HiP Italian

Here we are back in the States, and if the beginning of school and all the other craziness that is my life right now isn't enough, today brought about my first workshift as head cook at the graduate co-op, Hillegass Parker (as mentioned before, HiP).

Now, here's the challenge:
Three cooks (one head cook, two assistants who may or may not know anything about food)
Three hours
An unreliably stocked kitchen
A full meal for ~60 people

...GO!

Menu planning must happen far in advance, or at least, far enough in advance that the kitchen manager has time to order anything not a staple in the kitchen. Produce is delivered Friday. Unfortunately, with Thursday as my assigned cooking night, it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of last-minute adjustment to my menus as the walk-in fridge is depleted throughout the week.

Now, a little background on the co-op so you know what all is going down.
HiP houses ~60 graduate students in three neighboring domiciles just south of campus. About ten people "board" at HiP as well, either ex-inmates (har har), friends of the co-op, or people who live down the street. Or me, who lives several miles away and up about 1000ft elevation [some may say I'm crazy for doing this. I am inclined to agree]. We boarders eat some number of meals at the co-op every week, and in return pay for our meals and are assigned several hours of workshift every week. I'm on the 5-meal, 2-hour plan.

And by "meals", we are referring primarily to dinners. Dinner is a big deal at HiP. The aforementioned three people bravely take on the task of creating a culinary wonderland for all members of the co-op. Generally there are between five and ten dishes served up promptly (well, within ten minutes or so) at 7pm each night Sunday through Thursday. Co-op-ers line up in the dining room in Main House (also where the big kitchen is, it used to be a boarding house years ago) at 7pm, forks and knives in hand, ready to demolish what tends to be a delightful meal. There are always vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free dishes available, the primary goal being to provide a complete meal for each of these groups, in addition to the omnivores who are so easy to cook for. Each night a new set of cooks try their hand, though there are weekly (in my case, bi-weekly) shifts assigned.

So. Among the ridiculousness of life right now, I planned a meal for sixty to commence preparation at 4pm this afternoon (yes, I left work extremely early, and earlier yet in order to ride the bus up the hill to get my car so I could get home at the end of it all).

To illustrate the interesting task of end-of-the-week cooking at the coop:

Intended menu:
pasta; pomodoro sauce made entirely of fresh tomatoes; chicken marsala with cream; garlic olive bread; tiramisu; balsamic green beans; gluten-free pasta; zucchini "pasta"; sicilian red lentil pasta sauce/stew

Final menu:
pasta; pomodoro sauce made of almost-ripe tomatoes stripped from the garden and canned tomato puree; chicken marsala (without cream); garlic bread (someone had eaten all six loaves of the olive bread!?); tiramisu-like cake trifle (no whipped cream); orange-fennel salad over mixed greens; oregano-spiked summer squash; tempeh "arrabiata" (aka kinda spicy with a couple of tomatoes, lots of onion, and summer squash)

All in all, it actually worked out surprisingly well. We were only about ten minutes late, which included making up "late plates" for absent co-op-ers (amusingly, Megan was one of these, though she had gone to dinner for Rudi's birthday instead, just wanted to be sure she got some after she wandered into the kitchen this afternoon). Roasted garlic was a huge hit on the crispy bits of garlic bread. The tiramisu trifle went over incredibly well, considering I had forgotten to pour over the coffee/marsala wine mixture on the top layer. And the mere fact that the pomodoro sauce was uber-local made Adam, the kitchen manager, so happy he loudly declared that fact to the entire room.

But lesson learned: as far as co-op-ers are concerned, anything with chocolate chips is far superior to anything without.

One of the greatest (and potentially aggravating) parts of being head cook is that every week a new set of assistant cooks are assigned to your shift. Today James and Margaret were to be assistants, but Margaret found herself four hours of workshift "up" (meaning she had done more than necessary), and with a problem set due tomorrow, "sold" her shift to Nina. So, Nina, James, and I made an (inevitably) complete mess of the HiP kitchen in our attempt to satisfy the hungry graduate students.

I must say, it's been a while since I directed others in cooking. Most of my culinary training was in taking orders, not giving them. I'm pretty good at getting all of my stuff done in order and on time; this was part of what earned me highest honors in the City and Guilds program. But telling others what to do, and being completely dependent on them because there's no way to do it all in that period of time on my own? Unfamiliar experience for me. Especially the part that makes me responsible for the outcome of our team's work. I never liked that part of teamwork, if there was a situation where I absolutely had to trust my teammates to do their work well. I'm far more likely to try to do it myself. I'm a horrible team player. I know it. But there's nothing saying I can't learn to either:
1) not worry about it not being perfect, since it never will be, or
2) absolutely trust that someone else is equally competent and will do a good job without my involvement.
Actually, I think the first will be more of a problem.

Regardless, getting to know Nina and James was great. Turns out Nina's on what they call a "grace period" (even though she's not a student, she can live in the co-op for one more semester beyond finishing her degree), and James is the one other person I've met from Rhode Island (East Greenwich!). Nina did an incredible job with the chicken marsala, and pretty much deconstructed three whole chickens on her own after I showed her the general procedure. And poor James got all the boring jobs, slicing about 2 gallons of mushrooms, fifty mixed summer squash, twelve oranges, seven fennel bulbs, and five heads of garlic. The dude was ridiculously upbeat about it. I promised him next time he'd get to do all the fun stuff (whatever that is).

And the adrenaline rush after realizing half my proposed dinner (and vegan protein) was nonexistent (no red lentils, or a proper substitute, anywhere in sight) was invigorating. Sleep deprivation is not a good thing in such situations... I ended up spending ten minutes in the walk-in, trying to find something to make, and walked out shivering. Thank heavens for my SusieCakes chef's jacket! Another use beyond protecting me from flying spurts of hot oil and providing a reminder of M1N (swatties!!!!!): it can be used as blustery-weather gear. woot!

So somehow I'm supposed to get four workshift hours for this ridiculousness. Fortunately I love it, otherwise there's no way it'd be worth it. But this is most of the reason I joined the co-op (besides meeting non-engineers, trying something new, and getting to hang out with two of my favorite people in the world). It's great to be back cooking for people, and seeing their faces as they enjoy it.