Whenever it feels like this job has been an impossible journey, I just look back and see how far things have come. Where now there is tables and stools, was once a big mess.
Stud walls, devoid of any surface surrounding a room full of clutter. It wasn’t too long ago that my working kitchen looked like this. But many hours of sweat has brought everything into shape. It hasn’t been easy.
Along the way little baby steps felt like huge accomplishments. Like finally getting the gas hooked up. I think I did a little fire dance I was so excited for this.
However, the arrival of fire came at the same time as the end of refrigeration. My fridge (or what I thought was a fridge) started making awful noises, and then one night, died.
It was quite a setback, but I wasn’t about to let it get me down… or let anyone loose faith in the kitchen project. So I whipped up a Friday night happy hour. Warm grilled cheese sandwiches and old school cocktails… all prepared on my unfinished countertop (I waited patiently for weeks for my stainless steel!)
I could whip together snacks in the evening, but lunches were still an impossibility, so long as there was a lack of refrigeration. After a series of visits from a repair man (who was a real character), replaced capacitors, rewired electrical and a rebuilt compressor, he finally determined that what I had wasn’t a refrigerator, but a freezer!
At the end of this two week long fiasco, we ended up returning the “freezer” to the (sketchy) used appliance warehouse from whence it came and exchanged it for a different unit.
And so the large, loud, oppressive stainless steel three door “freezer” was replaced with a friendly two glass door model. It was a pain having to move two fridges in one afternoon, but with the help of a handful of guys from the studio shop, we were done in no time.
With refrigeration finally in place, I was more than eager to get cooking. The next day’s head of department meeting seemed like a good opportunity to make snacks.
I got really excited. I felt like doing a Mad Men style conference, with snacks and drinks (no, not booze) splayed out on the table.
Pitchers of fresh Strawberry Opal Basil lemonade and brown butter popcorn. A mere tease of the future eats in what soon became known as “The Cantina.”
That very Friday dawned the first service of lunch. The owners of the company wanted to have a cook out for their staff. They gave me cash for ingredients and I went about preparing kabobs and tasty sides for 40 people. A complex undertaking for the first lunch service.
There was some point in the morning that I realized making four types of kabobs for 40 people is a foolish undertaking. That point was when I was an hour in to skewering kabobs.
Did I also mention that I killed the first half of the morning making waffles for everyone?
I certainly felt a time crunch, but I persevered and the lunch was a grand success!
It was beyond surreal to, for the first time, watch so many people sit and eat my cooking. To eat and enjoy my cooking.
With most everything devoured, I realized that from there on out, I would have my work cut out for me!