Saturday, December 22, 2012

Kitchens: the world of kitchens is a wonderful thing. I once had a man tell me he wanted to someday be able to give me the kitchen of my dreams, as time goes on, that dream kitchen is evolving. Professional kitchens are different than most expect. You would expect prim and proper chef, stainless steel, mixers silently whirring, and timers on ovens going off. Well here is a look into the kitchen I get to call home every day from 5a-1p {but I usually stay until 3} the drain in the floor sometimes smells like the sewers in France, some tattoos are cute cupcakes, others are so frightening you want to bleach  your eyes!, a thin layer of flour coats everything no matter how hard you clean, a hobart mixer is jerry-rigged with a bobbypin and the end of a fork, one mixer is broken but no one ever fixes it or throws it away. We take turns with the music, and when pastry cook 2 gets a turn I die a little inside...techno at 5am just seems so unholy. Every other word is usually a swear word, if not from the pastry kitchen then from one of the adjoining kitchens, there is yelling, and slamming, and stressful moments. The bathroom is across the iced parking lot, they only ever stock 2 small chef coats so unless you get there early you are rocking an XL, one walk-in fridge always smells like truffles, and oven mitts have a hole on one side so you really have to make sure you put them on the right hands. The dishwashers howl when anything female regardless of age or size walks by, and you quickly learn when they say, "put more salsa on it" you just say, "no". That salsa is nuclear.  The waiters think they rule the world, the line cooks look like they are 12, the floor mats sometimes fold up without warning and trip you, and while everyone else takes smoke breaks, I take mountain breaks. I slip on my down jacket, come up from the pastry basement and walk out over by the bridge where I can breath, and hear the stream, while gazing at arguably the most beautiful snow capped mountains in the world. I stay for just a moment, a breath or two, and then slowly walk back to the pastry madness I am so in love with even after 3 days here.

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