Expectations
12 hours ago
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Cafe Quote
Jared: "I don't like rosemary."
Danny: "Shiiiiiiit, I'd marry a bitch she smelled like rosemary."
Danny: "Shiiiiiiit, I'd marry a bitch she smelled like rosemary."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Is it over yet?
Oh, it's gonna be one of those days, I thought Saturday morning as the first of what was to be a two day long string of cluster fucks occurred. I'm not sure what it was, but it was likely the text from Sonja that she was still feeling like crap after leaving early Friday after having thrown up.
Friday is sorta kinda an almost day off for me. I was happily sitting at The Quarters, alternating between reading my book and watching a fifteen year old game between the Packers and Cowboys, had just finished my steak, and was well into my second beer (I saved you a seat, T) when Sonja came over to tell me something. She didn't feel very well then, but an hour later she was throwing up in the dish room trashcan. Time for her to go home.
The walk in compressor had failed the weekend before after struggling along the past couple of weeks, and had just been fixed Friday afternoon. Knowing my luck (and used compressors of dubious origins) I opted not to prep up for the weekend, which would have filled the walk in. In the event that the compressor failed over night I didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of food with no place store it. So, short a cook with a ton of prep to do first thing.
From there it went down hill.
Something went horribly awry with the batch of dough that I started first thing in the morning. Ok, I went horribly awry. Like a dumb ass I forgot to add the second of the two gallons of water that make up a batch of dough. I cranked the bowl up into position, set the timer, hit the start button, and wandered off to do something else for the fifteen minutes the dough would be mixing. About seven minutes in Danny walked by and asked, "What the hell did you do to the dough?"
Nothing, I thought. Did I?
Checking, I saw that yes, I had screwed the pooch. The dough wasn't dough at all, it was a mess of still-dry flour with randomly sized chunks of something almost dough-like spread throughout. This is never recoverable, for the flour particles which did get bathed were saturated and adding the second gallon of water would only result in a very loose batter with thousands of small clumps.
So, of course, that is what I did. Then I added more flour so that I get the paste out of the mixing bowl more easily. And paste is a very accurate description of what I pulled out of the bowl in handfulls. Fifty pounds of paste. This I put in a tub and left on the floor in the back kitchen, where it has given us hours...ok, minutes of entertainment since as it has risen, threatening to consume passersby, until punched, kicked, or stabbed to collapse and start over.
The rest of the day went about the same, as did the next. No matter what I did, it was wrong. I added an extra cup of water to my cupcake batter, which actually turned out to be a good thing, and whatever I prepped, it seemed to be at the wrong time. Since a lot of stuff was still spread throughout the various small coolers where it had been shoved when the walk in died, it was impossible to easily tell what was over, under, or just plain stocked. I thought I should do cheese, but we're running out of sausage; I started chopping bells, only to hear Danny yelling for ricotta.
Add to this chaos a ton of Mexican tourists, Saturday being a holiday commemorating one of their more popular revolutions, the usual dining-in-public-challenged crowds of our neighbors to the east, a handful of locals with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and the young lady who seems only to want me on the back burner just in case someone better fails to come along, and it makes for a very miserable day at work.
Yesterday was pretty much the same. All of it.
After work I went home, fed the dogs, made myself three grilled cheese sandwiches, parked the Boston Lager next to the couch, and settled in to watch Donatella Arpaia judge on Iron Chef and Next Iron Chef. Not a bad night.
Friday is sorta kinda an almost day off for me. I was happily sitting at The Quarters, alternating between reading my book and watching a fifteen year old game between the Packers and Cowboys, had just finished my steak, and was well into my second beer (I saved you a seat, T) when Sonja came over to tell me something. She didn't feel very well then, but an hour later she was throwing up in the dish room trashcan. Time for her to go home.
The walk in compressor had failed the weekend before after struggling along the past couple of weeks, and had just been fixed Friday afternoon. Knowing my luck (and used compressors of dubious origins) I opted not to prep up for the weekend, which would have filled the walk in. In the event that the compressor failed over night I didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of food with no place store it. So, short a cook with a ton of prep to do first thing.
From there it went down hill.
Something went horribly awry with the batch of dough that I started first thing in the morning. Ok, I went horribly awry. Like a dumb ass I forgot to add the second of the two gallons of water that make up a batch of dough. I cranked the bowl up into position, set the timer, hit the start button, and wandered off to do something else for the fifteen minutes the dough would be mixing. About seven minutes in Danny walked by and asked, "What the hell did you do to the dough?"
Nothing, I thought. Did I?
Checking, I saw that yes, I had screwed the pooch. The dough wasn't dough at all, it was a mess of still-dry flour with randomly sized chunks of something almost dough-like spread throughout. This is never recoverable, for the flour particles which did get bathed were saturated and adding the second gallon of water would only result in a very loose batter with thousands of small clumps.
So, of course, that is what I did. Then I added more flour so that I get the paste out of the mixing bowl more easily. And paste is a very accurate description of what I pulled out of the bowl in handfulls. Fifty pounds of paste. This I put in a tub and left on the floor in the back kitchen, where it has given us hours...ok, minutes of entertainment since as it has risen, threatening to consume passersby, until punched, kicked, or stabbed to collapse and start over.
