Day 96: When The Stars Explode Under Water

Listening: I'm not sure all these people understand. It's not like years ago, the fear of getting caught, of recklessness and water.

What's my problem? I really can't get a nice day off.

Another Thursday off and another day not worth going to the beach. Not only is it cloudy, but it's raining again. Some don't believe me when I say that I have shitty days off, but here we are again. The skies are gray and the pavement is dark with moisture. The coffee house is crowded and people are being douchebags about places to sit and waiting in line for coffee.

I talk a little bit to one of the girls at the counter. Coincidentally, she seems to be the only one who gives good, speedy service. She looks a bit exhausted. She must have been in the weeds for at least the last half hour as I have been sitting here, and I don't know how long the line was before I even got here.

The other girl behind the counter is total hardcore lesbian and is indifferent to the numbers of orders coming in. If she were about five times faster, she would be on par with the girls who work at the Diesel Cafe in Davis Square, but not as hot, as far as lesbians go.

Since it's raining, the Vagabonds are here in the coffee house. They never order anything. They just take up space and smell like dirty hippies. I think one of the guys here is one of the owners, and he seems to like them. He should be behind the bar digging the girls out of the weeds.

I remember despising the Vagabonds from last year. I think that even if I didn't despise hippies, I would still hate the Vagabonds. At least my least favorite Vagabond hasn't shown his face that much this year. He was the one who wore his nasty loose pants so high with suspenders that it gave him (a guy) cameltoe. The least that they could do was order something. They never order a damn thing. They just take up space and smell.

Now, the owner gets off his ass and takes out the trash, but the customers are still at least eight deep. It's not like these people are out to dinner, sitting at a table conversing with each other enjoying their evening. These people want their coffee and they want it now.

But enough about the crappy day unfolding for other people in front of me. Let's talk about current events aside from the crappy day.

So, on Monday night, we had a long, hot service in the kitchen and I decided that I wanted to go swimming. My room mates decided that it was a good idea, so it was the four of us who lived above the restaurant, one of my room mate's friends, and our boss' cousin who all decided to go. We drove out to Nobadeer Beach on the south side of the island, and promptly hopped in the drink.

I can't remember the last time that I went swimming at night. I know for sure that it wasn't in the ocean. Maybe it was one night at a pool in Disney World all by myself. It was great though. It was dark and the waves were coming in. I only went out far enough for the water to come up to my neck at its lowest point. Some of us were body surfing. Some just dove over or through the waves. The water was just warm enough to not freeze us and just cold enough to cool us off after spending the past five hours in front of a piano spouting flames.

Even after getting out of the water, it was still pretty warm. We tossed around my light up frisbee. It was a helluva good time.

It was such a good time that we decided to do it on Tuesday night as well. This time, Pies came out with his dog, and one of the servers came out with a friend of hers from San Francisco. The water was a bit colder, as was the air, but it was still worth going in the water. I had spent the night on the grill, selling upwards of twenty ribeyes, eighteen pork, and a dozen each of the veg tart and the grilled salmon. Oh yeah, and I sold out the last four guinea hen specials from the night before. It was a busy night, split fifty-fifty between the saute guy and I. I had one ribeye come back for being undercooked, but I still think that I'm getting better with every shift that I work.

Anyhow, we went back to Nobadeer on Tuesday night with Pies and the server. Pies brought his little Logitech iPod speakers, and the server brought some booze. This time, though, we swam out further.

It was a little bit more frightening on Tuesday. It was cooler and the water was a bit cooler as well. The fog had rolled in on the island, to the point where we could barely see twenty feet in front of the car as we drove to the beach. The sky was cloud covered to the point where the shape of the moon was obscured by the hanging mist. A few stars poked through but for the most part, there was barely enough ambient light to make out where people were. There were a few times where I was afraid we lost Pies' dog, but he always came back. Pies was never worried. He says that his dog never goes far.

Another reason to be afraid going out further is because there have been two sharks seen off the coast of the island, and sharks feed at night. There was no real danger, because the sharks never come up that far, even during the day, but it's that irrational fear that keeps you a little bit more sober.

There was a big payoff for going out further though. Once I went out about ten feet further from the point where I could touch the bottom, the phosphorescent algae showed up. I had heard about it last year, but I never made it out night swimming last year, so I never saw them. I had imagined it being like how a gasoline slick looks on water, except shimmery and glowing. I had it all completely wrong.

The server who came out with us had seen them before and said it was like the stars were exploding under the water, and she was right. It was like, when you move your arms and legs to tread water, all of a sudden all of these stars light up in the water and follow the current that you created with your movement. Unfortunately, with my glasses off, I could only see the ones that I created with my arms and hands. It was cool though. I tread water there for a long time just watching the phosphorescents light up like stray pixels on a screen.

