I'm on the couch right now with a glass of Dona Paula Reserve Malbec and Lucinda Williams Radio on my LastFm. (If you haven't yet, do look into lastfm.com. It beats pandora by a mile). For dinner, I had two tofu hotdogs (a lovely pairing with the malbec, I assure you) and some rosemary lemon bread with the first fresh local goat cheese of the season. I am experiencing something near to nirvana at the moment. Spring is in the air. Everything has that fresh dirt smell that makes me itch to get in a garden. Mostly though, I think I'm just happy to be alone and away from work.

Honestly, people were going crazy today. We're between two holidays, which means we're particularly busy, but also it means that people are having to deal with their families and (I assume) the added pressure that comes with family gatherings. Which leads to exchanges like this one:
"Can I help you find anything?"
"No. I want Parmesan but all of these have too much rind on them and I have to cut so much of it off that-"
"Okay."
I said "okay" in a pleasant enough voice, and I was wearing a smile at the time, but I ceased to listen at that point and turned and fled into the kitchen. The thing is, the Parmesan is not more rindy than any real Parm anywhere else. What we have is true blue Parm, organic and imported. It's a DOC cheese, and you pay for the quality. If people aren't interested, they can go to another grocery store and buy the fake stuff. But rind is part of the deal, and most people can put it to good use. So anyway, yeah. I have learned an important lesson from Sven: Do not respond. Do not defend. Do not attempt to answer an unanswerable question. And it's working. She had nowhere to go after she said no, so I just walked off.

Did I mention how fucking delicious this wine is? Honestly. I don't know where it's been all my life.

In other news, I got my review at the Local Restaurant, and Harried Manager had nothing but great things to say. I made a few goals for myself which mostly include learning more about the wine and beer lists and teaching what I know to the staff. He put me in charge of picking the wines by the glass for the restaurant, which is glorious. I went to a huge wine tasting up in Stow3 last week, found a bunch of new things I like, and am moving to get some of them into both the LR and the LG. The wine salesmen seem quite happy to have me on board, which is great. Had another tasting at the restaurant before my shift started on Tuesday (that's where tonight's Malbec came from), too. Difficult to feel like working after tasting fifteen wines. I managed. I get a paid day off on Sunday, but the b.h. has a long and arduous day in store. Since it's supposed to be in the upper 70's, I'll likely take the dogs and go somewhere on a long hike. Monday is the Hold Steady show in Burlington. Woot! Now all I have to do is survive the next two days...

Too Loud Trixie is no longer a member of the Local Restaurant Team. It was a long, long time coming, but after countless stern warnings and a lot of hand-wringing, she was unceremoniously fired two weeks ago. It wasn't because she talks loud and graphically about her sex life in front of customers. Nor was it because she can't speak two consecutive sentences without using an expletive (cough cough- yeah, but I don't do that in front of customers). Somehow she even managed to escape with her job and her neck after discussing the purchase of illegal drugs in front of our manager's fifteen-year-old daughter. That was a real shock, because that incident was just days after she embarrassed herself and the entire staff during a meeting with upper management, and the manager in question looked like she was going to climb over the table and choke the life out of Trixie (Silently, we were all wishing it so).
No, in the end, it was the fact that she gave somebody a beer and didn't charge them for it. This was especially ridiculous because things like that happen on occasion, and I'm pretty sure every one of us has done it unintentionally in the middle of a rush or in a moment of cranial flatulence brought on by utter boredom. Do I think she did it on purpose? Honestly, I don't care. She denied having even served a beer that day, even though there was a beer clearly sitting on the bar that a manager and several other people saw. That was stupid. If she had simply admitted that she had done it, called it a mistake, and offered to pay for it, Harried Manager would have been guilted, even after all of the pain that she caused everyone, into letting her stay. So in the end I think we were all lucky that she was such a hard-headed crazy redneck.
The bad news is that now she has taken to coming in for a few beers on one of my shifts. Honestly, I can't imagine having that kind of gall. Also, I want her the hell out. I am taking suggestions.

