Friday, July 31, 2009

chat with youngest daughter

Our youngest daughter is going through a phase right now.  She needs a lot of attention and energy and is very stressed out by Alex and I being away from her.  She cries when I leave for work and she calls me every night before she goes to sleep and demands that I come home.  Fortunately, I've been parenting long enough to get that I just need to hang tight, give her lots of hugs and love, and we'll move to a different stage.   

Today, as part of all this anxiety, our daughter told me that she was coming to work with me tonight.  Well, she is pretty young, and many of her sentences start with the words, "I want..." and so I explained that, in the restaurant, everything is about the customer.  I wanted her to hear that when we are in the restaurant, we have to only think about the customer (and taking a moment to plant seeds in her 5-year old brain about empathy!) which means that it would be a very boring and tedious place for her to spend time.  She was actually pretty quick to catch on that this sounded dismal and moved on to a new topic (she also didn't cry when I left for work tonight - secretly feeling sorry for me?!)  However, the exchange left me thinking about the dynamics of the restaurant.

When you are working at the restaurant, it is like you disappear.  There is absolutely no "I want."  From the moment you walk in the door, you are constantly scanning to try and figure out how to make life better for customers: are the tables in the right spot so that the (minimal) leg room is maximized? are the lights at the right brightness for the time of day? is the music at the right volume? is it the right kind of music? is the air conditioning too cold or not cold enough? do they have drinks? what is the drink special tonight? can we call their mains or are they wanting to pause after their appys?  The questions are endless and they flip through your head all night long.  You forget that your feet are screaming.  Sometimes you remember to re-hydrate and have something to drink. Occasionally, you remember that you need to pee.  

But, most of the time, you disappear.  And, you know, it's okay.  It's kind of a neat experience.  Not meant for the pre-school crowd but it is definitely a cool way to look at the world for a few hours and definitely makes me think about life differently.  

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

pampered...


Last week, I was feeling a bit fried.  Completely exhausted, to be honest.  

Fortunately, after a small amount of prodding, Alex noticed and arranged for a bit of TLC for me. I was told to go to Tiber River (tiberriver.ca) on Academy.  It is so very lovely in there.  The woman at the reception desk is funny and friendly.  She knew who I was and related a great story about coming to our restaurant.  She was everything you want in a first-contact-with-the-public position.  I was led into the back room and given a fantastic pedicure.  My feet suffer from wearing high heels and running around the restaurant every day for hours.  It was exactly what I needed.  But, of course, Alex gilded the lily.  As I was sitting at my station, in walks Scott Bagshaw, the chef of Pizzeria Gusto.  He brought two plates with ridiculously delicious food: a shrimp appy and some bruschetta.  It was perfect.

Now, here's the thing about this experience: it was created by someone with a panache for service and delivered by two companies who clearly understand customer service.  I love that Alex thought to add the touch of food during the pedicure.  I love that Scott walked it over himself!  I love that every minute at Tiber River was serene and gentle and fun.  Even the camaraderie amongst the staff was palpable.  I love that the Tiber River staff offered to take my dishes back to Pizzeria Gusto (but I'm not that much of a princess, thanks)!  This few hours rejuvenated me (which was good 'cause we had a whopper of a catering job after this that I will blog more about later...) and led me to a moment of contemplating customer service.   As always, I am contemplating how to make ours even better.  

It is a good thing to feel taken care of; I hope to keep the good karma flowing.  

Sunday, July 19, 2009

we're back...


Hi all,

I have received some feedback that we haven't been posting enough so I'm back and I will try to pay attention.  I will also try to help Alex remember to post on his blog.

I read the most fascinating statistic about our lives recently (I often find out interesting tidbits about us from other sources!), on the folk festival weekend we led a group of people in generating 50, 000 meals.  This feels mind-boggling and yet at the same time, it was the most incredible, exhilarating experience imaginable.  The whole 5 days, I felt consumed by the needs of these 5, 000 people; it felt a little bit like having a giant group of insatiably hungry children.  Constant line ups of folks looking for a nosh.  We fed them bison short ribs (500 pounds eaten in 45 minutes!), barbecued chicken, baked raspberry cream cheese french toast, lamb tagine, and baked macaroni and cheese.  We had a 'guerilla tent' that popped up and served up tasty surprises like caesar mussels and huevos rancheros.  We paired drinks like Moroccan sweetened mint tea (like they have at the hamam - so yummy) with the tagines.  

We plan for months to do this week.  We write the menus and then Alex writes the recipes from scratch.  I sort out who does what when to get the food from written idea to end product.  We figure out how much food, sort out volunteers, find tents and gators, design and have Hutterites build ovens, meet with health inspectors and office staff.  We have to think and work hard to pull off running the backstage kitchen at the folk festival.

On the weekend itself, the running around and trying to physically pull of this feat was pretty crazy... Oh my, 6 boxes of potatoes need to sliced on the dicing wall and this chicken needs to be grilled on these flat tops and I better move these 24-100 oz cans of kidney beans to make way for the 20 watermelons about to arrive.  Of course, me being me, I looked down at one point while I was grilling chicken on the fly and realized I was wearing a cashmere sweater, a fabulous scarf and Brown's platform heels!  Sometimes I can be ridiculous.

Trying to keep track of the paper work and figuring out who should cook what when, left me with very few thoughts by the end of the weekend (see sweater/footware choices above).  I get to a point during this weekend where I honestly think I am no longer making sense.  I can't remember people's names, I'm blurry and confused.  It's not necessarily pretty.  However, I noticed this year, that I kept it together.  Usually I wind up having a weepy time where I sort of fall apart and cry for awhile.  I usually take a time out and get someone to drive me around the site while I get it together but this year I was fairly calm. 

The biggest high comes from the people.  My favourite part of the whole weekend is having two thousand people lined up in a giant tent for dinner and yelling out "Dinner's served!" and people whooping and cheering in appreciation; it send shivers up my spine every time.  I love walking through the kitchen and meeting the people transforming our thoughts and ideas into actual food.  I love listening in to conversations between volunteers about their real-life worlds, or their festival experiences or their thoughts on the food.  I love the connection; I find it endlessly fascinating.  

After the festival week is said and done, I walk away feeling like I have learned so much that it will take me until next year just to figure it all out.  I feel like I have been raised up by the process of two hundred non-cooks coming together and creating haute cuisine.  I feel like it is my responsibility to go out for the rest of the year and live the lessons I have learned about being part of a community.  I feel like I am challenged to be a better person by being involved in this ridiculous, crazy-ass project.

And so, I get back to my restaurant with high expectations of myself.