I was supposed to be working at a pretty well known local restaurant/cafe here in town. I got home from Germany on a Wednesday and started work at 6am on Friday...only to be told at the end of the day that I would be an intern for them while they trained me and would re-evaluate me in two weeks. This news sucked..but I was willing to wait it out and decided it was worth it just to learn how the kitchen operates, how the food is prepared and so on...but everyday after that I spent my days elbow deep in dishwater. If the "Chef" did decide she wanted to teach me something she talked to me like I was retarded. If she wanted me to cut broccoli she would teach me how to cut broccoli...step, by step. If I had to use a food processor, she would teach me how to plug it in, how to put the lid on, and how to turn it on. Trying to let her know I was completely capable of these things was impossible, she simply didn't listen. When she spent too much time teaching me how to plug in appliances, cut vegetables, and pick my nose she would get flustered and stressed that nothing would get done. All I could think about was the dishes that were piling up on the sink...knowing I would have to rush to catch up and get them washed.
Another disappointment is that I had always loved this place because I thought that their food and baked goods were all homemade and of superior quality. ( It should be for the prices! ). To my disappointment, not only is their food not the highest of quality, but most of their baked goods come in a bucket. They order their muffins, and scones pre-mixed or made and scooped them into muffin tins and sold them off as made from scratch. Their sticky buns are made from frozen pastry dough layered with butter and sugar and then rolled and baked.
There is an on-going joke with the rest of the kitchen staff as well about how the "chef" prides herself in her food and recipes that she calls her own but then when it comes to preparing the day's food she pulls out The Joy of Cooking and bakes or cooks straight from it. She has recipe books filled with ripped out pages from magazines. How can she call these "her own" recipes?
Another observation that I made that could potentially be a bit more serious is how she prepares and stores her "Gluten Free" baked goods. She creates "her own" mix of gluten free flour but the problem is that she uses the same equipment and instruments for her gluten free goods as her regular gluten containing products. This might produce just the slightest amount of gluten contamination but for real celiacs this could be dangerous. Even foods sold in the grocery store can not carry a gluten free label if they were manufactured on the same equipment as gluten containing foods. She needs to be more careful or at least let people know that there is a slight risk of contamination.
Frustrations aside, I ended my "internship" on good terms. ( unless they read this blog ) For once in my life I actually had the balls to speak up and talk to them about the situation. The chef said she wanted to potentially have me as a prep cook but that they just didn't have it in the budget to pay me, and when they did it would only be a couple days a week. So who knows how long I would have been their free dishwasher.
Long story short... I am now back to job searching. I will miss the kitchen staff though. I really liked the people that worked there, but there was a lot of drama...I don't even know how much longer they will be there.
Let the search begin.
