Marla's Blog

Another Charity Event

My next charity event is a neighborhood fund raiser this Saturday.  It is the day before Mother's Day, it is the weekend of all the major college graduations and it is the weekend my daughter has two dance performances. 

I am heading off my procrastination problem of late and plan to map out what will be done and when.  Actually, I'll get to that on Wednesday.  I hope.   I have a server coming to help me.  We will set up, I will work it with him for an hour, run off to catch my daughter's Saturday performance, and meet him back at the event to help pack up and return to the restaurant.

China Costs

At the end of the evening last Sunday, a waiter pushed a tray into the normal rack located under a small prep table which backs up to the saute cooler.  They pushed it back further than normal.  Kitchen was cleaned up and everyone went home.  Later, the fan blade for the saute cooler's compressor came on and clipped the tray, pulling it further into the fan blade.  This caused the saute cooler to shake and boogie and 14 plates and bowls shook off onto the nearby table and onto the floor and broke.

Fan blade repair - $160.00

6 Black Bowls  - $20.00 each = $120.00 plus tax and freight (Have to buy by the dozen) = $240.00 ++

8 Violet Flowered Plates - $24.00 each =$200.00 plus tax and freight (Have to buy by the dozen)= $300.00 ++

Charity Events - Read the Paperwork.

This last Saturday I participated a fund raiser for the High Museum in Atlanta.  60-70 chefs (I'm guessing) from Atlanta's restaurant scene prepare foods at different tables for the reception which precedes a Wine Auction.  The more of these events you do, the easier they become, but I suffered from some very piss poor planning, I think the worst ever.  Luckily, it came out very well.

I remember to order a flower arrangement for the table, but don't get around to doing so until Thursday night. We schedule pickup for 9:30 Saturday morning.  I'm supposed to be on sight by 10:00am for set up.  We get the food in Friday and before I leave for the evening I pack up some boxes with everything I would need.  I keep a list on my computer.....The list includes sterno, tongs, napkins, business cards, copper pieces for display, tablecloths, signage, knives, gloves, sanitizer, etc.  I have a separate list for the items I keep at home.  My chef de cuisine packs the food.

The boxes are packed in the office and the food in the walk-in cooler.  I go home, turning down an offer to go out with a friend.  I need to go to bed early.

This is when things get a little rough.

I had told some waiters to put our porch heaters in my car since their use  was over for the season, (yeah, right!) and  I had to take them to be serviced.  But I need my back seat for my assistant and daughter, Mona,  and the flowers.  I get home at 9:30 and have to drag the heaters out of the car, cursing and whining because they are very heavy and awkward.  (My husband is still out of town.)  I pull some display and serving pieces, wrap them in plastic and pack them in my backseat. I look in my trunk and see all the things I had bagged up to donate to the church thrift shop two weeks ago, but had forgotten to drop off.  My trunk was PACKED.  I have to empty my trunk.  All done; I will get the cooler and cook top from the basement in the morning.

2:00 am - Do I have the butane cartridges for the cook top?  Didn't I give them all back to Deedee?  I must have some in the basement?  If not I will have to go out to Atlanta Fixture when they open in the morning.  I call Atlanta Fixture at 2:30 am to see what time they open.  9:00  AM.  It will work.

6:00 am - I can't sleep, worrying about the butane.  Get up, shower, dress, iron my chef coat and trudge down to the basement.  No butane.  I pack everything else.  I wait until 8:30 to call Deedee to see if she has them.  She says she gave them to me, I promise to look again.  I look again, but no Butane so I'm out the door to Atlanta Fixture.  (I later fib to Deedee saying  I found them.  I  didn't  want her to know what a  flake I have become).

8:55 - Atlanta Fixture people open up 5 minutes early for me.  I pick up the butane, ask about some to go containers, happen by some new cleaning buckets and pick them up.  Out the door at 9:10.

9:20 - Arrive at friends house to pick up Mona who had spent the night there.

9:30  - Pick up flowers, which are still being tweaked. 

9:40 - Arrive at the restaurant to pick up a line cook  "S" from the kitchen who will be assisting me, pack up the TRUNK.  As we are packing up, I start discussing the menu and how we are going to do it with "S".  "S" reads the paperwork I had been sent by the planning committee three months earlier and tells me there is no cooking allowed inside the tent.  I swear last year chefs cooked inside the tent.  That is a problem for me because I am serving scallops which most definitely have to be cooked.  OK, we will cook outside the tent.  "S"  is looking at me funny.

10:05 - Arrive at the "area" where I thought the wine tent would be.  I see some smaller tents and think that they have changed the arrangement for the auction.  I drop off "S" and Mona with some stuff and tell them to start looking for our table. 