I didn't go out there with the intention of seeing them, but when the server brought them to my attention, It was like magic. It was just so cool. I think it's something I'll tack onto my list of things that I have seen that I think other people should see sometime too. I have a lot of things on that list, many more things than a lot of other people have.

I hate to sound arrogant about my life and what I've done, but I am extremely fortunate to have been able to do what I have done in my life. I've been to Japan and spent time in a local's home, as well as been able to travel to different cities in Japan with a native speaker who also enjoys good food. I've gone to raves in Amsterdam. I've traveled for a month on my own all over Europe, and three months in southeast Asia. I've switched careers into a profession that I love with the emotional and mental support of my friends, and bootstrapped myself up to a point where I'm well respected enough to work at well respected restaurants, and well respected enough to put specials that sell out on the menu.

Man, in some ways I live a completely charmed life. A lot of people I know make more money. They have more things. They live more comfortably. However they never go anywhere, do anything or see anywhere. Sometimes I wish I could slap them all and tell them to get out there and see what's going on out there. Eat something new and authentic in the place where it was born. See somewhere that's older than the skyscrapers and McMansions that are all too common here at home.

I know that, chances are, a lot of my friends will retire with more than I will. The life of a cook either ends up in riches, in the poor house, or in another career. My parents pester me to contribute to a Roth IRA, but after working for the corporation, I don't believe in all of that shit anymore. What I do now is I save my money for a while and then I go out and do things that I want to do. I enjoy my life. I'm not waiting until I'm too old to climb up mountains, too comfortable to sleep on the floor of a bamboo hut, and too broken to think that I can't do anything but go through the same motions every day to take two weeks off a year to do something close to nothing. I want to see more stars explode under water and I want to see more amazing sunsets from even more amazing temples made by amazing people an amazing amount of time ago.

Anyhow, I'll end that bit of rant now and start on another rant. The grill cook. Bag-a-douche. He's such a little bitch. No one in the kitchen likes him with the exception of Chef. He does minimal work, criticizes everyone, calls other people out, and throws them under the bus. He's forty four years old and is still just a line cook. He has no right to tell someone they're doing it wrong if his professional stature at his age says anything.

I worked his day off on Tuesday, and we had thirty or so steaks in the marinade at the end of the night. I had sold around twenty or so steaks on my busy ribeye night, so I thought thirty would be enough. I didn't pull any up from the freeze. We sold a lot of ribeye last night as well, more than I sold on the night before. At nine o'clock, an hour before the end of service, he's counting down steaks and freaking out. He pulls some from the freeze and tries to quick thaw them and then he proceeds to throw me under the bus for not pulling any steaks. At the end of the night, he still had a pre-marinated steak or two. It was close, but he had enough. He couldn't stop talking about it. He never mentioned my name, but we all knew what he was insinuating to Chef. He's a little bitch. I maintain that I didn't do anything wrong.

And to top it all off, he gives a lot of his prep work to the prep guy instead of prepping the station himself. He really doesn't prep much of his own mise en place. A lot of the things that he does is piddly shit. I can easily prep his station from top to bottom every day. Saute is much harder. There's a lot more knife and stove work. Grill has to cut packages of meat open and marinate or brine. He has to shell crawfish and pick cilantro. It's a dum-dum prep list. So, when it's time to throw work at the prep guy's list, I'll see what everyone else is giving him and then I'll throw on what I think he can handle, because I know that grill should be able to prep from the top down easily every day. He gets pissed at me for not throwing the prep guy ninety percent of his work. He talks his ass off during prep and only does what's necessary to get by. So he gets pissed when he actually has to work. Yesterday night he asked me who was I to say what should and should not be on the prep list. I shrugged it off. He's a fucking shoemaker.

On a more positive kitchen note to end off with, there's a local farmer who is producing the most amazing produce. This week, he dropped off some beautiful shiso leaf and Chinese celery among other things like five types of basil, salt wart, Thai lemongrass, and purple potatoes. Tuesday night, Chef knew that he would be running a bass special, but was a bit burnt out and wanted to wait until the next morning to figure it out. I threw out a couple of ideas and he said, that it sounded good and we'd refine it in the morning. When I got in yesterday, I threw the idea out at him. Sake glazed bass, crispy sushi rice cake, ginger/lemongrass shrimp broth, brunoise pickled ginger, chili and Chinese celery with a tempura shiso leaf. It came out amazing. The perfume off the dish was sick and it sold out within the first half of service. Twenty five portions, out the door before eight o'clock. It was awesome. I came up with it and Chef helped refine it.

