This is a photo of my hammer. It’s great as far as hammers go. I’ve owned others, from tack hammers to 24 oz framing hammers, but this one has a special purpose in life. Return next week to see this prized tool in action. This implement has never let me down, a strong indicator it is not manufactured by Sony.
Of all the days to forget my camera memory card. Today I got as close to the food service industry as I ever care to and it was a unique experience for me. Here’s the wild tale of what I, and by the look of many others, never thought would happen. After a disappointing bingo, I responded to a request making the rounds for “a couple of people to help serve food at a banquet”.
Yes, for $10 an hour, which ensued a confusing conversation about setting up either tables or food service equipment. Did I know anyone who could lift up to 25 pounds? To make it short, the first positive response was from Bryne, the Englishman, with the BMW that solved our transportation problem. We both needed the spot cash. We arrived today at 12:30, which was supposedly 90 minutes early. They are glad we did, I have reason to think they would not have pulled the event off without us.Now Bryne is used to California standards, whereas I have viewed the kitchens Venezuela, India, the Philippines and Thailand. From Bryne’s reaction, the health department would have shut this place down in an instant, from my point of view, I saw food being prepared exactly as it would be in its country of origin. Where he expressed horrification throughout, I saw no insects or vermin or evidence of decay. The place was an East Indian outfit with three helpers, trying to crank out food for 650 people.
I was set to work chopping up 40 pounds of cabbage; thence using an ordinary Wal-Mart grade food processor to make what I thought was cole slaw but was an ingredient of a fried rice dish. Bryne, having kitchen experience, was set to work buttering, slicing and wrapping hundreds of pita breads being lightly charred on an open flame. Within the hour, they were evidently impressed by our efficiency and ability to guess what was coming next, although Bryne continued to be put off by the owner’s manner of shouting orders, sometimes contradictory orders. Not me, I’m ex-phone company.
Then began a lengthy process of cooking the main course. As Bryne put it, “Sauce over dead cow, dead pig, dead chicken and dead fish”. And what sauces! It was mixtures [of spice] that could knock you out. Where Bryne could ID them, honestly after the third spice per dish, they’re all alike to me. My task was to use scoops to fill large plastic containers (garbage bins) with equal amounts for each batch. The reason for this seemed to be so they could use paddles to mix things together to avoid overall cooking differences.
The boss did the main cooking, using huge round aluminum vessels in a relay. My Urdu is rusty, but I was the one that picked out the number of people (650) and the figure of $13,000. To me, it made sense the boss had only got 3 or 4 hours sleep since at least Friday and was in a crabby mood. Save the rice, the food was already marinated and cooked, and was receiving a final stir-fry in the spice-laden vats. We were encouraged to sample. After the first few bites, all I could savor was more hot spices and not the comparatively flavorless underlying meat.
The actual loading of the vehicles took an hour. Ha, 25 pounds, my eye. The larger vats of sauces for the rice were easily 150 pounds. Bryne singed his knuckle on the hot handle. Myself, I moved slower. I found that (even with my regular bicycle exercise) I was easily winded by short bouts of this lifting. The outfit also owned the Laundromat next door and provided us with free liquids. And free T-shirts, as we had showed up ready to serve food.
There were no servers, it was a buffet. It was an Urdu-speaking and very Hindu community center off Sunset Strip in Ft. Lauderdale. Or task was to place the food into serving trays in an attractive fashion. I followed Bryne’s lead, but it seems there were two courses; appetizer and a main meal. We found the food so foreign we could not tell the difference. So they let us go by mid-evening, with considerable compliments and exchanges of phone numbers. They also took a “class picture” of which I will try to get a copy.
Myself, I was worked ragged and have no intention of doing that again. You can’t fool an accountant and the caterer easily doubled his money in the three days of buzzing activity, including the flies that Bryne found so bothersome. Nor once we left was the owner getting out of there before midnight as he seemed to think. Maybe for twice the money I’d reconsider, it was easy to see that they found us better than twice our number of laborers without having so many people to trip over. Bryne got a bonus of samples of the spice packets, I was just happy to get home and have a glass of cool, cool, cool milk.
I am disappointed that I can no longer handle a full day of “honest work”. The only challenge should have been the monotony, yet I had to continually replenish fluids in the steamy atmosphere, and was forced to take at least six sit-down breaks of several minutes by a pounding heart. When people shouted orders even to others, my blood pressure cascaded. I am ashamed to admit I cannot deal with basic tasks even part-time. At the shoemaker, I stood all day, but it was a short day and I wasn’t continually walking around and lifting things.
Thus concludes my foray into the big-bucket food industry. It was a truly novel situation for me and was exactly as I expected, though the details were all new to me. A good time was had by all. Sorry, I missed about 50 priceless photos.
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