The End Came So Soon

I have two days left working at the Mooring. Its bittersweet, that is what I have been telling people when they ask if I am happy to leave or not. I have made great friends and had lots of fun this summer, but I am too excited to get back to school, so my mind is other places right now. I am working hard still, dont get me wrong, but I just dont love being at The Mooring as much as I used to. People of course ask if I am returning next year, but I dont think I am. I tell them I may return in the future, but as of right now, Im not planning on going back next summer. I want to work for a bed and breakfast in another seasonal town, Nantucket or Cape Cod maybe? I guess we will see what happens. I really like the new menu items, however, that they have put on the menu for the Fall Menu. Its comfort food, which who doesnt love comfort food? I will have to come back sometime this winter to visit and to eat some of the food! Its been a great summer.

DESTINATION: CIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boat Show madness

I survived boat show!! That is something to be proud of. While we normally do 300 people for lunch on a saturday, we did over 700 people!!!!! Can you say, crazy?? Boat show is a weekend (thurs-sun) when people, boats, and vendors from all over the world come to show off their stuff. Its HUGE! The Mooring parking lot turns into a tent and a space for only 1/3 of the actual boat show. This event takes up basically alll of downtown Newport. And because the Mooring is the only restaurant located inside the gates of the Boat Show and people don't want to leave, they come to our restaurant. I dont even know how we did so many covers for lunch, but we did. Ill be honest though, being on hot apps wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I was just watching the grill station the whole time getting slammed by hamburgers and chicken sandwiches, mainly. But basically, our prep levels multiply by three and we are still running around! I am happy I got to experience Boat Show because everyone has been talking about it since I arrived in March. I am SOOOO tired.

I guess its part of the job description...

Ever since my friends found out I like to cook, they are always asking me if I can cook for them or asking me about my cooking. Some are genuinely interested while others just want some food. I have been going through this struggle of who my real friends are for quite some time.
At work, I make cookies and desserts whenever I am doing my baking shift. I have a whole prep kitchen to my self with ovens and burners, so its easy. I started doing it one night when there was nothing to do and well, now it is expected of me to make something. There is one particular person who seems to have a nose like a dog. He won't come out to the prep kitchen to say hi or anything unless I have food cooling or any scraps. I made brownies two nights ago for the staff and he came out to get one. I called him out on this pattern of his and obviously he denied it (me partially just busting his buttons) but after joking with him about this occurance, I started to think about it.
Are people pretending to be nice to me just for food? I mean, really? I know that I can cook and stuff, so being my friend is just a perk, you get a friendship and food. But then there are those who are in it strictly for the food. Its not that fair. They don't truly appreciate it. I guess its just something I have to live with.

Speaking up helps...

So I was talking to my co-workers about the whole promise not being kept and one of them went to Adi about it and told him how mad I was that he wasn't keeping his promise. Well he had a talk with me about the whole issue of being on saute. He said this crazy thing about how he never "promised" and thats just what it seemed like. And he said that he had totally forgotten that he had to train another cook on the station for the winter back when he told me I would be on it. So he was having scheduling conflicts between training me and training the guy that is permanant on the station. Basically, I just go over there whenever I can. He schedules me for 2pm-close on Sundays. I go in at 2 and do my pastry shift till about 6 and then I hop over to saute for the night. It has worked out pretty well. I got to spend 4 hours on the station the other night. It was really fun! Its defintiely a lot smaller of a space when there are three people on the station though. But I guess that fact that I talked with Adi got me on the station.

Chefs don't always keep their promises to eager culinary students....bummer.