On Tuesday I showed up at work to find that the basement had flooded* and that we would not be opening the lounge. The live music was canceled, and there was a nice mildewy odor permeating the lower floor of the restaurant, which is where the bar is located. So, that was a nice start to my day. Anyway, I was the only person who was available to wait on any customers until the dining room opened upstairs. My first two customers were women, both of them were alone, and both were very nice and easy to wait on. They were obviously busy, one of them had paperwork and the other had a book, and so I got their orders and pretty much buggered off to leave them in peace. About fifteen minutes later, two women came in with a baby that couldn't have been two years old yet. Despite the fact that the lounge was closed and had obviously flooded, and despite the fact that the only place to sit was at the bar, where the stools are very high and where there is a damn bar and where you wouldn't want to put a baby if you had half a brain, they sat at the bar. With the baby. As soon as they put her in the chair she was yawning and rubbing her eyes. It was obviously nearing her bedtime. These women were, I figured out, the mother and the babysitter. They ordered food and cocktails, and proceeded to take up what limited space I had with a child who was soon yelping and bothering the other customers and act like it was perfectly natural.
I know that I am not the most kid-friendly person in the world, but I don't mind serving them when it is appropriate. And honestly, if we were the only open restaurant and they just needed something to eat, I would have understood. But to sit a kid in a completely unsafe chair at a bar when she is obviously tired and then feed her clam chowder (which was so hot she started screaming when she took a bite) and Caesar salad and let her scream in a room full of people who are trying to relax and enjoy a meal is just plain rude. All of the waitstaff were giving me looks of pity when I went upstairs to get some bread. I wanted to die. Actually, I wanted the women to die. But I didn't say anything. And I think maybe I should have. If anybody has a suggestion about what I might say (other than the expletives that immediately came to mind) in that situation is welcome to say so. Personally I feel that it is a manager's job to address guests whose behavior is affecting other guests, but none chose to come to my aid.
in other news, we had a meeting last week at the Local Restaurant with, among some other important people, the Director of Operations, during which Too Loud Trixie made a complete ass of herself and embarrassed everyone into a mortified silence. I used to think she was just a terrifyingly stupid redneck, but now I believe she is certifiably insane, or at least a sociopath. And hopefully she has just gotten herself fired. We'll see. The behavior in that meeting was bad enough, but she followed it up by talking about where to buy some pot in front of the 15 year-old daughter of one of our managers. I'll keep you posted. My fingers are crossed.



*I read later in the paper that we narrowly missed a very large flood- town-wide, because of an enormous ice floe on the river.

Saturday night I got to work and discovered that I didn't have a barback. My regular barback, Taylor, was out of town for the weekend, and he had told management four weeks prior, and then told them again a week later when the schedule went up with his name on it. So when Harried Manager came down at 5:30 and asked where my barback was, I snapped back at him
"I don't know, Harried Manager, where is my barback? Did you schedule one?" There followed an exchange wherein he tried to accuse Taylor of not getting his shift covered, and then me getting argumentative, then him telling me I had done the same thing when I left town, then me telling him he was full of it and that I had everything covered and he screwed it all up (which was only partially true. Too loud Trixie threw a fit because I hadn't asked her to cover the shifts, so she bullied him into taking the shifts away from the more deserving and far more talented and professional Taylor) and then I realized too late that Too loud Trixie was sitting at the bar smirking. She thoroughly enjoys it when other people are angry at each other. Thoroughly. I immediately backed off, patted Harried Manager on the shoulder and said that there was nothing for it and we would just have to roll with it.
What wound up happening was TLT had three beers and made an ass of herself with a customer, then she left after apologizing that she couldn't possibly help me out (as if I would ever want her to). The b.h. finished working in the kitchen around seven, and he came downstairs right about the time shit started to hit the fan. He asked if he could help at all and I asked if he remembered how to barback, and we ended up working behind the bar together for the first time in two years. It went very well, all things considered. It was probably the busiest Saturday night we'd had since the leafers left, and martinis were on special, so I must have made about a hundred and fifty of those, but in the end it all worked out just fine. Harried manager remembered after some reflection, that Taylor and he had in fact discussed this weekend, and that he had said not to worry since Saturdays had not been very busy lately. He said this with the proper amount of sheepishness and regret in his voice so I didn't have to bludgeon him to death with an empty Maker's Mark bottle. In the end we made a good bit of money and i didn't have to tip anyone out, so all was well.


