A Day in the Life of a Chef: My two weeks with the temp agency

During these past few months, as with most of us, times have been tough. Money's tight, gas prices go up and bills keep coming in no matter how much we wish them away.

Well, to lessen this blow and to meet my obligations as a husband and father, I decided to pick up a few hours at a local temp agency. To sum up my experiences, you could say it was both fun and humbling. Just when you think you hate your job, try not having enough money coming in to make the mortgage. Scary stuff.

My first gig was at a new lodge in the area. This place is unbelievably gorgeous. The food is awesome and the crew is very professional. My kinda place. They were having their grand opening bash with multiple stations and rooms full of food. They even had a room designated to dessert with two 6 foot chocolate fountains and tons of store bought chocolate truffles.

When I first walked in, I was treated a little like someone who smelled bad or something, lol. A chef that was helping out pointed towards a pot of boiling water and asked me if I knew how to cook ravioli. In my head, I wanted to answer with a smart ass remark, but, being the professional that I try to be, I refrained and just answered with a simple, "Yes". After spending the next 30 minutes boiling agnolotti (not ravioli, dude) and having this self proclaimed sous chef prodigy come by and taste and poke and prod at a couple dozen, asking me if I thought they were done enough, I was finally done.

But, after they realized I wasn't their average crack head temp worker, they eased up a little and the rest of the night went extremely well. I manned the Risotto de Fungi station where I warmed risotto and dried chantrelle mushrooms with chicken stock and pecarino in front of about 300 of Charlotte's most impressionable people, laughing my ass off with the guy working next to me on a salad station. I love being around people and making them feel special, it was a blast.

I have to say though, I've worked in some amazing places where there are people that specialize in setting up stations to look like cities or wal-marts or whatever. I've been to buffets where you feel like you're surrounded by a city of ice statues and wedding cakes, but I've never seen anything more ingenious than some of the things the chefs were pulling off there that night. They had an "around the world" theme going. This is not unusual or unique, but the way they pulled it off was insane and just awesome. There was a tropical bar with incredible fruit carvings and crazy drinks, a Brazilian grill station where they were grilling steaks, sausages and chicken right on these huge griddles like you'd see on the streets of South America. The only thing missing were the mules and wild chickens running around!

They had an Asian Wok station. A long row of about 15 woks, each filled with a different Asian street food. I was not able to get any pics of that to my dismay, but I promise, it was impressive.

I could go one a while longer, but I'd bore you. It was just impressive. I hope to be able to use a few of those ideas in the future. I was concerned, however, about the ingredients that were used throughout this gala. On one extreme, they flew in hand-made marshmallows from California for the chocolate fountain, the agnolotti I just mentioned were hand made and flown in from Texas, they had prosciutto's, Parmesans, dried cured beef and so on that would make most Italians cry with happiness! Hand made sausages and dry ages meats. Yea, my kinda grub. But then...the other extreme. They were sauteing their pre-sliced onions in WHIRL for fuck sakes! Serving rock hard out of season melons, using grocery store bread and opening cans for some easily sourced items. It didn't make any sense to me. I was concerned about their inconsistency. It put off a bad vibe for me. It's almost like they were trying to impress someone but didn't want to impress them TOO much. Shit, I'm sure they had their reasons, but that's not something I nor most of my colleagues would have done, I'm sure.

Well, enough of that. Overall, I would definitely work for them. They seem like a bunch of great people and hard workers, which is what its all about in the end, in most cases.

So, moving on to job number 2. Well, if I say to you that I went from one extreme to the other, I would be understating more to you than someone saying rotten potatoes "kinda smell". Now, I don't mean any disrespect to anyone that works at this place, not at all. I met some of the nicest and down to earth, humbled and non arrogant people I have EVER and most likely WILL ever meet in my life! But, first of all, I had to get up at 3:30 am to arrive by 5:00 am each morning. I don't know how they do it. A few of them get there at 3:30am! YIKES! Then, they made me dress up like the bastard son of a clown and a nurse, lol. Hair nets, lab coats, gloves, sanitation is #1! Cool. I like that.

The food...well..., the only time I used a knife was to cut open freezer bags and box tops. Wait, I take that back, I had to use a knife another time to lob (yes "lob", this knife was like the equivalent of the safety-scissors-you-give-to-the-special-kid-in-3rd-grade-dull!) frozen bread sticks in half so they would fit into the serving try (with this asshole corporate chef making remarks about why it's taking me so long to cut bread while he walks around with a clip board, lol, wow, what a dick). Sorry, had to mention that. He was trying to be funny, but with 2 hours sleep and no coffee in site, I wasn't feeling very jovial, lol.

Instead of listing my duties, I'll just list the things we worked with: enough canned pudding to drown a camel (they even had an air powered can opener, they MUST open a lot of cans!), fully cooked heat-n-serve fried chicken, fully cooked heat-n-serve grilled chicken breast with, we think, are painted on grill marks, fully cooked "meat"loaf, powdered gravy mix, frozen corn, carrots and/ or green beans in rotation, canned marinara sauce, 35 pound tubs of pre-made tuna and chicken salads, thaw and serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and so on and so forth. After this week, whirl and pre-sliced onions were forgivable.

Like I said, I'm not knocking anyone personally (except that corporate "chef"), but this is what our children in public schools are being fed. This is what our grand parents in government subsidised nursing homes are being forced to eat. Sad.

I'm sure they have their reasons and anyone might and would justify that crap if you asked them, I'm just blown away by that. Crazy thing is, I worked for that same company under a different sector that catered to the private school "richy-riches" of the world and they bragged about how "scratch made" everything was and how processed food was a big "no-no" and that "WE" don't allow frozen anything and canned ecetera to be used because its not wholesome! That they have professional chefs on staff and they don't need can openers or fryers because everything is painstakingly created with love, blah blah. So, apparently, you (or your parents) have to be doctors in order for you to get a true healthy meal, but if you're anywhere near the poverty level, you get to eat processed BS while you learn your ABCs and before you die of old age.

My family grew up with not a lot of money. What extra money we did have, my dad usually drank, lol. But, no matter what, my family fed us awesome food. I guess my point is, you don't need a lot of money to make healthy scratch-made food without additives and crap in it, you just need skill and a little passion. Laziness is not the way of the future. Its not always about pinching pennies so the big corporate dudes can drive a new BMW every 6 months and brag about their mistresses over goose and crans and Cubans. Ah, you get my point. Being on both sides of the coin showed me a new way to look at things and given me even more reason to cook well and teach others to do it for themselves too.

Shit, go to a farmers market and go make your kids some hand made pizzas. Costs less then 2 slices of pizza from your local pie shop and your kids will never forget it. Kids love to play with dough. So what if you have to have the maid stay late to clean up the mess, its OK!

Anyway, here are some pictures, thanks for reading this far! :)

Brazilian Grille