Anyhow, that's where I'm at now. I just took some time off from writing the blog to show the cookie my travel pictures. Next week, Killa and I may head up to Boston for our day off. He went to get a tattoo in Hyannis for today. I think I'll go grab dinner somewhere and then I'll try to get a ticket to see G.I. Joe. at a quarter past eleven. Good times for a rainy day. Well, not really, but I'm trying to look on the bright side. Time to shut down for now. Hopefully next week will be brighter, or at least more urban.

Day 89: Little. Yellow. Angry.

Listening: Time ain't standing still, and there ain't no way to get it back.

What's my problem? Ducks weren't defrosted.

So I have a reputation in the kitchen. I'm known both as the dirtiest (not to say unclean, but definitively the most crass) and the angriest guy in the kitchen. I make the meanest mama jokes. I tell things how they are. And I get irked by little things. So whenever I'm in a kind of get disgruntled, someone inevitably says, "ZEN!!!, Little. Yellow. Angry." That's me. I need a t-shirt with that printed on it. If I ever try out for a reality TV show, I'm going to send in a video with all of the people that I know saying that I'm little, yellow, and angry.

When I get in a press on the line, I tend to get a bit snippy. I start cursing. I start getting testy with people. Last night was a good example of it.

It started off a little bit shady to begin with during prep. The night before, we had set out a case of duck breasts to thaw. The next day, I was supposed to separate the breasts, remove the tender, and trim up and score the skin before marinating them. On an average night, the normal saute cook sells around fifteen ducks. I had fifteen ducks in the marinade before the case of frozen breasts. The most that we had sold in a night was twenty. When I got to do the butchering and marination of the ducks, they were still frozen. They're never still frozen the next day at three in the afternoon. The pastry chefs must have come in earlier than normal and chucked them in the walk-in fridge before they had finished defrosting.

So I had fifteen ducks in the marinade. It was a Wednesday night. We'll roll with fifteen butchered ducks. The third ticket that comes in orders five ducks and takes out a third of my stash. That's quickly followed by ducks on each of the next three tickets. Half of my duck mise en place is demolished. It's not even half past seven yet. I was already sweating the garnish on the dish too, because the normal saute guy didn't prep the starch two days in advanced like we usually do.

It seems as if whenever he works, he sells less than the average number of ducks per night, and when I work, I sell way more than the average number of ducks. By the time I had run out of ducks, the night wasn't even halfway over, but the ducks were defrosted enough to butcher and use.

I also normally render off a number of duck breasts before the beginning of service, so I don't have to spend the time doing it as the crush comes in. I started with eight rendered, and as I said earlier, they were all gone before seven thirty. So with every subsequent duck order, "Awwwww, fuck YOUUUUUUUUUU...." could be heard escaping from my lips.

Not only was I buried in duck all night long, selling the record for this season at twenty one, I was also running the bass special. If there's one thing that people love, it's bass. I sold twenty of those that night too. Another twelve tuna or so and at least thirty flounder topped it all off. I was selling at least four entrees for each one coming off grill.

There was one pickup where out of twelve dishes, I had ten of them, and then the guy working the plating/expediting station asked me if I can pick up another flounder and a tuna, my reaction was, "I don't give a FUCK!" So he adds it on. Then, not only do I not hear the extra tuna tacked on, thinking it was only a flounder that I had to add on, but he didn't call out that one of the flounders was a medium-well. So, I'm picking up seven flounder, two tuna, and two duck, but one of the tunas I don't know about. The guy guy working the plating station asks me the duck as I'm putting the flounder on the plate, and I'm like, "What FUCKING tuna?" Then he asks me which flounder is medium-well, and I say, "You didn't call out a FUCKIN' medium-well!" So I pick up a flounder put it back on a sizzle platter and grab the one that I had fired as medium-well, put it in the broiler and brought it back up to temp.

We did a hundred and fifty dinners last night and I'm sure that I did at least ninety of them. I think that grill did thirty five or forty, and hot apps did ten or fifteen apps as entrees (cheap ass mother fuckers). So, as I'm getting railed, I'm spouting expletives as I render ducks, pick up ten dishes at a time, sear and roast fish, heat up garnish, and think that the guy deciding the pickups is a moron for not analyzing the tickets better and putting together more realistic pickups. I think that if I was less organized and focused in on the order of operations, I would have been, not only buried, but totally lost in the weeds. There was only one time that I didn't have my all-day (all-day is what we call what we have on order), and it was on the last two tickets where I hadn't fired a flounder. Luckily, flounders are one of those dishes that you can do on the pickup.

But, yeah, I got railed all night long. I felt like a two dollar hooker getting fucked by a big sweaty beast for two hours straight. When the dust cleared, I was satisfied with my performance, and I had made it through the night without running out of anything, though the mise en place was DESTROYED. There was almost nothing left. I had vinaigrettes still, mussels for the tuna dish, scallions and that's about it. The regular saute guy had to rebuild the place from the ground up.