I was at the Local grocery on Sunday when I overheard one co-worker say to the other
"I'm going to buy propane at the wahlmart."
The other responded
"Seriously?"
"Nope. I have a history of pyrotechnics in my family you know. I started my first fire when I was eight."
"You're scaring me. Are you joking?"

What followed was a story thatIi had actually already heard, but that I had forgotten and thought you might get a kick out of. The Firestarter had a lot of brothers, and no girls to hang around with when she was growing up except a couple of cousins, who were always mean to her. She tried and tried to be friends and to hang out with them whenever possible, but they would always go away to a cabin they had and she wasn't invited. She asked repeatedly to be brought to said cabin, which was not far from their home, but was a fun getaway, and they wouldn't let her. So one day when nobody was at the cabin, she went and got two cans of propane and burned it down. This at age eight. My other co-worker, not having heard this story before, was in total shock.

"Oh my god Firestarter! What happened? Did you get in trouble?"
"No. Nobody knows it was me. They still don't. I'm waiting for the right time to tell them."

I think the funniest part of this is that the Firestarter is, as far as i can tell, a stable, responsible adult. She is married and has a kid and works hard and never calls in and is totally dependable. Just don't push her, I guess. I'd like to introduce her to Too Loud Trixie. Or at least Trixie's house.

On the Local Restaurant front, we have lost our Fearless Leader, the Harried Manager's boss, he of the giant head and no apparent brains. This is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I no longer have to endure his terrible fake niceties (and worse spelling), and a curse because I fear who will take his place. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime, Manager In Name Only is a couple months pregnant and even crazier than she was before. She told me she was pregnant exactly two days after she told me how her eight-year-old son was ruining her life. She said it in a breathless, excited way. This was just before she told me she was marrying the guy that had just broken up with her because of her son. The guy who was the father of the impending child. Okay, then. Good luck with that. I am thrilled to be working there just two nights a week. My barback is a student named Taylor, whom I recommended for the job because I knew how much he enjoyed bartending and that even at age 22 he was more of an adult than the other two people I worked with behind that bar. He is currently in Boston doing a tryout ("stage") with the bar that he hopes to intern in when his time at Culinary School is over. That will be in march, and I wish him the best of luck while also lamenting his departure.

Other than that, it has been colder than I care to talk about. Lots and lots of snow (for me, but not for Vermont), shoveling like a champ, working my butt off, and trying to find time to read and keep up on some television. I have recently found myself addicted to Lie to Me. Tim Roth is a weakness for which I will not apologize. He's short, his eyes are crooked, and he walks funny. And yet I find him wildly compelling.
I just finished reading Au Revoir to All That; Food, Wine, and the End of France. A great read. Really interesting bits about the history, politics, attitudes, and personalities that have affected French food culture. I just started Jonathan Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet. Haven't formed an opinion about it yet. I ripped right through Jay McInerney's Model Behavior last month. He's just hilarious. I have a feeling he would make a great drinking buddy.
Speaking of which, I did manage to get to the cask of Life and Limb, a collaboration between Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada, which happen to be two of my favorite breweries. This was last night at the Three Penny Tavern. I was joined by the b.h., so it was an even bigger treat than usual. We are just not socializing much these days, and it was a welcome change. The beer was fantastic, and bought for me by a couple reps from Sierra that I had met earlier in the day at the Local Grocery. One of them gave me his card, and we talked about potential future employment. Not entirely likely, but a nice thought.
Right then. I'm off to do as little as possible Talk to you soon.

Harried Manager came flying to the bar the other night, a rack of fancy wine glasses in hand. He sent Too Loud Trixie, the Inappropriate Bartender, to get the expensive wine that had been ordered from the wine closet.
He chose to send TLT because he knew that she had been getting on my nerves for a couple of hours and he was tying to give me a moment's peace. Unfortunately, being the diplomat that he is, what Harried Manager actually said was
"I want Trixie to go. She needs practice finding the wines back there. You- (he pointed at me) stay and help me polish these. We have to be really careful with these so they don't break."
He was right, of course. Trixie has worked mostly day shifts and doesn't know the wine closet as well as I do because she doesn't use it as often, and she would have agreed with him had he found a better way to say it and had she not already been working for nine hours. But he didn't, and she had, so she threw a fit and cursed a blue streak right there behind the bar, in full view of all of the bar patrons and likely within earshot of almost everybody in the dining room upstairs.
Welcome to my Saturday night, everybody. These days it seems like I work with Trixie more often than not, and despite the fact that she clearly cannot handle a double shift without losing it and shooting her mouth off, she seems to volunteer for them on a regular basis.

