Day 61: Some Sun

Listening: Stand carving up the wall. Why don't you open up at all? I am ready. I am ready for a fall.

What's my problem? Still rubbish at the grill.

Well, it's true. I'm still rubbish at the grill. This week on my one grill shift a week, I didn't hear a call for a sirloin so I was dragging it, and I didn't know how to speed up the process of cooking it. Apparently the answer is to throw it on the grill, cover it with a sizzle platter, and star chucking butter at the grill so it flames up. After that, you chuck it in your convection oven at 425 until it's where it needs to be before resting, let it rest the minimal amount of time to insure that it won't completely bleed out all over the plate when the guest cuts into it. It's amazing how much flame can come from a brush of butter across grill grates, gas or otherwise.

The next day, however, I killed it on saute. I. Killed. It. Granted, we only did a buck ten instead of a buck forty. I still did a killer job. At one point, I had six ducks come in at the same time, four on one ticket. Ducks were my weak dish when I started saute, but I conquered them to the point that I feel confident in them. It takes time and space on your cook top to render out the fat from the skin. Then, you have to stick it in the oven so that the meat can get to the desired temperature. At first, I was always so unsure, finger bangin' the fuck out of the duck, trying to figure out where it was at. Now, I check it instinctively and it's almost always spot on.

There was one point last night I had so many dishes on order, and I was so far behind in firing food, because I was spending so much time bringing it to the plate that I started firing some of the fish a la minut, meaning it was going to the plate the second it hit the desired temperature. Usually, when an order comes in, I'll cook the fish or whatever while the appetizers are being cooked. When the entrees are ready to be picked up, I'll finish the protein in the broiler, put together the accompaniments and garnish and plate up. Yesterday, though, I was doing it all at once.

I also have a habit of exclaiming "Oh WOW!" when I flip my fish and see that it has a perfect golden crust on top. There's nothing more satisfying than turning your fish and seeing that it's going to have that beautiful crunchy golden crust and soft moist flesh beneath it. The grill guy, who is kind of pissed off that I keep having shit shifts on the grill, because he "knows I'm a badass cook and that I can do it, and I need to stop being a pussy and just do it," told me yesterday that he wanted me to say, "Oh WOW!" when I start putting up steaks and grill items. He says he doesn't want to hear it anymore when I'm on saute, because, clearly, it's too easy for me. He wants me to be doing it on grill.

I know I've told the story a million times, but early in my career, while I was still on garde manger at Chez, Marsoir told me that he knew that I would end up being a saute guy and not a grill guy. He just saw something in me, even before I even worked my way over to the hot line.

To be honest, it really is a different mindset. I was talking to one of my pals who came on island to see Tom Berry and Mark Cina at the Yacht Club about working the grill. He was a grill guy, not a saute guy. His opinion is that on the grill, meat temperatures are a matter of fractions of minutes. One second it's almost there, and then you turn around to do something and turn right back and the steak is over. But, on saute, there are so many little tiny things to make a good dish amazing. Once you get the proteins good in the pan, you just build it up to be great, whereas the greatness comes in the actual cooking of the proteins on a grill and the management of cook times. I'm hoping that I get it down soon. I realize that I only work grill once a week, but I'm hoping it's not the end of the summer by the time it all clicks for me.

In other news, I had a nice day off so far. I started last night when I did laundry. I needed to do it. It did allow me to finish the book that I was reading, Arthur Phillips' The Song is You. The funny thing that happened was that somehow while I was reading and doing my laundry, an eel was thrown into the laundry room. All of a sudden, I hear a "whap, whap, whap." I look over and there on the floor at the other end of the laundry room is an eel flopping around. To be honest, I was a bit befuddled by the situation. I didn't know what I should do, so I left it alone. I'm sure it died by the time I left the laundrymat, because it stopped flopping around. I guess I could have scooped it back to the ocean, because the laundrymat is on the docks, but I didn't have an appropriate tool or the motivation to just grab it.

This morning, I started the day by actually talking to some of my friends on the mainland both by phone and on the internet. Sometimes it's just good to hear voices when you can't see your friends. To be honest, my day got started a little later than I had hoped, because I was on the phone so long, but the day that was supposed to be rainy ended up not being so. It was only sixty five degrees out, but it was sunny. I didn't get to running my errands until two o'clock, and wasn't on the beach with my sandwich and beverage in hand until a quarter past three. That's right. I made it to the beach.

I have to say that it was really nice being out in the sunshine for once in the past few months. I know it wasn't as warm or as sunny as it was in southeast Asia, but it was nice to get some good ol' skin absorbed vitamin D. I started my new book by my old Colby College creative writing professor, I'm Looking Through You: A Memoir by Jennifer Finney Boylan, as I ate my turkey and brie on honey wheat with lettuce, tomato, carrots, pickles, cucumbers, roasted red peppers and basil mayo. The wind was cool, but I managed an hour and a half without my tee shirt on.

I can't wait for it to get hot here though. I know that it'll suck being at the hot line while it's sweltering outside, but I would rather do that and have gloriously hot days off than have cooler days off. I want to feel justified putting on sunscreen and plunging into the ocean (not that I do that all that often).

Also in other news, I ran across this article on CNN.com about night owls. I thought that it was really interesting, because I really do hit my stride between eight and nine o'clock at night. It proves that I'm not lazy like my parents always said about me when I couldn't get up for school or for work. I'm just not on the same clock as a lot of other people. I'm being oppressed! Well, not really, but at least I found a job that I love that allows me to sleep in if I want to.

I have also been looking into buying books on taking a gap year. I'm really going to do this. I'm going to pack up all of my shit, stash it somewhere and travel for a year. Maybe I'll find somewhere that I want to stay. Maybe I'll find that I really do want to stay in Boston FOREVER. Maybe it will sink in that I don't need all of my possessions and I should sell everything when I do get back. All I know is that I need to prepare myself. I need to find out the answers to questions like: What should I do about taxes on my year off? Should I just let them slide? What happens if I run out of passport pages while I'm away? How do I get a new passport while abroad? Will it be cheaper to buy an around the world ticket, or piece it together as I go? Should I go east(towards Vancouver) or west(towards Europe) first? How much money do I really need? How can I pick up work along the way?

There was a conversation in the kitchen the other day, maybe four or five days ago. The older grill guy and I were talking about having kids. He says, at the age of forty four that he's ready. I told him that I want to have kids someday, but I know that I'm not ready and that I still want to see the world. I said that once you have kids, you have to worry about school schedules and steady income. His response is that he wants to see the world too, but with someone. He insisted that I wanted to see the world alone. That's kind of a loaded statement. In a lot of ways, I do want to travel alone. It means that I HAVE to reach out to people in order to not be alone. It means that I have to connect so to speak. But, on the other hand, I would love to have a travel partner too. The thing is that when you're traveling alone, you can meet traveling partners, just as Julia and I traveled from Hoi An to Nha Trang together, and Lydia and I traveled from Hue to Hoi An together. I don't know if the constant companion would be a blessing or a curse. What's the worst that happens, you just split up? That's not so bad. But sometimes I do wish I had someone back home to share all of these travels with. I wonder how it would change things.

But, here I am on Nantucket, pretty much alone. Oh well. I only have 94 more days to go. That's just a little longer than my trip to southeast Asia, and that went in the blink of an eye.