The night before, I worked the grill. We did a hundred and sixty people that night and I did a good job. There was nothing sent back and all of my food looked great. I got worked just as hard as the saute guy, and I had a lot of fucked up orders too. But I survived it with no one sending anything back or getting any negative feedback. I was so relieved at the end of the night. I didn't talk about how well I was doing all night long, like I was a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. In my mind, though, I I was ecstatic that I had found a groove and that I was rockin' it.

Speaking of groove, I had a really nice moment last Sunday. The past couple of Sundays, I have been waking up early to catch brunch with a friend of mine. This week, I woke up and turned on the TV as I waited for my friend to get back to my text saying that I was up and ready to go. The end of the movie Groove was on TV, right at the part where Digweed walks into the rave and drops the epic track "Heaven Scent" by Bedrock. "Heaven Scent" has to be one of my all time favorite progressive house tracks. When I hear it, it still gives me goosebumps and puts the hair on the back of my arms on end. I can feel it tingling down my spine as the beat washes out and the synthesizers push the theme. Not only does it bring me back to my DJing days, but it levitates me just like it used to back when it was played on the floors of clubs and warehouses. It's an amazing way to wake up. I think that maybe I should wake up to that song every day.

Anyhow, today, though, was a bit of a wash. Originally, killa, the cookie and I were planning on spending the entire day at the beach with our brand new beach grilling permit, Pies' smokey joe, a cooler full of wine and grillable foods, and a frisbee. Needless to say, it rained today. All day. It's okay, because I was up until five in the morning watching TV and really just needed the day to relax. So, that's what I'm doing. Relaxing. You gotta chill out so you can be the little, yellow, angry guy on the line.

Day 82: A Grand Day Out

Listening: Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world. You could say I lost my faith in the people on tv.

What's my problem? Didn't make it to the Bean.

Well, I didn't make it to the Bean today. The Bean is the local coffee house with free wifi, uninspired service and quality beverages where I usually park my ass for hours at a time on my day off as I read, twiddle around on the internet and blog. I meant to go there this evening, but better things presented themselves.

Starting this week, my room mate/the intern, who is known in the kitchen as "the crazy eyed killer" and is referred to by other names including "crazy eye," "killa," "crazy mutha fuckin' eyed killa," and "pickled fucker" had the same day off. We knew this was going to happen a couple of days ago and we planned on going to the Downy Flake, the closest approximation to a diner on this hellhole for real people and playground for popped collars.

We didn't get going until half past eleven when the pastry assistant, who shares a name in common with a specific cookie (and I find quietly amusing... and no it's not Oreo), called to see of the killa wanted to grab some lunch. He informed her of our plan and she decided to join us for a noontime breakfast at the Downy Flake.

I know the pastry assistant casually, as in, when she and the pastry chef are really busy, they're still there when I go in to prep, we have some pleasant conversation, and then go about our merry way. The killa knows her a bit better, because as an intern, he gets more time off due to the fact that he's hourly and not a salaried employee. Therefore, during his time off, he can socialize with her because she's typically done before noon. So they had a number of dinners together before, but this was my first time getting to know her at all.

But, we had the late breakfast. I had the Flake Special, which included two eggs, some bacon, some home fries and a donut. To that I added on a single pancake and a bottomless cup of coffee, which I milked 'til we were the last table sitting before they closed for the afternoon.

It was nice getting to know the pastry assistant who shares a name with a cookie (heh). She's a down home southern belle with a boyfriend waiting for her down in Nashville. She reads a lot of food lit including Michael Pollan books. She has never worked the line in her life and kind of wants to work for a test kitchen someday. Generally a cool, seemingly intelligent person.

After breakfast, the killa and the cookie waited for me as I got a haircut. Now, the killa insists that all of his days off are sunny and beautiful. I insist that all of my days off are crappy and disgusting. So, what happens when we have the same day off? Well, half of the day is crappy and the other half is great. Luckily the morning blew, so the afternoon was pretty nice. It was so nice, in fact that we ended up packing a cooler and heading to the beach.

I actually got into the water today. It was surprisingly warm, a fact that the cookie would not agree with. But, for New England, the water was almost tropical. The waves were out in full force with surfers kicking crazy turns and taking some diggers. The wind was blowing too. It was a little bit chilly, but I was determined to get some of my color back. I'll freeze my little Asian nipples off if it means regaining what I worked so hard to achieve in places like Koh Tao and Nha Trang.