So, Too Loud Trixie goes off in a huff, and then HM polishes exactly one and a half of the ten glasses before shattering one into a million pieces. This throws him completely off of his game, and as he scrambles to pick up the broken shards, he nearly knocks the entire rack (containing the rest of the unpolished glasses) to the floor. A trainee approaches, and is thrust into the middle of the task as Harried Manager finds havoc to wreak elsewhere. Trixie returns, smiling and cheerful as if nothing has happened, and sees the broken glass in the trash.

"What happened?" she asks, as if it isn't obvious.
"Harried Manager broke a glass," I respond with total ambivalence.
"You see? What an asshole. Good. I'm glad he broke one." (You can assume exclamation points after anything uttered by Trixie. Were I to type them, this post would be twice as long.)
"Well, you should be glad that it was him and not you," I say calmly and quietly. "He's just freaking out, and now he isn't freaking out at you."
I find it frustrating that this woman is ten years older than me and still such a child. She also has a habit of accusing everyone else of lacking professionalism, the irony of which will surely not escape the more astute among you. (Minutes later she dropped an entire rack full of glasses in the back hall, and then she came back behind the bar and cussed out loud about that, too.)

Through all of this, an off duty cook named Ed has been observing, drink in hand, from the other side of the bar. He occasionally looks at me as if to say, "Dude- I am so sorry." I occasionally respond by noting out loud the number of minutes there are before I am able to have a beer. About twenty minutes after the glasses are finished and the wine is whisked away, Harried Manager returns, stepping back to pour himself a caffeinated beverage behind the bar just opposite Ed.
"Well, the shit show's almost over," he sighs, looking at his watch.
Ed immediately shoots back "Why- are you out of here?"
I think ed and I are going to get along just fine. I knew my people had to be up here somewhere.

Yesterday when I got to work at the Local Restaurant, My Harried Manager came up and handed me an envelope.
"What's this?"
"It's your bonus," he said, smiling uncomfortably and rushing off once it was in my hands.
I ripped it open and read the letter. It was from the Head of the Culinary School. You will remember that the Local Restaurant is run by the Culinary School, which the b.h. attends as a student. (Of course you will remember, because the minutiae of my life is ever so enthralling.) Anyway, the letter is about the school and how it relates to the community and my job, and it encourages me to think about donating some money to the scholarship fund. "It's easy," reads the letter, which I am reading with the voice of Idiot School Head in my mind, though I have never met Idiot School Head) to donate. Money can be taken directly from your paycheck, by filling out this simple form."

This is all well and good, but my whole bloody paycheck is already going to the school, you asshole. Also, this is a particularly bad time of year, what with business having just dropped off abruptly and probably until the end of the year, to be asking already strapped, no-insurance-having service industry professionals for their hard-earned money. This is beyond bad taste. I felt awful for Harried Manager, because I realized that he was embarrassed to have to hand this to me. We joked about it later. If I weren't so desperately in need of the money I make from my two weekly shifts at Local Restaurant, I would write a letter to Idiot School Head telling him where he can stick his donation request. Honestly.

On a lighter note, I socialized with co-workers for the second time last night. It was only nicking over to the tap room for a quick beer after my shift, but it did involve adult conversation with people, as opposed to my Digital Friends (not that there's anything wrong with them), so it was pleasant. I text-messaged Nick Bielli in the middle of a story because I couldn't remember the name of a band. I would tell you who it was, but I don't even want to type their name in the ether one more time because I think they suck (er, sucked, may be more appropo, since I doubt they have played in a decade) and I don't want to give them any more mentions. Anyway, Nick bailed me out and I felt like I was still in Athens, behind the bar at Local Rock Club, and I was briefly comforted.

Tomorrow we will be paid a visit my the boys from Modern Skirts. Our schedules won't allow us to see them play, but we'll put them up for a night and feed them a nice home-cooked meal in mid-tour. I'm looking forward to it.

Off to work at the Local Grocery. Then home to clean for company. TTFN.

