let lemons be angry

I never thought i'd be in f & b full-time. Last week was spent in the kitchen, satisfying my new addiction to flour, the kitchen scale, the oven, onions, prawns and all that comes with it. I can't decide which part of the job gives me more pleasure, smelling the prawns sizzling in the pan, watching an apple crumble turn golden, counting our earnings, or telling people "oh i'm not joining you, i'm just the Caterer." There are icky bits, like finding whole or halved fish inside squid when i'm cleaning them, and peeling prawns till my hands are sore, but they're minor turn-offs. For a business that started last saturday night over the phone, Two Turtledoves has come a long way. I read horror stories about businesses that closed because they couldn't break even after two years. "Aim high, shoot low" is probably what we're doing right. It all still feels like a game, but then again, so does working for haagen dazs.

I imagined myself scooping ice cream, but apparently that's too tricky to leave to beginners like me. So i'm a waitress, what i told myself i'd never be for the simple fact that i can pour water and miss the cup completely. But i'm saved by the water-pouring method that haagen dazs adopts: take the cup off the table and pour away from the customer. It's a brilliant and brainless concept and i shall use it to improve my own life at home. Very frankly, waitressing for an multinational corporation that trains its employees with school-ish rigour (history lessons and quizzes !and all) is not very different from playing Restaurant as a kid. The only difference is the customers are real, not invisible, and that makes it harder to squeeze between tables. The rest is really the same, but more hectic. So i would encourage all kids to play masak-masak because it's a good simulation of the working world. Did i get to eat ice cream? No, but the training manager did slip us mouthfuls of fudge cake and pretzel sticks. And i must've seen the kitchen staff munching things at least five times. I'm more than thankful that i don't come home smelling of oil. The smell that does get to me is the mango sauce when it sizzles on the teppanyaki plate, but that's only because it's not for me. And so, my first night in the store was good.