get Work Done.  I suspect this phenomenon happens to many, many educators who try to avoid that panic-stricken night before they go back to work. And believe me when I say, I had the deepest, most earnest of intentions to write lesson plans, write quizzes, and generally prepare for the restart of my classes next week.  Like, really. And then...I was distracted by...citrus.  This happened. Okay, so....the lemons on the far right are no big deal.  They're available year-round.  But Meyer lemons...MEYER...I only find around here in the winter.  I first read about them i...

Keeping It Short, Keeping It Real

Today marked the penultimate day of Cake Decorating...and it was by far the most stressful of the last three weeks...and I mean, to quote the youth, I was a hater . But, that time is done and gone.  Here's what happening right now: A glass (which may turn into a bottle) of a Riesling I have not had in quite some time (read about that here ), and a episode (or more) of AMC's The Walking Dead . Let me clarify...quickly because TechMeat's got the Netflix cued.  School friends of mine went on and on about this TV show, so I got nuts one night and watched the first episode (with Brent, natch)...and now, we're kinda interested.  We're on episode 4 of Season One, so yeah, a long ways to go to catchup. Honestly, the last time we had this much interest in a TV show was Spin City and Dharma and Greg in the early 2000s.  For real.  We don't do a lot of TV around here.  Movies, yes.  TV, no. I'm going now.  To recover my strength and gear up for t...

The Salisbury Steak Haunts Me...

Let's jog the ol' memory tonight. Nah...let's more like shake the crapness out of my memory until it wets itself and surrenders any and all information I ask it for. If you read between the lines (not the Blurred Lines) on my Kenny Rogers-related post, you'll get that my childhood family meals were pretty Amurican.  Beef stew, pot roast, pan-fried pork chops.  I do recall cans of La Choy Chop Suey and chow mein noodles, and in the later years, tacos (and that was ethnic food at our house).  But, for the most part, Hamburger Helper (and this was long before Tuna, Chicken, or Asian Helper) and Swanson's made up the bulk of my childhood eating. And here's where things get even more murky: What in world did I eat for lunch when I was a kid? Take a moment to ponder this very question for yourselves.  Are you having as much trouble as I did answering this question?  Or am I just getting old?  Or have I repressed it? I know I did not get the cafeteria ...