i've got somethin' to hold on to

Oh, man. Just one more day, and then it's a beautiful Friday and Saturday off. It couldn't come sooner. Days like today, when I wake up and every muscle in my body hurts, and I find myself unable to do much other than order an americano and walk in the direction of work, are rough.

The past two days I was over the stove, tomorrow I'm over the wok. Just one more day of kicking the valves on full-blast, ladling oil and frantically tossing ingredients over my shoulders, steaming mussels and searing tuna steaks, frying rice with ginger, garlic, cilantro and scallions, squirting fish sauce and sesame oil, turning a cold faucet into a steel bowl of 550 degree oil and bathing myself in steam. Every once in awhile, I'll throw some wet bok choy, or some shoestring potatoes into a hot wok and light a fire the size of a small apartment kitchen, and I'll have to rely on my clean, cancerless lungs (a rare commodity in our industry) to blow it out or risk dumping a burnt mess out and starting over in the middle of the dinner rush. By the end of the night, my eyes will hurt from all the flashes of light--between shaoxing cooking wine, various accidents, and fishes hitting pans on sautè, we start a lot of fires. And my knees, my feet, my back will ache, and I'll want to sit down because I haven't in twelve hours, but I won't.

As much as the busy nights are exhilirating, there is an impending sense of doom at this point in the week--the business is making a steady crescendo, from an easy Sunday to a pain-in-the-ass latenight Wednesday to a catering, special-menu party Thursday to a rather mentally and physically abusive weekend, where we'll come in an hour early to prep for a war. I love the work but I still frown at the culinary institute for being such a bunch of assholes--through all the sanitation, restaurant management, and cuisine education, there's not a lot of honesty as far as working from one to one in a hot kitchen goes.

amazing wok team!

The Soba Restaurant and Lounge wishes you a very happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, yeah, I haven't written in awhile. I'm not dead though, despite the inhuman consumption of various wines and spirits on a very, very fine Thanksgiving enjoyed with my friends from the restaurant. Highlights of that particular evening include Trivial Pursuit 80s Edition, a board game called Cranium, and actually letting some of these motherfuckers get into cars to drive home. I also have an exquisite photograph of our general manager with his sweater pulled over his face, which, in the interest of my career, will not be making a debut on the internet. All in all, a lovely holiday this year, even if it was away from the family--dinner prepared by a professional chef is undoubtedly something to factor in as well.

What have I been up to lately, you ask? Well, aside from being the new American Dream, I:

--Had a very short-lived affair with a young photographer (smoker. yuck)
--Baked several loaves of bread very, very late at night
--Worked roughly 55 hours last week, a contributing factor in my dear journal's hiatus
--Fixed my 35mm camera
--Began working on music for a caroling ensemble composed of co-workers and other friends (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night, a Morten Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium, and that old Balulalow, right out of the Klein High School Choir's music library)

More to come after I bust my ass for twelve hours tomorrow!

view the world from american eyes

Well, nothing out of the ordinary is going on here. I feel the need to write, however, and besides, people yell at me when I don't.

Autumn, though? That's incredible. Despite only being my second up here, the season is impossible to take for granted. At this point, the leaves have done what they will, so people are all fucked up about winter being almost here, but that's the quirkiness of Northerners for you--anger and depression over shit they have absolutely no influence over. Not that I'm saying anything bad about Northerners, since in the South, the theme is to picket gay peoples' funerals, stomp you into the ground for having unique beliefs and opinions, et cetera. I could go on for awhile.

Tomorrow I've got another Scrabble match at The Quiet Storm. It's becoming sort of a weekly thing between Zach, Jacque and I, for which I am very happy. I've had a consistent schedule with Wednesdays and Thursdays off for awhile now, so to get out after the end of the work week and do something intellectually challenging is a rather refreshing change from various Orders, Fires and also, Pick-ups. Maybe the greatest thing about any time off from my job is that I can allow myself to simply concentrate on one thing alone, instead of ten, fifteen entreès all at once, which can be a bit mentally exhausting.