I also started reading one of the books that I requested from the library. I requested a book on taking a gap year, and for the most part, it was really geared towards people who are looking to take their year in or around their college career. It was also geared mostly towards the Brits, to whom the idea of a Gap Year is not only a commonplace thing, but it's also something recognized by the government. There was a small section geared toward "North Americans." It included some good resources that I plan to research a little bit more like different agencies that aid people on taking gap years and such. I think that all of my talk about the idea of a gap year has sort of inspired the killa to take one once he gets out of culinary school.

We stayed at the beach for a long time because one of the servers at the restaurant said that she would come out. She said she would be an hour or so, and it was more like or so. She showed up after we had been there for a good three hours. It was okay though. We got to see her smiling face and shared a bit of our wine with her. She ended up heading out to catch a few waves on her board after a short while and we decided that we were gonna go grab some food. And we were hungry.

After the three of us got cleaned up, we headed over to Straight Wharf. In the past, I hadn't been really all that impressed with their menu or their food. I remember Gabriel Frasca from back in his Spire days and the food that he was putting out was nothing short of bangin'. At Straight Wharf, it's a little bit more subdued. But after looking at the menu, we ended up in the dining room. I gave a shout out to my boy Sean, who was working the bar kitchen on that night, and Gabriel was out doing a private function.

As the night went, we ordered some sauteed squash blossoms, a house made caviatelli, and Island Creek oysters on the half shell for our starters, and the scallops, the striped bass, and the halibut for our entrees. The cookie had a glass of sauvignon blanc. The killa had a glass of chardonnay, and I had a glass of the gruner. As a mid course, they sent us half orders of the Straight Wharf lobster bake, which included shelled butter poached lobster, little neck clams, chorizo, and fingerling potatoes over a sweet corn puree. Mighty tasty. I have no clue why they chose to send that as a mid course. It's an expensive thing to send. They charge a market price for it, which happened to be $42. What means that they sent out what essentially would have cost a normal person about $61. On top of that, when we ordered dessert, I ordered a glass of brachetto d'acqui, and they brought a glass for each of us. And, yes, we all got dessert.

I walked out of dinner both full and buzzed. Throughout the day I had about a half a bottle of wine plus a couple of glasses of wine with dinner. It doesn't seem like much, as it was spaced out over about four hours, but I think my dehydration from my six day work week in a hella hot kitchen and only being able to replenish my fluids so much made the booze take hold a little bit more. The night before, I was tipsy after a beer and two drinks when I met my friend out. I guess I have to be a bit more careful. I'm not about to feel like a bag of shit because I wasn't careful.

After dinner the killa and I came back to the restaurant and invaded the kitchen as the rest of the cooks were finishing their prep lists for the next day, but I was getting the sleepy drunk action, a trait passed down from my father, and went upstairs and crashed out for a couple of hours.

I probably should have just passed out for the night but I woke up to answer some text messages and to get something to drink. I ended up watching "Definitely, Maybe" with one room mate and then watched a couple of episodes of "The United States of Tara" with another. And now it's five in the morning. It's really time to go to sleep. We're expecting to do over two hundred on each of the next two days, so I have to get my rest so I can get my game face on. Two hundred covers in a recession is a good thing, but it also means that more people are ordering apps and entrees. This means that the hot apps stations gets fucked both ways. I gotta get ready to bend over and brace, because I'm gonna get fucked in a very uncomfortable place (like the back of a Volkswagon).

Day 76: Why So Sad?

Listening: Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

What's my problem? Dave Matthews has been making me sad.

So Dave Matthews has been playing in the kitchen all through prep and it's been making me sad. I love Dave Matthews, but it's not good to listen to music that makes you sad when you have a hundred and fifty covers on the books. It just makes no sense. We should be listening to Rage Against the Machine or Body Count's "Cop Killer." Maybe I'm just in a sentimental mood. Hope I don't get my ass kicked tonight. It's hot apps though. It's cake.

Day 75: I Thought The Universe Would Rather Me Be Wrong

Listening: Sunny days, everybody loves them. Tell me, baby, can you stand the rain? Storms will come. This we know for sure.

What's my problem? I can't find my five dollar NYC umbrella.

It's been a couple of weeks, but I've intended to write in the interim. As you know, I tend to write on my days off, and this past day off, Sam came down to the island to drop off some stuff and to take a bit of vacation from her hectic life in Boston and also to visit some family down on the Cape.

Originally, my day off last week was supposed to be filled with thunderstorms. This kind of weather prediction is nothing new to me. My long-standing hypothesis is that it's always crappy on my days off, much like today, but I'll get back to that later. I always walk around on Wednesdays saying what the weather reports say. "It's going to be crappy tomorrow. It's my day off, of course it'll be." And, a handful of times, it has just so happened that the weather wasn't as crappy as it was supposed to be. For instance one day, it was cloudy until around two and then cleared up and beautiful. Another day, the rain held out until I got back to the house after running errands. So I had this theory. The universe would rather me be wrong than have me have a day off with nice weather. I had this theory in my head for weeks before I actually told anyone about it. But, this past week, I told a few people about it, including Sam, Chef and the kitchen guys (I guess that constitutes around 90% of the people I know on the island). I knew that I shouldn't have, because, today, the weather blows.

