Today, ended my three day stint working with the chefs and cooks at McMahon. What a blast I had!!! On Tuesday, I got the introduction into the world of what a short order cook does. I helped Beth prep some items for breakfast. Then she gave us a quick tutorial on using the griddle top, and I was off and running. My mission: French toast and pancakes. It was a slower morning, so we utilized our down time to prep some items for lunchtime. Brittany and I pre-made grilled cheese sandwiches, and then made some pizzas, all to be cooked later on, of course. We still had some time before lunch so we helped prep for the next day's breakfast by cutting up potatoes and onions. Woooo those were some strong onions, but we made it through tears and all. :)
Lunchtime was much busier as the orientation students had arrived and were hungry, and what better place to eat than the dining halls they will be spending so much time at in their next year. Beth had me maintaining the vegetarian griddle top, so I was in charge of the grilled cheese sandwiches and the veggie burgers. I rocked it out like a champion, keeping up the entire lunch. After lunch was finished, Brittany and I had a chance to run over to South Dining Hall and work on some planning for our luncheon.
Wednesday was a test to see how much we retained from the previous day. Beth let Brittany and I pretty much run the show. We arrived and did our morning prep work, and then got started on breakfast. The students were still on campus for orientation, so breakfast was hopping. I was a pancake making fool and on point, never falling behind. After the rush slowed, we prepped our pizzas and grilled cheeses again for lunch (these items are served everyday). When lunch hit again, I successfully made over 100 grilled cheese sandwiches, all while keeping up with the rush. We grabbed some cookbooks after lunch and started our recipe search, as we are wanting to have the full menu for the luncheon figured out by Monday.
Today, we arrived and wanted to learn more about the areas we had been in the last few days. We worked with Angel today and he showed us how the breakfast potatoes and meats were prepped in the morning time and then he let us help prep for some of the lunch items for today. We had to pan up hoki fish, make pizzas (we sang today...when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore), and then we did some problems that dealt with loss and yields of meats before and after they are cooked. We used the skirt steak for the steak sandwiches at lunch and the hamburgers for lunch. We weighed both meats before and after and found that the steak had a 40% loss and the hamburgers had a 33% loss, both numbers were much higher than I had anticipated. We finished up prep work by cooking off the vegetables for the steak sandwiches and the rest of the steak meat. Once lunch hit, I was back to my comfort zone, rocking out my grilled cheeses like a rockstar. We helped clean up after lunch and then went back to our recipe hunt for our luncheon.
It was great getting to work closely with the full time cooks and to see what they contribute each day to help feed the many that filtrate through the dining hall. Props to them, it's not necessarily an easy job, ergonomically I could see how it could cause discomfort. Plus, it gets super hot back in the kitchens. All worth it though, cause it is fun work!
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