I'll be heading to work at the Local Grocery in a few minutes. Last night I worked at the LR, and it was actually quite fun. The b.h. stopped in to see me, and there were several regular customers as well. I waited on a pair of women in their fifties (I'm guessing) who were self-proclaimed foodies and lifelong restaurant people. This can be nerve wracking with some people, but these two were hilarious. A bit boisterous, enthusiastic, and not terribly concerned with propriety. In other words, my kind of gals. Also, there was a live music performance (we do this every Tuesday night at the LR) which I loved. The singer's name was Abby something (no, not "Normal"), and she covered Wilco and The Jayhawks as well as several other artists that I really like. If every Tuesday was Abby night, I would be very happy.
At the end of the night a couple of the usual suspects came down from the kitchen and entertained me while I cleaned up, and after we went for a beer next door. I finally tried Southern Tier's Iniquity, which is a fabulous, bitter, dark ale that I could easily have consumed in quantity, were I not so full of self control.
I have been going through old journals, trying to find reference to the night I met Ron Jeremy. I've been homesick for Athens lately and I'm hoping that writing about it will make me feel better. So I'll try to get around to that soon.
Oooh- and I managed to get my bar shift covered for Saturday night, so I will be able to attend the annual LG Wine Tasting, which is apparently Quite A Do. Looking forward to it.

Last night the Harried Manager came to the bar and asked
"Are we all clear on menus?" By which he meant was everyone done ordering food and could he now tell the kitchen that they were through cooking for the night?
The answer was yes.
About fifteen minutes later, a student came down and asked if we were all clear on desserts. Yes again.
Five minutes after that, Sleeper Chef came and asked me yet again if desserts were clear. Still yes. A regular customer of mine, who also happens to be a student, marveled at Sleeper Chef's attitude, as well as his lack of trust in the student.
"Yes, well... that's Sleeper Chef for you."

About twenty minutes later, a female student arrived with desserts in her hands. I went directly over to see where they had come from and why.
"Oh, Manager ordered them for us," said my bartender-in-training, referring to himself and his girlfriend, who is a pastry student.
"But my name is on the ticket," I said, my voice rising a bit in panic. "Great! It's not like Sleeper Chef doesn't hate me enough already, now Manager is ordering desserts in my name after I have already given the all clear."
I said this in front of the Pastry Student who had delivered said desserts, in hopes that when she returned to the Pastry Kitchen she might convey what happened to Sleeper Chef. Which is probably wishful thinking. Ugh. At least I only work there two nights a week now.

A few weeks ago, I was working a stupid, stupid lunch shift at the Local Restaurant. It was loaded with leaf peepers, they all came in at once (off of buses), they all wanted separate checks, they were all on a tight schedule, and the kitchen was full of new students who couldn't even cook a blasted hamburger. One table had three young girls at it. A co-worker of mine came up and told me that they had completely stiffed him (no tip at all, for those of you unfamiliar with the term) a couple days before. He said I should make sure to tell them that their school cards only paid for the food and not the gratuity, because it was possible that they were confused, even though he had explained it to them. So, when I dropped the check, I sent over a manager (who is also an instructor at the school- this is how the restaurant/school relationship sometimes works) to make sure they understood. Then they stiffed me.

These school cards have been the bane of our existence at the Local Restaurant. What they are is basically $300 credit cards given to all new students, which they use to dine at the LR so they can experience the school and the food and the restaurant before they come in for class. The cards don't include gratuity, as I said, and a large percentage of the students don't tip. This leaves the professional wait staff stuck waiting on some really rude and obnoxious kids who take up all of our time and all of our tables, essentially for free.

After the girls left, I spoke to the chef instructor, and she said she was going to talk to them later, when they were in class. It was agreed all around that something needs to be done. Well, nothing was done. Or at least, no results were seen on our end. And the problem with a Culinary Institute is that new students are coming in all the time. It isn't like traditional college, where the new kids mostly arrive in the fall.

The other night, I was behind the bar, and lo and behold, one of these obnoxious young ladies arrives in full brigade (that's French for "cute little chef suit") in a big hurry. She was working in the kitchen, which meant that she had very limited time, and she had a cup in her hand. I looked up at her and smiled.

