The Kitchen Shovel
Amid the din of the barking expeditor, the rat-tat-tat of the relentlessly spewing ticket machine, and the dizzying chatter of the all-Latino cook’s line, I didn’t have time to ask anyone why there was a big concrete shovel tucked away in a small nook behind the convection oven. As a somewhat intimidated and relatively new line cook, I just did as I was told. I made hundreds and hundreds of nacho plates; they were dripping with chili, or pulled pork, or a soggy vegetable medley composed of “kitchen sink” ingredients. On go the sliced jalapenos & waxy black olives, the chopped scallions, and then the shredded cheese. In the oven, out of the oven, slap on the sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and shredded iceberg lettuce, shove the plate in the pick-up window, and then some half-in-the-bag reveler just outside those swinging kitchen doors was about to add to an already overly full stomach after previously scarfing down ball park franks and overpriced draft swill.
Looking back, perhaps that shovel should have been my first clue; a clue as to what? Maybe running away as fast as I could?
After the rush, after dunking kitchen towels in ice water, and putting them around our necks to fight off the extreme heat, it was time to clean. Luis, the gregarious, loud-mouth from El Salvador said to me, “Kate, consigue esa pala!!” (Get that shovel.).
It had been so busy, such a flurry of hours rushing by, an overload of adrenaline, all fueled by swearing, bellowing, clanging pots & pans, and the searing heat, that I never even noticed the extent of the mess at of our feet.
Discarded plastic portion bags, crumpled paper towels, pieces of tortellini, chicken fingers, smushed portion cups of any number of side sauces, roasted red peppers, band-aids, latex gloves, French fry bags, French fries, clam fry, egg shells, a steak tip or ten, plastic cups that held barely drinkable cooking wine, ripped printer dupes, and the biggest pile? It lay at my feet: crushed nacho chips, shredded cheese, salsa, at least one Costco-sized can worth of black olives, and a small garden plot of scallions and iceberg lettuce. Oh, I had my share of plastic cups, heartlessly ripped open portion bags, and paper towels. But the food waste that I was standing in was breathtaking. Luis said, “Kate, no te precoupes!” (Don’t worry!).
Sure, Luis . . .
Luis told me that all the cooks were going to pick up the kitchen mats, shake them out, and take them to the dish pit. He then said, “Ahora pala!” (Now we shovel!). And we did. After knocking off the food that was caked into the quarter-sized holes in the mats and giving them to the hapless, overworked dishwasher, who was already buried in dirty plates, bowls, and silverware, we shoveled. We shoveled enough crap off the line floor to fill half a dozen trash bags as full as could be. Down the stairs I went with Luis, my new brother-in-gluttony; we were like trash Santas with bags of pure, unabashed food waste slung over our shoulders.
When Luis and I returned to the line, it was as though nothing had happened at all. The floor was spotless, the stations were wiped down and reset. The din had settled, the ticket machine was quiet, and the scorching heat had turned to cooler late summer night air. Luis said to me, “Por favor, vuelva a poner la pala.” (Please put the shovel back.).
The wanton and careless wastefulness of my surroundings in that first “big” line cook job is jarring to think about now. With the restaurant being situated in the heart of a popular downtown area, mere feet from a beloved sports stadium, the public had fallen in love with the food, beer, ease of access, and late-night hours. This fueled a seemingly obsessive focus by ownership on nothing but making money; and lots of it.
*This turned into penny pinching and an equally obsessive approach to counting shit out down to the last bay leaf and butter pat. Prep the food, make the food, drop the food with devil-may-care abandon, shovel it up OFF THE FLOOR, and throw it away. Two ballsy trash Santa’s; Luis and I probably should have invested in 33 gallon garbage bags, for the amount of cases of them that we ripped through every week. But there was a certain rush, a high even, of being so busy that we didn’t care. The money was good, we ate for free, and the kitchen wine truly didn’t taste so bad when you mixed it with Sprite and citrus wedges.
That carefree disregard was pretty short-lived, though. Both Luis and I were relatively sure that “it just shouldn’t be like this.”. We moved on to other kitchens, stayed in touch off and on, and eventually lost all contact with each other. But, I know our takeaway was that our experience was full of exercises in what not to do. I mean, WTF, shovels are for snow, or dirt, or even concrete. Not for scraping up food off the floor after a busy Friday rush. But hey, at least I’ll be able to take with me to the grave, the fact that there are 1174 bay leaves in a 12oz jug and 720 butter pats in a case!
#endkitchenfoodwaste