So when I showed up today, the exec wasn't there. I asked the Sous Chef Andrew, the Execs Father, where he was.
"Mikey didn't get out of here till midnight last night. Yeah he said that after he sent you home the chef grabbed two more jars of leaves an had them keep rolling them out."
Now once again its run around helping everyone i can while i wait for the Egyptian chef to show up. Last night, since i was the only one here, he would ask me if we had things and all i could do was think then say,"We should... Let me check." I could see he was getting flustered with me so i finally just looked at him and said,"Its my first day." I think he understood that, his English was quite broken.
I helped another chef named Gregorio out making these stuffed puff pastry bread stick things. They were actually really cool looking, but it was a sheet of puff pastry, the filling down the center, he made 1 inch slits all along the top and bottom then folded them over each other encasing the mixture. We made a sundried tomato and herbed cream cheese on and a mushroom ragout with sauteed spinach for the other one.
9 o'clock, the Egyptian is here. He comes in and we start gathering all the things from last night; the syrup which cooked down by half and was a beautiful amber color, the remaining rice, the tomato sauce, and the grape leaves. He puts the pot of leaves on to cook, and starts me making a dish called Ful. Ful is a great change up from hummus, its made with canned fava beans mashed up and cooked with sauteed onions, garlic, tomatoes, cumin, lemon juice, tahini, ground coriander and salt and pepper. The dish is then cooked for just a bit then poured into a pan and topped with good olive oil, parsley and paprika. It was my favorite item we made today.
After that was done we started on the baklava rolls. Well here is where our next communication breakdown happened. He had been using dill in several things so we were out. He starts making the ful and asks for dill. What I heard was, "I need Dille". We were out so we sent someone to the store. That person came back with basil, they were yelled at and sent back. They returned with dill and i gave him the bag.
"NO, I need Dille"
"This is Dill."
"NO, DILLE!"
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!!!!" I screamed in my head.
The chef storms into the walkin and after a couple minutes come out with a bag of walnuts and presents them to me.
"Dille. You had whole time." as he looks very angrily at me.
"No, those are walnuts. This is Dill." I guess we agreed to disagree.
Moving on to the baklava rolls. 1000 pieces of baklava rolls is created by taking one sheet of phyllo dough, placing a small bead of a mixture (made with ground almonds, ground walnuts, Cinnamon, sugar, and a touch of water) across the base then rolling that up super tight without tearing the dough. A monumental task for us as we kept ripping or not rolling the rolls tight enough. He watched me make one roll then said, "Why must you make so big. That's for two. You do that you eat your cost!" So the bakery kept on rolling, hating everything about the rolls, while the sales staff kept coming in and saying, "Oh good, you guys need to know how to make these because this is going on the menus."
The Egyptian chef started work on the last item for the parties. Using the same mixture as the grape leaves, he was making cabbage rolls. He complained the whole time, "Your fire is no strong, the water no boil, this pot to small, and so on." I was heading back to Linda's to get showered up and head to the Museum for the event. The museum was amazing looking and the set up was great. We were doing passed apps of stuffed grape leaves, Ful served warm in tortilla cups, and the baklava rolls. We had a buffet set up with the Kashari being served with choice of tomato sauce or herbed oil on top.
Myself and the event chef knocked out passed apps for about 2 hours till Linda came in and stole me away for dinner. We headed over the the Forest Club, the country club near her house. We had a wonderful time talking about what was going on both in kc and at Melange, how the trip was and everything ICA. For dinner I had the chicken Liz. A Forest Club special since the 40's. It was a Crispy Fried Parmesan Breaded Cutlet, Angel Hair Pasta, Wilted Spinach and Lemon Butter. A very nice meal and a great treat after the long day.
We head back to Linda's house and i get all moved in. Work starts again tomorrow at 7, I am happy for what i learned from the Egyptian, but so happy he is gone.
Stewart
No comments:
Post a Comment