"What do you need?" I said, calmly. She immediately recognized me.
"Can I just get a ginger ale when you have a minute?"
"Of course," I smiled again, continuing to pour a glass of wine for an order that was going out to a customer. Then I started to make a martini. Normally, when I see a chef or a student chef coming, I reach over the bar, past any servers who are waiting for their drink orders, and fill their drink, because I know that they only have a moment and that they have to get back to the kitchen as soon as possible. This time I didn't feel any urgency at all. And sure enough, the little bitch ran back up the stairs to the kitchen without any ginger ale. Did she learn a lesson? I doubt it. Did I feel slightly better anyway? Damn straight.

Sleeper Chef.

The other night I had some customers from Nebraska. I gathered this because the gentleman was wearing a sweatshirt that read "Nebraska!" and nobody is that excited about Nebraska, but those who live there will pretend to be when they travel elsewhere. In any case, these people were quite worldly, despite what you might think with their being from the Middle West of the U.S. of A. and they were eager to demonstrate this by asking a lot of questions about our Frenchy menu items, using proper French accents and everything. So basically I had to call the Pastry Chef and ask him these specific questions, being that I had no effing clue what kind of apples were in the Tart Tatin, since I am not local to this area and have no idea whether Tatin apples grow here or not.
I did not want to make this call, because the Pastry Chef in question is not a pleasant man, and invariably when I have to ask him a question he talks to me like a child with limited mental capacities with whom he is struggling to be patient.
"No, heybartender" he sighed heavily into the phone, "they are just good ole' Vermont USA apples." I pictured him eying the nearest sharp utensil, holding his shiny head in his hands.
"Thanks, chef!" I said, with more confidence than I felt, and hung up the phone.

I turned to The Nebraskans and delivered the news.

"It might be good anyway," the woman suggested to her husband, whose displeasure seemed extraordinary for a man who is on vacation and who has at least ten delectable dessert options.

He deigned to have the tart anyway, and the woman ordered the profiteroles, which she insisted on enunciating in perfect French, despite the discussion we'd had earlier about how she grew up in Chicago and was now a citizen of Nebraska. Perhaps it's only me (and every other waiter and patron within earshot, whom I noticed were also rolling their eyes), but I found this completely grating. If she were in Montreal, speaking to a native French speaker, then I would understand. Even if she threw in a bit of an accent, I would understand. Being somewhat bilingual myself, I tend to pronounce Spanish words in Spanglish, but I don't think it comes off this way. At least I seriously hope it doesn't.
Anyway- to the pastry kitchen, where I have to go to retrieve my own desserts. I am standing next to Charles, a waiter who is older than I am and has been at the Local Restaurant for several years. I love Charles because he lets everything roll right off. He is a consummate professional with a great sense of humor, a rock- an island, and he is already waiting for some desserts, so I don't have to face the Pastry Chef alone.
I walk up next to Charles, smiling, and mumble out of the side of my mouth.
"I think Pastry Chef hates me."
Without skipping a beat, he smiles back at me and mumbles out of the corner of his mouth "I think he hates everybody."

"That's true," I say, still smiling, and now Pastry Chef has looked up and made eye contact with me.

"She's making them all at the same time, so they will all be up in a minute" says Pastry Chef, his eyes dead.

"I don't think he's human," continues Charles, still smiling and still talking out of one side of his mouth. "I think he's one of those aliens- what do they call them? Oh yeah- sleeper aliens, like waiting to take over the planet.

"Yep, he definitely looks like he wants to eat our brains," I reply. My smile is now frozen, because Pastry Chef is looking directly into my eyes. He frightens me.

"He can probably hear everything we're saying right now." Charles is cracking up, and I am caught like a deer in Sleeper Chef's headlight eyes, waiting for him to strike a death blow from across the kitchen.

"How are your profiteroles?", I ask the Woman from Nebraska, without any hint of a French accent.
"They were disappointing. The ice cream and chocolate sauce were good, but the (whatever the hell the proper French word is for pastry shell) was too dry."
Of course.
On her comment card, she said that the other bartender and I paid more attention to regulars, and that we were not well informed. I'm not showing that one to Sleeper Pastry Chef.