I guess it's alright that the weather blows. I didn't wake up until around one in the afternoon, because I was too busy watching the movie "Martian Child" on HBO until four in the morning and was almost lured into watching "Knocked Up" after that. I tooled around on the computer for a while, had some lunch and got sucked into watching "Back to the Future Part III." So my day has been pretty lazy. By the time I left the house it was past five o'clock and, well, it's not like I have anything to do. I still have seven pairs of socks, which means six more days before I have to do laundry. My kitchen is still packed with snacks, which include my favorite spicy ramen thanks to Sam and Linh. My goal today is to get some writing done, as I am doing now, and finish the book that I'm reading, written by one of my favorite college professors.

The coffee house today is more crowded than usual. I guess I can blame the precipitation for that. Unfortunately, there's no one interesting in the crowd to look at. There is one girl in the corner with flaming red hair, freckles abound and a white Mac. But the only interesting is the mass of natural red hair atop her head. I don't think I've ever seen someone with that much red hair. She's writing in a notebook. I wonder if what she's writing is more interesting than what I write.

Back to last "weekend." I have to say it was probably my best day off in recent memory unless you count the three months off in another continent. Sam got in the night before with her bike, a pillow, two crates of ramen, my ramen bowl and spoon, and my package from Vietnam.

After getting all of her gear into the house, I immediately opened my package. The package itself was much smaller than I thought that it would be. I knew everything that would be in there, but after seeing the box, I thought that, for sure, they had left something out and that I would never see it again. After cutting through the tape and cardboard I saw that it was all there. Five chef coats, two shirts, two pairs of pants, two books and a picture. It was like Christmas. I immediately tried everything on again. The chef coats were a bit tighter than I remember them, but they still fit quite nicely. I guess the snug fit could be due to the fact that I lost a lot of... water weight? while I was in Asia. Linh always told me that when she saw the pictures of me in Asia, she thought that I had lost a lot of weight. The truth of the matter was that I weighed pretty much the same as I did when I left, I just converted a lot of my water weight into muscle, I think.

The next day, Sam hung out with me as I ran errands before we headed to the farm and then to the beach. Sam has a thing about the beach. When she's at the beach, she's At. The. Beach. Apparently, she knows a lot of people who get to the beach and are unprepared to stay more than an hour. Luckily, she and I are very similar in our beach styles. I come with a towel, my crazy creek chair, some food, a couple of drinks, my iPod and a few books. I can stay at the beach for hours on end, mostly because my first though when it comes to being at the beach is to nap. Within fifteen minutes of hitting the sand, I'm out like a light with my wrist covering my eyes and my iPod playing softly over the surf. Needless to say, we hung out at the beach for a few hours. I napped as she read, and we ate snacks of a baguette, some smoked salmon and capers, and a garlic ricotta cheese spread.

By the time we left the beach, it was much cooler and the sun was getting ready to set. We might have left earlier, but I wanted to finish reading the chapter that I was in the middle of.

One of the less charming things about the beach is that when I leave, I always feel a little sticky and my glasses are always smudged from the sea spray. So, before we went out for the night, we had to go back to the house for a shower. We actually almost didn't leave the apartment, because while she was showering, I started watching a movie called "Eight Days A Week," which is one of those cheesy teen comedies. Somehow it drew me in, and then when Sam finished cleaning up, it drew her in too. We almost decided to stay in and see just how the protagonist would end up getting the girl and if the kid who was fucking a watermelon would be hauled off to the looney bin.

But, we ended up wandering around town looking for some food. We must have looked at seven different menus. We were going to sit at the bar at the Pearl, but when we walked in, there was no way that we were gonna even edgeways into that bar. So, we went to go see my friend Taylor at Oran Mor.

I had eaten at Oran Mor once last season. It was pretty good, but I felt like that it wasn't worth the money. This time, as Sam and I sat at Taylor's bar, I definitely felt like the food was even better and I felt like I paid a good price for what we got, especially for this island.

We started with oysters on the half shell and a grilled octopus small plate and followed it up with the scallop small plate and the pork belly small plate. Next, the kitchen sent us their foie gras appetizer as a split plate, which was a nice gesture. It seems like a lot of their staff show up at our bar to eat, and we always send them a li'l sump-in sump-in. For an entree, we split the monkfish, and we had their dessert special buttermilk panna cotta for dessert. It was the perfect amount of food and a perfect amount of wine (three glasses for each of us).

