[2023-10-29] Lessons of a daytime cook
The summer I turned 16, I worked in the kitchen of The Tannery, a newly opened pub in Carleton Place, Ontario. I was hired to do prep work in support of the daytime cook and, to a lesser extent, the nighttime chef.
One day, not long after the restaurant had opened, the chef took the cook into the kitchen's walk-in fridge. Even though the door was closed, I could hear their raised voices, as I quietly chopped vegetables at a nearby counter. When the fridge door opened, the cook stormed out of the kitchen and out of the restaurant, never to be seen again. When the chef emerged, he looked at me and said: "You're the new daytime cook."
A day or two later, with no training, I took over as the daytime cook. At a little before noon, servers appeared at the window between the dining room and the kitchen to hand me the first two orders. I hung them neatly on a wire, like clothes on a clothesline. But before I could get started on those requests, four more orders appeared. Then four more. I was overwhelmed and paralyzed. I looked at the night chef with panic in my eyes.
"Here's how you do it," he said. He might have added "And I'll show this to you only once" but he didn't need to. I knew that he would help me that day and that I would otherwise be on my own. I watched him carefully.
"Don't worry about the 10," he said. "Just start with the first 4." He scanned the orders on the first four slips. "Start with the appetizers. Get those out first." I sprung into action. He scanned the next four slips; we got the appetizers on those orders out of the kitchen as well. We did the same with the next group of orders. Then it was back to the first four slips to prepare the meals.
Methodically but quickly, we fulfilled every order, working in batches and multitasking to efficiently deliver the requested food.
By the end of the lunch rush, I was exhausted. But I had also learned a lot—lessons that would stick with me throughout my career.
- Don't try to do everything at once. Follow the advice of Desmond Tutu about how to eat an elephant—take one bite at a time.
- Pick a reasonable chunk of work—one project or a few tasks—and start with those.
- You can have several things on the go at once, but only as many as you can keep straight in your head at any one time.
Perhaps most importantly, I discovered that I could do hard things, that all I needed was a little know-how and a little grit, and that the more I practised, the better and more comfortable I became. I also realized that I could take on and succeed at a role even before I felt I was ready for it, something I did many times in my career and life.
