New Experiences

This week has been a little better than last week. Slowly but surely I will get there. I’m starting to realize that I’m slightly depressed and I’m not sure how to deal with it but hey, nobody cares. Just have to say a prayer and leave it all in God’s hands.

Monday was kind of boring. I really can’t get into school on Mondays. Simply because, well… IT’S MONDAY. But I stayed and stuck it out. Got my homework done but while trying to stay positive and upbeat. Sanitation class was sanitation class. Menu design was alright. That class turned out okay for the most part. I left with a smile on my face and a couple laughs in my pocket. Tuesday night was The Buckhorn Dinner. It’s a big dinner that the culinary program puts together every year. A high class menu that is cooked by the second year students and served by the first year students (that’s me). Each plate is $75 and the students ask our employers or other places to donate anything from gift certificates to booze. The people that come to the dinner buy raffle tickets to win prizes. The money we raise goes towards scholarships for when we get to go away on our externships.

So on Monday, the first years had to start prepping for The Buckhorn. We were taught how to fabricate (clean) beef tenderloin. That’s either the most expensive part of the cow or one of the most expensive parts. I wasn’t feeling it. We could NOT mess up. It had to be perfect. I wasn’t mentally prepared for that kind of stress. It was kind of hard but it was a good learning experience. We had a lot of scraps and the chef designated us to 1 of 3 recipes: Beef Stroganoff, Fajitas, or Spaghetti and Meatballs. I didn’t care which one we got because I WAS STARVING. We were assigned the meatballs. Tenderloin meatballs? Um yeah, they were pretty good. Not as good as my nana’s but good nonetheless. Me and my partner had a good time and we ate and all was well. Basically, the chef wanted us to learn how to utilize the scraps instead of throwing them away. One of the biggest mistakes restaurants make is throwing away the scraps. UTILIZE YOUR SCRAPS.

Tuesday was interesting. I had no idea what to expect. It was a perfect rainy day and all I wanted to do was sleep. We had an hour of class then we all went to the kitchen and started getting everything ready to go for the big dinner. I had to count plates, do dishes, put some butter into some pans. A bunch of random stuff. It was fun though.

When we got to The Buckhorn Supper Club, it was old but it’s been around since the 30’s. The current owners let us use it FOR FREE for the dinner. That’s one of the coolest things ever. We had to set tables and when that was done, we got a speech and just waited for the guests to arrive. One of my tables had some of the nicest people I had ever met. They brought a priest and that was really cool. I don’t consider myself Catholic anymore but me and God are on good terms. I don’t have much to say about my other table. It was really cool that my smaller table had someone at it who had made a lot of donations to our program and they were asking me and my fellow server buddy all kinds of questions. “What is your ideal job?” “Where do you want to go on your externship?” Those kinds of questions. It was nice that someone asked and legitimately cared what came out of my mouth.

Once we got busy, serving came natural.We did awesome at serving our two tables. We never let a water glass or coffee cup go empty and they didn’t sit around with a dirty dish in front of them for more than a couple minutes. We were on top of it. Some people just stood around and every time I passed a table, people were waiting for their table to get cleared. Maybe it’s because I work at a restaurant that I know what is expected. At the end of the night, the second years came out of the kitchen and lined up on one side while the first years stood across the room from them. White chef jackets lined the whole dining area. We all got a round of applause and that was one of the nicest things that really hit home for me. It made it feel like it was real. Like all of our hard work was for a good cause and it pays off. I love my school. I love my program. And I love (most) of my classmates. I can’t wait until next fall when I’ll hopefully be getting ready to go on my externship.

Time! Time! Time!