All of the food was incredibly well done and was exactly what I was looking for. I had a craving for oysters on the half shell, and the preparation with the brunoise cucumber and celery and the mignonette was fresh and delicious. I only wish that the oysters themselves had been more briney.

We stayed at Oran Mor until Don Cheech, the grill cook at my restaurant, showed up. Apparently it had been a fuck show that night. I'm glad that I wasn't a part of it.

By the time we got home, we were both pretty zonked from the wine and the sun, so we watched a couple of episodes for "How I Met Your Mother" before crashing out for the night.

Sam stuck around for another day even though I had to work. I think she was in serious need of some downtime. People like us who are essentially nomads, sometimes it so hard to keep our shit organized that it becomes a full time job when we're not on the move. Where is our shit? Is it safe? Where are my friends? How are my finances? What do I have money for? Where is my next paycheck coming from? When is that paycheck coming? What do I do if I don't have another paycheck in the near future? Keeping all of those balls in the air can be pretty stressful. I'm not saying that normal people don't have the same concerns. But, when you're living with as small of a footprint as people like Sam and I are living with, things can change at the drop of a dime.

As far as work goes, I have had two successful grill shifts. I know that it's still my weak spot, but I did well the past two shifts on the grill. The only food that I had come back to me were, as chef said, "cooked perfectly" and was "exactly what they asked for." I mean, really, when someone asks for a steak "one minute past medium," you know you're dealing with an asshole who is going to send back any steak set in front of him. He should have said medium well.

Lately, we have had a number of people who don't know what they're talking about when they order their temperatures. People who ask for medium steaks want it medium well. People who ask for medium rare salmon really want it well done. People have just been the biggest assholes lately. It's almost like they're coming in during this bad economy to push people around so they have someone to push around. They're being douchey in order to make themselves feel better about their own douche baggy, crappy, popped collar lives. Maybe if we know that the guest is gonna be a bag-o-douche, I'll just serve their food raw so that when it does get to them the next time they'll be thankful it's been cooked.

Just last night, one party wrote a mean note on the check after they had paid saying that since they didn't get the table that they wanted three times, that it was a third strike and we were out. I mean, really? How spoiled are these people?

Also on the work front, I have been talking to Chef about what I should do after I leave the restaurant at the end of the season. I mentioned to him that I want to make money to take a year off, but that I also want to work somewhere really good. I would totally work at Hungry Mother in Cambridge. Apparently, a lot of their staff have eaten at the restaurant that I work at and really like the food there. Also, a friend of mine knows the chef there. Another place that I mentioned to Chef was La Laiterie in Providence. Chef is pretty good friends with the chef there as well, and they plan on doing a dinner here on the island sometime in October. I just don't know how I would work living in Cambridge and working in Providence. Would I take the train back and forth every day? Would I try to sublet somewhere cheap and keep the bare minimum there while going back to Cambridge every "weekend?"

La Laiterie would be a killer opportunity. I have eaten there and I really dig the farm to table food that they're doing. I love the fact that the chef there uses all of the bits and bobs that most people discard. I mean, how great is it that he has chicken cracklin' on his menu. I mean fuhgeddabout it! So, I don't really know what I should do. I figure I have a few months to figure it all out.

Also, I think Chef wants me around to do the dinner with this other chef, and he wants to set me up with a job with this other chef, so I know that I might not be out of here until the end of October instead of the middle.

Well, that's my life for the most part right now. Hopefully, as the nights get busier and the number of reservations skyrocket in August, I'll continue to rock as I do. I'm hoping for a third consecutive good grill shift this coming Tuesday, but other than that, not much more on the horizon.

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.

Day 54: 99 Problems

Listening: If your having girl problems I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one.

What's my problem? Meat temps.

I got my own version of that song above which kind of describes the last week for me at work. It goes like this:

I'm havin' grill problems, so feel bad for me, son. 'Cause I got 99 problems, but a fish ain't one.

So, I'm coming off a bad week on the line, if you couldn't already guess. This week, I worked two grill shifts. One of the guys on the line was sent home because he was sick as a dog, so I had to cover the grill while Chef covered the hot apps station.

Now, I feel comfortable on the hot apps station, as I do with the saute station. I can cook up some fish like it's nobody's business, and I'm getting good at cooking duck too, but when it comes to the grill, temping out red meat, and all of that, I feel like the biggest douche ever in the world.

The other day, I killed three lambs. They were suppose to be medium rare and they were medium when I sliced them. I don't know if you get this about me, but I hate wasting food. I hate killing food. It gives me this feeling in the pit of my stomach where I want to vomit. I see the look of disappointment or anger in Chef's eyes and I feel even worse. I get the fear in me and it doesn't make me a stronger cook. It makes me a fearful cook. It makes me overly cautious. That was the worst of the bad days this week. There were other days that were bad for this reason or that reason. But, it seems like, this season, it's always something with me.

