A Pastry Career Lowlight

So, this is going to be another post without pictures of things you can eat. I really apologize about that. But it's an important story (okay, maybe only to me), and I think a little enlightening to what life is like in a kitchen.

There's two components to working in pastry at a restaurant: production and service. Production is the actual baking, and generally the more fun part, while service is the actual plating of the desserts when customers order them. Any pastry chef who says working service doesn't suck sometimes is lying to you. It can be fun and a big adrenaline rush, but mostly it's taking you away from what you'd rather be doing, the actual baking and creating.

Lately I've been working weeknight services by myself, and I've prided myself on setting up the station for a smooth service and having easy, stress-free nights. Last night was slower for pastry at the restaurant, and I mistakenly thought tonight was going to be the same. I intended to try out a couple new recipes during the dinner shift, and had three quarters of my workspace occupied with ingredients, equipment, and a general mess. All of a sudden, tickets started ringing in. I shoved everything to the side as best I could, and started making desserts. It was going alright until I reached up to grab a plate and knocked down a pint container of powdered gelatin. The gelatin spilled all over me, my station, and my mise en place (all of the things I needed to make the desserts). All the mise was garbage at that point, needing to hastily be replaced with what I had back up or what I needed to make on the fly (meaning, right NOW).

As tickets continued to ring in, I scrambled to scrape up all the gelatin, which stuck to the station almost immediately. My blood pressure started rising, and I started to sweat a little. The sweat "activated" the gelatin, causing it to stick to my skin and form a weird crust that was almost impossible to scrub off. The whole situation was comically frustrating. Who else does this happen to?? Not long ago, a non-food industry friend emailed me and said when discussing me and my job with her teacher friends, they were all "oohing and ahhing" and saying how glamorous it must be. She compared the reaction to as if she said her friend was Jennifer Lopez. Tonight was about as glamorous as it gets, covered in a caking of animal proteins. I bet J Lo does not have to deal with that.