Extern update!!!!!

I would say that I have only three weeks left on extern, but because I am staying until mid October, I have more than two months left. I cannot wait to move to the sauté station. I am not expecting to learn how to run it by myself in just two months, but I hope to learn how to make a few of the dishes, the prep, how to set up, how to manage tickets, and how to time different dishes on one ticket. As we move into October, the business slows, so it will be a good time for me to learn. I can easily say I have done my fair share of rotating, between working pantry, hot apps, and baking once a week, as well as working at Blackstone Catering and Waterman Grille.
However, the season is not over yet. We are at the peak. It is so incredibly busy that the amount of prep we have to do is five times more than we were doing back in April. There is such an immense amount of prep on the pantry station that we are always working on something. For about two weeks, we changed the Caesar salad to have chopped lettuce instead of wedges of romaine. I preferred the wedges because in the heat, the chopped lettuce wilted so quickly and the salad quality dropped. Using the wedges also meant a lot less romaine to chop every day. There were times when we would have eight fish tubs of bagged lettuce in the walk-in, but sometimes it would go bad before we could use it. We went back to using the romaine, which I think works a whole lot better, especially considering the heat in that kitchen (even though it is air conditioned).
For prep on the hot apps station, we are doubling each recipe, sometimes by three. We have to always have plenty of backups because with the great weather that we have had in the past few days, we are so busy. This past Saturday night, we hit 710 covers! It was absolutely ridiculous. There were three of us on pantry, but the raw bar was slammed. While we usually have three people on that station, a fourth had to come over to help raw bar out while we continued to make salads and desserts. It was a hard night, especially after working that morning too, making it a double.
I had another chance to make an appetizer special. I made a goat cheese, ricotta, lemon, and chive mixture and stuffed in into squash blossoms. I then sliced heirloom tomatoes and drizzled them with olive oil and a balsamic reduction. I considered deep-frying the squash blossoms, but I wanted to keep it light. Chef Casey and Chef Brian came into lunch that day, ordered the special, and commented on the texture of the dish and how it would have been nice if they were fried. I fried one at the end of the day and it was so delicious. I am hoping to run the special again, but I will fry them instead and possibly make a different filling. I still plan to run my special of pan-seared scallops with a fennel orange salad. I just keep forgetting! I am very fortunate to work in a restaurant where the cooks are allowed to come up with their own specials. It gives us a chance to be creative and use our talents.
As for pastry, I used to only come in on Sundays to prep for the week. However, because what I do on Sunday only seems to last until Thursday, Adi has scheduled me for two days a week. That way, what I do on Sunday gets us until the weekend, and then we are fully stocked for the weekend. The last thing we want to do is 86 desserts, so it was a very good idea to have two pastry shifts. When I come in for these shifts, I usually do my baking for four hours or so and then I do prep for any station that needs it throughout the night. I am the “go-to girl” when a station is low on something and they need it right away.