The rest of the day went about the same, as did the next. No matter what I did, it was wrong. I added an extra cup of water to my cupcake batter, which actually turned out to be a good thing, and whatever I prepped, it seemed to be at the wrong time. Since a lot of stuff was still spread throughout the various small coolers where it had been shoved when the walk in died, it was impossible to easily tell what was over, under, or just plain stocked. I thought I should do cheese, but we're running out of sausage; I started chopping bells, only to hear Danny yelling for ricotta.
Add to this chaos a ton of Mexican tourists, Saturday being a holiday commemorating one of their more popular revolutions, the usual dining-in-public-challenged crowds of our neighbors to the east, a handful of locals with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and the young lady who seems only to want me on the back burner just in case someone better fails to come along, and it makes for a very miserable day at work.
Yesterday was pretty much the same. All of it.
After work I went home, fed the dogs, made myself three grilled cheese sandwiches, parked the Boston Lager next to the couch, and settled in to watch Donatella Arpaia judge on Iron Chef and Next Iron Chef. Not a bad night.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween '09
Crew
Family
Comparing receding hair lines
Danny and Josh practicing the zombie dance
Jared and Em
Jared wins the receding hair line contest
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The snow is falling, but not yet sticking, as I walk the two doors over to The Quarters, our neighborhood bar, for lunch. Long ago the place was a bowling alley, but only the oldest of old timers remember that day, the place has been a bar for as long as most can remember, Nottingham's Pub, The Winner's Circle, then The Quarters.
When I came here as a 29 year old copper it was The Winner's Circle, and it was good for a fight almost every weekend, the bouncers adept at stomping people with their steel-toed boots. I never had to shoot anyone during my cop years, but I came really, really close one night on the front step of the Winner's Circle.
Though it can still get a little rough from time to time, The Quarters is a lot calmer these days. The place shows its age though, the roof leaks, like mine, and, like mine, once it's patched the water finds another way in, so the ceiling is painted black to cover the years of water and tobacco stains. An old frosted glass window, partially hidden by the addition of a foyer years ago, still proclaims the place as being Nottingham's Pub. For some reason it also depicts an arrow passing through an apple.
Today as I walk in the place is nearly empty except for the usual bunch of midday regulars in their usual places, most of them close to the large fire in the deep, stone fireplace...Greg the night shift convenience store clerk, a couple of construction guys who seem to use the bar as an office, an old man, bent like a question mark, stares at something a thousand yards past the rows of bottles lined up across the bar from him. Irish Tom has loaded the juke box with the likes of The Pogues, The Dubliners, and The Wolftones and a Republican protest number is playing as I settle at the far end of the bar and order a draft amber and the roast beef sandwich. I open my book and begin reading, wishing I was closer to the fire, the copper-clad bar glows with a warmth it does not possess, but the beer is good and the sandwich, an open-faced mess of beef, thick brown gravy, mash, and Texas toast is hearty and hot, perfect for this winter's day in the middle of autumn.
When I came here as a 29 year old copper it was The Winner's Circle, and it was good for a fight almost every weekend, the bouncers adept at stomping people with their steel-toed boots. I never had to shoot anyone during my cop years, but I came really, really close one night on the front step of the Winner's Circle.
Though it can still get a little rough from time to time, The Quarters is a lot calmer these days. The place shows its age though, the roof leaks, like mine, and, like mine, once it's patched the water finds another way in, so the ceiling is painted black to cover the years of water and tobacco stains. An old frosted glass window, partially hidden by the addition of a foyer years ago, still proclaims the place as being Nottingham's Pub. For some reason it also depicts an arrow passing through an apple.
Today as I walk in the place is nearly empty except for the usual bunch of midday regulars in their usual places, most of them close to the large fire in the deep, stone fireplace...Greg the night shift convenience store clerk, a couple of construction guys who seem to use the bar as an office, an old man, bent like a question mark, stares at something a thousand yards past the rows of bottles lined up across the bar from him. Irish Tom has loaded the juke box with the likes of The Pogues, The Dubliners, and The Wolftones and a Republican protest number is playing as I settle at the far end of the bar and order a draft amber and the roast beef sandwich. I open my book and begin reading, wishing I was closer to the fire, the copper-clad bar glows with a warmth it does not possess, but the beer is good and the sandwich, an open-faced mess of beef, thick brown gravy, mash, and Texas toast is hearty and hot, perfect for this winter's day in the middle of autumn.
Where did summer go?
Summer, with its warm days, thunder storms, beautiful nights, and, yes, the constant flow of commerce?
It is gone, and with its passing I note that the summer of my life is over as well. I am entering autumn, and, if I may milk this silly cliche for just a little while longer, sooner than I expect, or wish, I will find myself in the winter of my life.
And already, before I even noticed their bright golden flash, the aspens have gone to brown, their leaves mostly gone in the wind, and the rain falls in those peculiar splats of slush.
Where did autumn go?
Summer, with its warm days, thunder storms, beautiful nights, and, yes, the constant flow of commerce?
It is gone, and with its passing I note that the summer of my life is over as well. I am entering autumn, and, if I may milk this silly cliche for just a little while longer, sooner than I expect, or wish, I will find myself in the winter of my life.
And already, before I even noticed their bright golden flash, the aspens have gone to brown, their leaves mostly gone in the wind, and the rain falls in those peculiar splats of slush.
Where did autumn go?
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