This is a brief account of my first day as Garde Manger at Chez Panisse. The shift is supposed to be 6 AM to 2 PM. I worked 5:40 AM to 2:15 PM. It was a Wednesday, meaning it’s supposed to be a little more easy than the other days but there is a lot of prepared food to inventory regardless.
- Arrive at 5:45 am
- Get an inventory sheet and mark stuff for downstairs
- Inventoried downstairs walk-ins, meat and vegetables
- Inventoried outside walk-in
- Inventoried prep food walk-in, which was packed with unlabeled stuff I had trouble identifying. It took me half an hour at least to get through it.
- Took out duck fat
- Met with Chef and went over to do items
- Explain list to interns
- Change into whites
- organize all the walk-ins
- Squeeze tomates and set softies to roast
- Set up for 9 o’clock meeting, put out some shell beans
- More inventory for ordering – dairy
- Go to storage next door to look for medium hotel pans
- Go to a different storage next door and finish ordering inventory and getting restock stuff
- Restock oils and dry goods like flour and sugar
- Go back and get more stuff from storage that I forgot
- Place orders
- Meeting @ 9 am
- Go over staff lunch with Chef: 20 meatballs, cucumbers, what I thought was yogurt but was actually onion rings in buttermilk, couscous, butternut squash ravioli, lentils, potatoes, cauliflower, aioli
- Put away orders
- Put fish away, which means set up an ice tray for each kind of fish, separate for upstairs and downstairs and then label and cover each type
- Bring stuff to the office for them to do: shell beans
- Put stuff away for downstairs to use according to their list
- Make staff lunch starting @ 11 to serve @ noon
- clean up station
- eat
- clean all the walk-ins and reorganize
- clean up lunch
- Inventory and restock from storage
- Meet with downstairs chef about their list
- Top fennel and beets
- clean up
- clock out at 2:15
And I’m spent.