Starting to feel at home in the Local Restaurant. This was Night Three of my training, and I already know several regular customers and most of the front of house staff. It is good to be behind a bar again, honestly.
At the end of the night, for the third night in a row, we were visited by Chef Gerard, who is a Big Wig at the Culinary School. It seems he has a reputation for being, well, French. As in, crazy and irritable and kind of scary. So far he has been exceedingly friendly and often hilarious. Tonight he asked me where I had come from. I rattled off my usual abbreviated "Just arrived from" and "Grew up in" answer, with the addition of some more specific information about another French Chef I used to work for.
"I know eem well," he smiled. "Ee ees back een New Orleans now."
There was some further discussion about the restaurant in Chicago where I worked for the Other French Chef, and about why he left (and has now returned to) New Orleans. I actually think about OFC a lot. He was one of the best people I have ever worked for. Under shite circumstances, of course, but that's often where the best experiences happen.
"Small whereld," mused Chef Gerard.
Indeed it is.
At the end of the night he returned for a nightcap (Pellegr1no). He was in a good mood, having entertained some friends earlier, and he was very animated. Another Chef (The Tall One from yesterday's post), Peter, was there again, as well as a dishwasher named Todd. Peter was telling CG that the Dishwasher was really interested in learning to cook, and that he was thinking about going to Another Cooking School in Florida.
"They will take your money, and you won't learn sheet," answered CG without hesitation. "Guys come out of there, they don know wheech end of the knife to cut weeth."
"So where do you think he should go?" Peter continued, knowing the answer already.
"Ere, of course!"
Peter continued the conversation, telling CG that Todd couldn't afford it ("We will pro bebbly geeve you more scholarsheep than them anyway"), and showing him the textbook that Todd had taken out of the library, as well as a spiral bound notebook full of notes that he was taking.
"He isn't even in school, Chef. He just wants to learn."
CG took the notebook and flipped through it. The thing was half full already.
" I weesh I write like you," laughed CG. "No one can reed my writeeng."
He handed the notes back to Todd, basically saying that they could figure something out. Todd was obviously gratified. It was a great moment. I should say also that Todd is exactly the kind of guy I would hire if I were doing the hiring. He has made some tattoo-related errors, and he could use some help in the dental department, but he is polite and professional, and he busts his ass. Dishwashing is not glamorous, or easy, or even pleasant. But it is a good gauge of how serious a person is. And it is a job that is integral to the running of a restaurant.
As he was leaving tonight, I very quietly remarked to him that Chef Peter had done him a big favor. He ducked his head and smiled, a really big smile that made it clear that he knew what this could mean. I thanked him and went back to the bar, feeling as good for him as he probably felt himself.
When I returned, CG was holding court.
"I was een New York last wheek," he was telling Annie (My Trainer this evening) and Peter, and I see this beautiful black woman. I like woman, so I ave to talk to er. And she say, 'Culinary School? What's eet called?' An I tell er, and she say, 'an where ees that?' an I tell er, and she say 'Oh, I ave an old roommate oo work at one of dose', and I say 'really?' what's ees name?' and eets Peter!"
Annie was laughing out loud. CG had her at "I like woman," and the rest was just icing on the cake.
So far so good. I hope things continue to go well.

I nearly forgot! Last night's Customers of the Night:

1) A young lady with whom many people on the staff were obviously familiar. She looked remarkably like Sarah Vowell, which might be the only thing that kept me from choking the shit out of her for being a condescending cunt. The girl who was training me was, as I said, very sweet, and though she was not terribly well-spoken, did her best to convey certain facts pertaining to the Young Lady's order. The Young Lady responded by being simultaneously smug, condescending, and unhelpful. She talked on her cell phone at the bar, which I already find kind of grating (and rude), but the volume was preposterous and the subject matter- again, fucking smug. Trying to make a big show of her worldliness, she was. She even went so far as to question whether we had given her "real" B & B. Fucking seriously. As if we might have somehow mistaken the letters (and also as if she hadn't fucking watched us pour it from the bottle two feet away from her). Not to mention that if you aren't my dad, or at least my dad's age, do you really even drink B & B, much less critique it? Seriously? My Trainer was completely oblivious to the attitude she was being shown, and I didn't bother to point it out to her. I mean, why burst her bubble, right?
2) This guy wasn't even a customer of mine (er- ours. I was training). He came down after we had already closed and the only people in the bar were myself, My Trainer, and a chef whose name I have forgotten- I'll call him The Tall Chef for now. The guy was slightly inebriated, and loudly but politely asking to see a manager. I told him I would find the Manager right away, but as I was turning to go he started to tell me why he wanted to see The Manager. It seems that the man's waiter had spilled a beer in his lap.
"But I'm not even mad about that. No- I have worked in places like this before, so I know how things can happen. And he cleaned it up right away and he was great. And he got me another beer and everything. The thing is, my bill came-" he paused here, either for effect or to belch, I couldn't be sure-" and he charged me for the beer."
"I'm terribly sorry sir. I'm sure it was an error. We'll take care of it right away."
"No. He took it off the bill. He took it off before he ran my credit card. But the thing is, it should have never been on there."
"I'm sure it was merely an oversight. You know, accidents happen, and people get flustered. I'm really sorry that it happened. I will get The Manager."
Except I couldn't get The Manager, because I had no idea where he was or how to page him. So I asked My Trainer to. She made a couple phone calls.
"He's on a break," she said, loudly enough for the man to hear. (Remember the thing she did with the milk? Yeah.)
"But he's on his way here, right?" I said, looking at her and flicking my eyes at The Customer in a wink-wink nudge-nudge fashion.
"Uh... yeah. He'll be right over."