10:09 - A policeman asks me what I'm doing and then informs me I am in the wrong place.  I wait for "S" and my daughter to come back, load the stuff again and drive around to the back, find the tent and the drop off spot.  Start hauling things over our table. 

10:25 - At this time I have no idea what I am going to cook on, what is going to go in what display piece.
I set up a cooking station.  It consists of 3 cardboard boxes turned upside down with a butane stove on top.  It also consists of another cardboard box turned upside down with a cutting board on which "S" will put a pan for the cooked scallops.  On another crate is a bucket of water (Evian) in a cleaning bucket with sanitizer.  We have the ice chest out there with the scallops.  Believe it or not, it's pretty much up to code.  "S" is looking at me funny.

10:35 - I go searching for water for the chafing dish and for our access passes.  I go in the wrong direction.  I am instructed to use Evian  for the chafing dish.  I tell the volunteer I need some forks and plates.  Go back and set up chafing dish. 

10:40 - "S" starts cooking scallops.  I run out to my car to move it from the loading dock to the parking lot.  I tried the "my husband is a retired Atlanta cop, can I just leave my car here?"  It didn't work.  The cop told me to say hello to my husband but to move my car.  My daughter, Mona, is putting down the tablecloths and putting the garnishes and sauces into the pots.

10:45 - I am at my car, looking at the one copper pot left in the back seat.  Do I take it?  It is very old and valuable and it might get lost at the event.  I lock it in my trunk.

10:50 - I get back to the table, find someone putting out forks and  realize I need the copper pot in my trunk.  Run outside with Mona and show her where the car is.  Then send her running to get it. 

10:55 - Finish table.  "S" has finished first batch of scallops and they look beautiful.  Put them in the chafer.  Mona gets back with the pot for the forks.

11:00 - Event begins.  Everyone loves the Scallops.  They are delicious.

Friday Morning

Crazy,  Menu change today - came in 9:00 am - must update website, blog, cost recipes and finally cook.  Actually, I'm in good shape there, prepped well yesterday.  Oh, and my key morning guy is out.

Snow Days at a Restaurant

Do we open if it's snowing?  Is the weatherman correct?   Will we do enough business to pay for wages, food cost, utilities?   Will we have power?  Are we going to upset people by closing?    Will my deliveries be able to come in?  How will I keep my driveway clear and safe?  What do I do to the Handicap ramp to keep it safe?  Which employees will have the hardest and longest drives?  When exactly will the roads ice over? What temperature will it be at 11:30 when my staff has to drive home?  Can I afford to open, can I afford to close?  Are there special parties on the books?  What is my competition going to do?  What time do I make the decision?  Do I have my prep cooks cut back on production? How much should we cut back?  Do I have any perishables that I should send back with the delivery guys?  If I open, how much staff should I have on hand?  Should I close early?

It is such a battle. 

Another Thursday

9:15 Arrive at restaurant and sprayed for bugs.  Bi-monthly treatment.  Change clothes.

9:30 My tournant, Mel arrives with another cook who came in on his day off to fix a leaking pipe under the dish table.  I surprised him when he said he had to go to the hardware store. I was able to bring up parts that I had stored in my basement.  Somewhere along the line I had replaced the faucet before, but kept some of the good sections.  This is a very important trick in this business.  It is like harvesting organs.  I have computer parts, table hardware, pipes, wood and believe it or not even a sink.  Of course the sink was from an incorrect shipment back in the summer.  You can read about that fiasco in the archives of this blog.

9:50  Mel and I are waiting on the oven repair person.  We can't use the convection oven until a small repair was made on it while the oven was still cool.  Funny, but the repair guys don't like sticking their head into a 500 degree oven.  The repair man comes at 10:00, but we have plenty of other things to work on in the meantime.

10:00  We have a lot of special orders going out this time of year from our Pantry.  While Mel starts with sauces and soups, I am making pie dough, almond dough, date pastries, ravioli.

10:30  The salad station cooler is making a funny noise, similar to the one it did when the compressor needed to be replaced.  That repair man comes in and finds that a menu has fallen behind the cooler and had been sucked up into the fan and was causing the disruption.  A five minute fix.  The man offers to not charge me, but I refuse.  We settle on a $75.00 trade and he is coming into dinner next week with his family.  Works for me, works for him.

11:00 I start making tarts; Cherry Tarts, Bacon and Onion Tart, Mushroom Tarts, Apple Tarts and more Mushroom Tarts for pickup later in the day.  Mel and I now have to coordinate prep for the oven because of the different cook times and temperatures and we are behind because of the oven repair.  I have two other ovens but they are not convection and when it comes to baking they are not an option unless absolutely necessary.

