A Pair of Days

Yesterday started off horridly, and then went much better after breakfast or so. The first thing that happened was that, upon getting to the kitchen to meet the delivery truck, I found (as our kitchen steward had already found) that the bread delivery had been stacked horridly on one pallet in a giant pile under our overhang. The unfortunate consequences of this mistake (usually they put bread in two old broken freezers outside first, and pile the remaining boxes on top of those containers) was that the pile toppled, and there were bagels (for trip day today) all over the ground. Since it had been raining, not only were the bagels ruined, they were also sopping wet, and many had fallen into puddles. So there was this disastrous waste of food and mess to clean up. At the same time, the truck delivering the rest of our food was there, so I dealt with that mostly on my own while Steve dealt with cleanup. Since today was trip day and they pack lunches for trips the afternoon before, that morning we had an unusually large amount of fruit coming in, and fruit is heavy- it was a pretty exhausting morning for before breakfast. After that, there was food to prep for the oldest age group, who was leaving for their overnight that day.

After we prepared that, I tried to set up the stuff to prepare for lunch, but I couldn't fill the pot to boil water for pasta because they were starting to use the grill already (the grill is right next to the short stoves we use for giant pots), and I rearranged the oven racks to get ready for the huge pots of macaroni and cheese, but the top ones were hot. So when I tried to pull one that started slipping under the oven out, I burnt the back of my upper arm. It's pretty much fine now, but it wasn't so pleasant for a bit then.

After breakfast, I decided to go with the "change your place, change your luck" concept, and went to help out on the fleishig side of the kitchen where they were making star-shaped cookies for one age group's Hollywood day. (Why so few of these special days are Jewishly themed, I don't know.) Afterwards, we made brownies for the whole camp (about 1000 people) for tonight- the quantities involved were huge enough to be sort of funny, even after a summer working in a kitchen.

I spent the evening watching Mash (which I'd never seen before) and DS9 and crocheting with a friend.

Today, things went quietly and smoothly in the morning, during which time I gave Steve, our chef, the kippah I made him, and we prepared for dinner. After we did a buffet lunch for staff still in camp (the kids all being off on their trips), the entire kitchen staff (minus Steve, who does not eat in restaurants, we think because he knows too well what goes on in them) went out for lunch together, to a restaurant in Monsey, where we did not so much fit in wonderfully. The food was good but not great, but we did have a good time, I think. Afterwards, the guys headed back to camp, and the women took a brief outing to a jewelry store. I thought I was just going to ogle, since I expected the prices to be well out of the range of my pockets, but I found a pair of earrings on the 75% off rack that were rather pleasing.

Then we returned, and served dinner to 1000 people. It went quite reasonably.

A Pair of Days

Yesterday started off horridly, and then went much better after breakfast or so. The first thing that happened was that, upon getting to the kitchen to meet the delivery truck, I found (as our kitchen steward had already found) that the bread delivery had been stacked horridly on one pallet in a giant pile under our overhang. The unfortunate consequences of this mistake (usually they put bread in two old broken freezers outside first, and pile the remaining boxes on top of those containers) was that the pile toppled, and there were bagels (for trip day today) all over the ground. Since it had been raining, not only were the bagels ruined, they were also sopping wet, and many had fallen into puddles. So there was this disastrous waste of food and mess to clean up. At the same time, the truck delivering the rest of our food was there, so I dealt with that mostly on my own while Steve dealt with cleanup. Since today was trip day and they pack lunches for trips the afternoon before, that morning we had an unusually large amount of fruit coming in, and fruit is heavy- it was a pretty exhausting morning for before breakfast. After that, there was food to prep for the oldest age group, who was leaving for their overnight that day.

After we prepared that, I tried to set up the stuff to prepare for lunch, but I couldn't fill the pot to boil water for pasta because they were starting to use the grill already (the grill is right next to the short stoves we use for giant pots), and I rearranged the oven racks to get ready for the huge pots of macaroni and cheese, but the top ones were hot. So when I tried to pull one that started slipping under the oven out, I burnt the back of my upper arm. It's pretty much fine now, but it wasn't so pleasant for a bit then.

After breakfast, I decided to go with the "change your place, change your luck" concept, and went to help out on the fleishig side of the kitchen where they were making star-shaped cookies for one age group's Hollywood day. (Why so few of these special days are Jewishly themed, I don't know.) Afterwards, we made brownies for the whole camp (about 1000 people) for tonight- the quantities involved were huge enough to be sort of funny, even after a summer working in a kitchen.

I spent the evening watching Mash (which I'd never seen before) and DS9 and crocheting with a friend.

Today, things went quietly and smoothly in the morning, during which time I gave Steve, our chef, the kippah I made him, and we prepared for dinner. After we did a buffet lunch for staff still in camp (the kids all being off on their trips), the entire kitchen staff (minus Steve, who does not eat in restaurants, we think because he knows too well what goes on in them) went out for lunch together, to a restaurant in Monsey, where we did not so much fit in wonderfully. The food was good but not great, but we did have a good time, I think. Afterwards, the guys headed back to camp, and the women took a brief outing to a jewelry store. I thought I was just going to ogle, since I expected the prices to be well out of the range of my pockets, but I found a pair of earrings on the 75% off rack that were rather pleasing.

Then we returned, and served dinner to 1000 people. It went quite reasonably.