Luckily The Customer and His Wife were feeling celebratory. So I went on about my business, wiping down and cleaning up the now closed bar. The Tall Chef ordered another beer, and when The Customer noticed his chef's uniform, started chatting him up.
"Aw, man," he slurred. "You the chef?"
"I'm one of them," replied TTC.
"Aw, maaan," he slurred again. "The food tonight was eexlnt."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"Yeah, the meal was perfect. I have no complaints about the meal."
"Thanks," replied TTC, turning slightly in his seat in a useless attempt to close the conversation.

I can't remember the details of the conversation that followed, mostly due to exhaustion, but suffice to say that it was long and jovial, and we discovered that The Customer and His Wife (who was standing in the background smiling uncomfortably and looking at the exit the whole time, and who, it is worth mentioning, was never introduced or brought into the conversation by her new husband) were on their honeymoon, that they were congratulated by each one of us when he announced it (four times), and that by the time The Manager had returned (probably from smoking, but I don't know for sure), the guy was considerably deflated. In fact, The Tall Chef was in mid sentence when The Manager returned, and The Manager spent a minute or two poking his head around corners looking for an angry customer before one of us finally cut in and introduced them.
The end of the story is rather boring. The guy repeated his complaint several times, each time stressing that he didn't "expect anything," but that he "thought we should know" because he has "been in the business." What he got was a business card from The Manager and the promise of a free meal should they ever return. Thank the gods they live a few hours away. Hopefully we'll never see them again.

New job is pretty good so far. Humbling moment #1:
"You need a keg changed? Oh, I got it. You just have to be careful not to push down until it's all the way turned", I said, turning and not pushing down, "or you'll get sprayed", I finished, spraying myself completely with beer.
"Um... yeah. Like that."
Apparently the system at the Local Restaurant is different than the one I spent eight years with.

Moment of horror/hilarity: My trainer this evening, who is as sweet as can be, has not been doing this long herself. Going to make a cappuccino, she pulls out a half gallon of milk and, while pouring it into the pitcher, looks at the date and says loudly in front of the twelve or so customers at the bar "This is dated the 14th. It's the 17th, right?"

Actually, it was the 18th at the time. It was a "sell by" and not a "use by" date, but still breaking the rules according to the He@lth Dept. She then checked every other container in the fridge, and made a show of dumping them all out directly in front of everyone, while a whispered "Not out loud! Not out loud!" as loudly as I dared. Luckily the only guy at the bar who was paying attention thought it was funny.

I took the dogs to the river again today, and Wyatt was all Micha3l Ph3lps and everything. I'm very proud. If he continues to improve, I may just buy him a bong.

The b.h. was already asleep on the couch when I got here. He got up long enough to point out the tortellini and garlic scape pesto in the fridge and then promptly went upstairs and passed out. Now I'm having a Smuttynose IPA and enjoying some No Reservations to wind down. Tomorrow I work at the Health Food Store from 11 to 3, then the Local Restaurant from 4 to close again. So you may not here from me again until Thursday. Buenos Noches, amigos. I'm really going to have to learn to say that in French.