Sunday, July 11, 2010

Block 2: Week 3 - Hot Sandwiches

This past week was probably the hardest week so far, but I'm not really sure why. The hot sandwich station itself wasn't too bad - we're basically short order cooks in the cafeteria. We make hamburgers, veggie burgers, steak sandwiches, monte cristos, clubhouses, and like on hot breakfast, we make a special each day. Maybe it was just the time pressure - we had to be ready for service at 11:30 no matter what. We start school at 7:30, so we have four hours to do everything because there is no time after service. School ends at 1:00, but by the time we cleaned up after service ends at 12:45, it was often 1:15, and then we would have to go back to class to discuss the next day's special with chef when all we really wanted to do is take off the uniform and relax outside. Also, with only four of us in the group, it was just that much more of a time crunch to have everything ready.

But cooking on the line was fun. Like last week, we rotated stations each day. I started off as expeditor, so basically organize the plating of the food before it goes out to the customer. Our special on the first day was a turkey quesadilla, so I also put some of those together when we started running low.

The second day I was on the deep fryer. This is the easiest station because all you have to do is drop french fries and onion rings into the deep fryer, take them out, and season them. Since there were only four of us in the group, whoever was on the deep fryer also took orders from customers. That is also an easy job, and it's a lot of fun interacting with the people and telling them about the special, which that day was chicken teriyaki burgers with grilled pineapple. There were a couple of specials leftover after service, so I got to eat one, and it was really tasty, so it was my favourite special of the week.

Wednesday I was on the grill. Like at breakfast, grill is a busy station. Grill has to make all the burgers, steak sandwiches, and monte cristos. Our special was a beef dip that day.

Thursday was a busy day for me because I was on sandwiches. Usually the sandwich person deals with the special. That day, we made paninis with grilled vegetables, bocconcini cheese, and capicola. We pre-grilled them to get the grill marks, and then I warmed them up to order. The sandwich person also makes the clubhouse sandwiches.

The last day, I was expediting again. Our special was a pizza deluxe. We cut a hole in the top of a foccacia bun, filled it with mozzarella cheese, meatballs, tomato sauce, sauteed onions, and salami.

Next week - cold sandwiches.

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