So as I mentioned a while back, I decided to stay for two extra months at The Mooring. It was for two reasons primarily. 1) I love working at this restaurant and I didn't really have a reason to go back to school at a certain time and 2) I was told by my chef (we even shook hands on it), that I would move to the Saute station, which I have been DYING to learn since day 1. This whole thing frustrates me, so I will try to not turn this blog entry into a rant session. Basically, he told me that since I was originally only staying until August 3, it would not make sense to train me on Saute at that point in the summer (this was June when we talked). But thinking about it, he should have thrown me on saute back in April when it was dead. But I can't look back on the past and be mad. So he basically said that if I stayed, it would be more useful to teach me saute since I would be here longer. So basically, I assumed that meant that after August 3, he would have me on saute. Well, three schedules later (aka 3 weeks later), he hasn't.
I talked with him about how he made a promise and I was a little disappointed (its awesome, I can be very straight forward with him and he doesnt get mad. He likes to hear my opinions). He explained to me that he was going to be training the other hot apps guy on saute since he stays year-round and I was leaving soon. Then i was thinking, well, thats why I stayed--so that you couldnt use the "you are leaving soon" excuse! And he proceeded to say how he would get me on there a few hours a week to learn some of the dishes and ticket times and ticket management, but he would be focusing on training the other guy. Basically for the past few days, I have been sliding over to saute to learn a thing or two when my station is not busy. I do not even know if he will schedule me, so I am just using whatever time I can to slide over. One of the Kitchen Managers saw me over there today helping my friend and he was like, Wow Audrey! Please tell me you are FINALLY on this station today!!! But unfortunately, I had to explain that I was just over there for a few minutes. So even HE wants me to be on Saute. Chef just doesnt seem to have it be his priority, which I understand. BUT HE MADE A PROMISE!!!!

The Mooring philosophy and the significance of where our food comes from...

The culinary philosophy at The Mooring is to focus on the quality of food that is being served at the restaurant. To ensure the freshest food possible, they strive to obtain local and organic ingredients. They support local farmers with special produce arriving almost daily. The Mooring Restaurant, along with the other restaurants in The Newport Harbor Corporation, belongs to a movement and local food system called Farm Fresh Rhode Island. The goals of this project are to keep Rhode Island farmland at its freshest and most bountiful by supporting local farmers as well as increase the access to fresher produce.
Every year, The Castle Hill Inn and Resort holds an event to support the Farm Fresh Rhode Island movement. It is an afternoon spent to acknowledge local farmers, fisherman, and bakeries by teaming up with chefs from the Newport area. With over two dozen farms being represented, it is a great way to support these farmers by an evening of delicious and local food. This year, I worked with Chef Brian and we supported five different farmers at our stand. We made crostinis with baguettes from Bristol, RI and spread a pea green pesto from Westport, RI onto them along with Reynolds Barn goat cheese from South Kingstown. We then topped each crostini with Aquidneck farms beef brisket from Portsmouth, RI and tomato compote with tomatoes from Lydon Family Farms in Tiverton, RI. I got a chance to walk around to other booths, like Narragansett creamery, Aquidneck Island Honey, Olga’s Breads (based in Providence), and other local farms. It was such a great experience to see all of these farms displaying their products.
We buy local mixed greens to cut into our salad greens along with micro greens and pea shoots from Farming Turtles, located in the Narragansett Bay. We are currently receiving daily orders of heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil from Lydon Family Tomatoes located in Tiverton, RI, as well as freshly cultivated blueberries. We often use these local and organic items for specials and being able to say that it is local makes the guest appreciate where their food is coming from. The majority of our produce arrives daily from Belmont Market, located in Wakefield, RI. Belmont gathers their produce from local farms such as Poblano Farm in South Kingstown and uses the same philosophy as the Mooring by buying local and organic produce. At Castle Hill, they have an organic garden that is currently sprouting potatoes, chard, onions, zucchini, and numerous herbs such as mint, Thai basil, sage, chives, parsley, and thyme. We also feature cheeses from Narragansett and Providence on our menu, using them for the cheese plates and crumbling the Salty Sea Feta into our salads. We use cheeses like Atwells Gold and Queso Fresco for specials as well.
Seafood is the specialty of Newport because of its bountiful access to water. Our philosophy on seafood and shellfish is the same as our produce; buying local whenever possible. We use “speed to market” and “top of the catch” seafood, and when possible, day boat fishermen. A majority of our shellfish comes from Newport Lobster, Co, located in Middletown, the next town over from Newport and our oysters and clams arrive daily from farms around Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Matunuck is our largest purveyor. Having fresh and local shellfish makes the customer at ease when knowing they are eating food that originated from that area.

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.