12:00 I call the coordinator for a party of 21 people who are coming at 6:30 with a suggestion that I move their party out onto our back deck.  It's is 71 degrees in Atlanta in December.  Crazy, but with the heaters we have out there they can have a private room, mill around, exchange gifts and get a little rowdy.  She jumps at the suggestion.  My staff had already arranged tables for this group in  one section of the dining room the night before.  I feel terrible making them take the tables apart.  One server, David had guessed that I would come in and say the tables were in the wrong place and make them redo it.  He should have put money on it.

12:15  Liquor orders start coming in.  The fabulous wine that we have just started featuring as a special this month and the one our next week's sold out Wine Tasting is based on, was billed as out of stock.  I can't wait to see how my sales rep gets himself out of that mess.

12:30  Still working on Tarts, tarts and tarts.  When cool, I box them up with ribbons and bows and get them stashed in the downstairs cooler.

3:00  Kitchen staff comes in.  I have another new person on the salad station and this is his first cooking job. This is traditionally called a chef de partie, ( a chef of a station ) I still have to go over the list of what needs to be prepared and how much.  He has been my dishwasher for a while and at least he knows where things are.  But he's VERY green.  I work with him for about an hour.  He works the slower nights in the restaurant.

4:00  Power surge shuts down all the computers and sends one of the terminals into a funk.  Reboots OK though.  Worked phones while my manager restocked liquor.  Received many requests for gift certificates which had to be written up, rung up and mailed.

4:30  Work with waiters to get the tables taken apart and reset on the deck.  Hassled them about time management and details in the set up.  Sometimes they start talking and socializing and don't concentrate.

5:00  Place last minute meat order for the weekend.  Check stock in walk-ins.  Check line and set up of cooks.  Mel is staying with me to help put out with the party of 21.  I love this guy.

5:30  Open for service.  Go back to the office to print menus for the party.  It's a wine pairing dinner with lots of options and different wines suggested for each menu choice.  It's a bear.

6:30  Place produce and fish orders for next day.  Go through mail.  Answer emails.  Take more pantry orders for next week.  Coordinate production of a large batch of Beef Bourguignon going out as special orders next weekend and then a large batch to be made next Sunday for delivery at a church on Christmas Day for the homeless.

7:00 Party sits down and work begins.

9:30  Tidy up walk-ins.  Check orders.  Leave notes for Sous Chef, who is off on Thursdays.  Drink a vodka and go home. 

Cocktail Menus

We've been working on a new fall cocktail menu.  I remember when I didn't have to bother with these things, but when I  introduced our first list about 2 years ago, our liquor sales went up by 30%.

So each day, my manager and I have been making and drinking cocktails.  Lots and lots of cocktails.  It sounds like fun until you are trying to differentiate between 2 and 2 1/4 oz of pomegranate liquor and fiddling with different amounts of cointreau.  We scribble out one measurement and replace it with increasingly illegible notations.  If this were food, we'd just be getting fat, but now we're getting loaded. 

One time I did this, I go so blitzed I had to ask my husband to come pick me up from work.  Now we just start around 1:00 pm so we get drunk, struggle through the afternoon and sober up in time for service.   It really is work.

It took us over two weeks.  But we're done!

Repairs

Convection oven on the fritz again.  This time a new element....$531.00

Salad Cooler - Compressor down  $781.00

This is why you pay $30.00 for a bottle of wine which you can buy at the wine shop for $15.00.

Computer Hell!

  The new computer system is up and running.  A server was in tears last Saturday night.  I had a melt down over the system.  My manager had a melt down over the system.  Luckily we all melted at different times and could help each other out.   That's what I call a team.  The three of us have worked together on our old system for years and you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks....The servers without any problems are the young, technically mobile ones. 

  My manager stayed until 1:30 pm Saturday night trying to repay incorrectly closed checks.  I stayed on until 3:30 am and would have pulled an all nighter except that the system closes down between 3:00am and 7:00am and I couldn't  figure out how to reset those hours.  I charged one customer 3 times for the same dinner.  Since all the credit card numbers are masked, I couldn't tell.  Luckily, he is a  loyal regular and I was able to make the correction the next day.

  But now, almost one week later, we are becoming friends with the computer.  I am a little more proficient with it and can make most corrections to the database without too much trouble.  But our specials were ringing up for $384.00 last night, so.....

Whatever happened to Just being a Chef?

    I guess most restaurants have office managers, marketing people, but I don't.....I have Marketing Assistance from a wonderful friend Julia Roberts of Robert's Resource.  I pay her in trade and take her to the Bahamas with me.  My Chef de Cuisine pays the kitchen bills, I pay the house bills and balance the checkbook.  I do my month end paperwork, not because I don't want my CPA to do it, he's terrific too, but because I want to see where the money is going and why my linen bill went from $850.00 a month to $1100.00.  Perhaps I will change my ways some day.