02.05.08

The Big Game

Posted in The Story at 12:47 pm by Chef Matt

Enjoy the game people?…

So, did you all enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday? Have a nice relaxing time watching all the pre-game hoopla? Maybe you made a run to the store for more chips and dip or called up for a pizza to be delivered while you sat on your comfy couch watching the game in hi-def and surround sound? Was it cool for you? Well here’s how my Super Bowl Sunday went.

Arriving at 7:45 AM (as I always do), I took one step in the door and almost broke my neck as the floor was slick with a thin sheen of cooking oil. The path of this oil went from the door to the deep fryer, so I am pretty sure I knew the source of the problem. After a quick mop to make the floor usable, I began setting up the restaurant by myself – again, as I always do on Sundays - but was looking forward the extra person coming in to help me this morning. I was anticipating this opportunity to get more done than a usual Sunday.

My other employees began to trickle in around 8AM or so, but I noticed that my new dishwasher was not among them. As 8:30 rolled around, I was beginning to get worried, so I moved my new helper over to the dish station to tackle the steadily growing pile of dishes, and I went back to setting up the restaurant stations and prepping for all the dishes that needed cooking. (This is a job that is normally handled by three people on any other day of the week - today, it was just me…)

Super Bowl Sunday has more pizzas sold on it than any other day. We had to be ready.

I carefully monitored our position on pizza crusts and burgers, since I knew these would both be big ticket items on Super Bowl Sunday. The levels of each looked good for the day. The soups (Cheddar Ale and Potato Fennel) were both plentiful and tasted great, so no worries there. So I prepped out the pork ragout and the mushroom ragout and left the mis en place for these for Andrew when he came in.

My phone began to vibrate in my pocket and I quickly grabbed it since I knew this was likely one of my fellow sous calling me with an issue. It was indeed Tim, letting me know that he was having trouble finding parking at the Dupont Circle farmers market where he was supposed to pick up 25 pounds of winter cabbage and 10 pounds of carrots for us for a special dinner we are having on Wednesday featuring local farmers. He would be in later than expected as a result. “No problem,” I said with false confidence. “It’s all under control here!”

Andrew rolled in around 11 or so and began to fire off the dishes that I had prepped for him with his usual speed and skill. With the second sous chef in house, I figured we would be back in business since that meant I could hunker down and finish prepping the stations for lunch. I set about taking a Parisienne scoop (melon baller) to some potatoes to create the garnish for our new skirt steak dish, but with dismay the low level of potatoes remaining in the bin worried me greatly. My cell phone was soon dialing Tim again, and we were set with him picking up 20 pounds of potatoes for us as well. Problem solved, we were back on track.

Potatoes. Don’t try to make French fries without them.

Lunch began slowly, but then began to pop pretty hard. In short, all the people who wanted to watch the game were getting lunch out of the way now. And it seemed they were all bringing their kids by as well, as the number of kid’s dishes I made over the course of the lunch shift was truly astounding. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Tim, who had returned with all the produce, cut himself while prepping the tomato bacon butter. He had not cut himself for some years he said - and it looks like this cut made up for all his good luck. He came down through his fingernail hard and had a good part of the tip of his middle finger split. (It made the cut I reported on some time back look like nothing.) With his finger wrapped in paper towels and masking tape and his hand in a bag of ice to keep his whole arm from going numb, he was pretty much out of commission. So I was once again down a chef.

But I couldn’t worry about that now, as I had to quickly begin making our gluten-free pizza crusts so as to have plenty for the big game, and also break down my station from lunch so as to have it ready for the dinner crew to set up. Each batch of this chickpea flour dough makes only a dozen crusts, but the work involved takes about an hour and a half when all is said and done. I hope that all the celiacs who come in to order these crusts enjoy the effort put into them! So, down a chef and a dishwasher with me running to all parts of the kitchen while cleaning and cooking (after I had already been working for 8 hours mind you…) I was feeling a mix of urgent effort combined with anticipation of completion. I really felt like we were near the end of the line of all the things we would have to do to be ready for the big game. I wrapped and boxed the par-baked crusts and asked Andrew if there was anything else.

“Yeah, um, we only have 9 burgers in house,” Andrew reported to me.

A Super Bowl without burgers is like a BBQ without beer.

Somehow in the rush of the day, I had not noticed that the grill had been hit hard on burgers at lunch (since I work saute) and now the level that I had previously been comfortable with was now pathetically low. And kickoff was in less than an hour.

Jumping into my Ford Escort and blazing down the road I was at my local Giant in record time. I ran over to the meat counter, and found that was not the only one who was making burgers for the big game. The ground beef selection was rather scant. I scraped together about 15 pounds of meat of different types and ran back to the restaurant. I handed the pile of beef to my prep chef and merely said, “Burgers. Quickly.” He understood and was on it like a flash. (Which is why we love him…)

I casually went over to the dessert station to make sure all was OK over there, which I knew it would be since we had so many desserts going into the weekend. But I was wrong again, as we were already out of chocolate cakes. I ran across the street to the bakery next door where we get our desserts and upped my order for the following day, as our dessert stocks were much more depleted than I had expected. (Though this is a good thing, since it means we sold lots of dessert!)

Back on the line, I checked with all my staff to make sure everyone had what they needed, and I prepared for the rush that I was sure would come before the game. But when kickoff was imminent, the restaurant was pretty quiet. We had people in the bar, sure, but the restaurant side was empty. I guess I could have seen that coming. All the prep, all the work, and nobody was there to enjoy it. Oh well, it is better to be prepared and not too busy than the other way around, right?

Time to knock off, have some beers, and enjoy what’s left of the game.

I clocked out around 7:45 PM (a nice 12-hour shift) and got my shift beer in time to watch a little bit of the second half of the game. All in all, a rough way to spend Super Bowl Sunday, huh? But here’s the real kicker:

Looking back on all this that happened - it was a pretty average Sunday in the restaurant. Business as usual. That’s just the way things go day to day. Only on this one, I also missed half of the big game to boot.

But that’s what the life of a chef is all about. Working hard and missing the fun things that everyone else gets to enjoy. It’s a constant sacrifice I’m willing to make though. My only hope is that I’m able to get off work early enough this Wednesday to see the Duke-UNC game. Go Devils!

Chef Matt

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