It makes me feel like a bad cook. It makes me doubt my talent, my aptitude, and my skills. It makes me wonder if I have what it takes to make cooking my livelihood. It makes me wonder if I can really good, if not great.

It makes me feel good that when I express these doubts to my friends, their instant responses are "are you f'ing kidding me??" and "for what it's worth, I've seen you cook and I doubt neither you talent nor your aptitude nor your skill and I've shared a kitchen with a starred chef." However sometimes, and often this summer, I question it all. On of my friends said that it was okay as long as I was still learning. I just don't feel good about the speed at which I'm getting things. I'm not a rockstar, and it bothers me. I want to learn, but I want it to come to me faster. I want the confidence now.

One of my friends said, "in our brief time together, I've noticed you're more like (if I may reference basketball) a Vinnie Johnson or a James Posey than a Danny Ainge, which is to say your game feeds off your confidence; when you're feeling it, you're really better, things flow. You're not lacking talent, I suspect, but you're on a cold streak (figuratively speaking) and for you that matters. The upside of being a V.J. is when you're in the zone, you're amazing. So, perhaps you need to stop trying to improve and start faking the swagger(as they say in the bible, act as if ye have faith and faith ye shall be given)."

God DAMN I love my friends.

The thing is, I love how they have such confidence in me, confidence that I can't find in myself. My question is, who is right? Is it an in between that makes the reality? Are we both right? Do I have the stuff or don't I? I mean I even get nervous when I cook in my friend's home who is actually an ex-chef. I fear that she's quietly critiquing what I'm doing or how I'm doing things. It's so weird.

Another thing that makes me doubt my skills, aside from the fact that I'm an incredibly slow prepper, is that I'm rotating between the hot apps, saute and the grill. Last year, I rotated through hot apps, saute and the expo/plating station. I was running pickups last year. It wasn't until the end of the season that I worked the grill (and poorly at times). One of the new guys on the hot line (the young talent), asked me what I did last year, and then asked me why I wasn't working the pass again this year, I didn't have an answer for him. Maybe Chef saw what I was doing last year and decided that I wasn't really ready for it.

I've never worked at a place that has made me feel like I sucked this bad sometimes. I'm wondering if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm wondering if I really do suck, and if I'm really "that guy," you know the one guy in every kitchen who sucks, but is there because he can do the job just well enough. Or, I'm wondering if I work in that difficult of a kitchen, which I don't really see. Perhaps it could be that a gauntlet is being thrown in an effort to get me to the next plateau. I don't know. All I know is that I feel like shit and I'm looking to regroup today, my day off.

It doesn't help that I have yet to find my happy place on this island yet. Last season I was focused on going abroad. I was focused on making my three month backpacking trip happen. This season, I'm going straight to work wherever when I get out of Nantucket. Although I have toyed with the idea of trying to get a job in Chicago or in San Francisco, I think that I'm going to have to be in Boston. I have a set support system there and if I want to save money for a year off, I'm going to have to know where my expenses will be and where to find things on the cheap.

It's funny. It's almost the 4th of July, and I don't even want to be in America right now. Mentally, I think I'm still in Asia. Mentally, I'm still hopping from city to city, guest house to guest house meeting people from around the globe. In actuality, I'm on an island with people who wear critter pants and patchwork plaid and who have their collars popped.

Every day, I look at my pictures from Asia. I don't know why. Before I go to sleep, I check my e-mail and then flip through the pictures of temples and landscapes. I think about the people that I have pictures of and wonder where they are right now. I wonder if they're happy. I wonder if they're still out there on the trail or if they're home. I wonder if they miss the time we spent together as much as I miss that time.

A week or so ago, I was talking with Sam. She expressed the idea that she felt that if she went missing, no one would go looking for her. In some ways, I can identify with her. Last summer, Anh Dao came down to visit me and Mark Cina stopped by while on vacation with his mother. Other than that, I have had no visitors on this island. I have gone off island to visit people, but no one has really come to me. I feel like when I'm down here, I don't really exist. I feel so incredibly isolated that for the past two days off that I've had, I've spoken to a grand total of zero people who don't work for the restaurant that I work for. My one friend on the island who I really feel is on the same mental level as I am works on the nights that I have off which kind of sucks.

Well, that's how I'm feeling right now. I have no clue what I'm going to do with the rest of my night. They're supposed to be screening Star Wars at the new outdoor movie theater in town. The shit thing about it is that it costs ten bucks. For fuck sake. It's outdoors and it's a thirty two year old movie. *rubble* So yeah, I dunno what I'm gonna do tonight. I'll let you know.