You don't make friends with salad

Tonight I made a Niçoise salad for everyone which I thought would be a lovely summer meal but was greeted with great scorn by my fellow staff. I'm realizing that a huge factor which makes a difference between working as a line cook and working in this environment is that people are generally picky eaters within specific parameters and I've just never realized this due to the difference in work environments. In a restaurant people look over your menu - often consisting of anywhere from 6-50 items - and select the thing which suits their tastes best that day and then subsequently enjoy that item greatly assuming you've prepared it properly. Picky eaters are always sure to find at least one thing which fits the tastes of their palate and - if you're skilled - you can please them every time. However, the difference here is that I'm not working from a menu; I'm selecting one dish to prepare in bulk quantities to serve to everyone that day. While some people love Niçoise salad apparently not everyone does. I'm either going to have to become a superhero and come up with a menu that pleases everyone every day or I will have to resign myself to the fact that a significant portion of people will leave every meal complaining of something which didn't suit their culinary tastes. The realization that I cannot possibly please everyone at every meal no matter how hard I try is disheartening and something I didn't fully consider! There's nothing I can do though, so I suppose I will move on to brighter matters.


On another note, here's a picture of all of us staff from the weekend event! As I haven't asked their permission to publish their names (I doubt anyone would mind, but let's play it safe) you can just enjoy their smiling faces for now.

Ship out date for going out west is June 16th and I'm counting down the days! I miss you all!

Week 1

Wow, being unemployed for so long caused me to forget just how tiring working a full-time job can be! I've just wrapped up my first week of training and things are going quite well! I won't divulge too much information about the job or my coworkers for privacy's sake, but I will say that things are going as well as I hoped they would. We're steadily getting ready to ship ourselves out west and I'm beginning to understand the ins and outs of the job itself. In brief, our training days consist of organizational meetings, shop-work (such as truck outfitting and equipment inventory) and - my favourite part - menu demos for dinner. Since I've arrived I've cooked dinner every night except our first night in order to test out menu ideas for the tours once they begin. On that subject, I have composed a tentative list of meals to cook on the road which can be repeated for each tour:

1. Tofu with tomato and coconut curry served on rice (vegan)
2. Linguine prima vera with chicken or plain (optional vegan)
3. Potato soup with ham or plain (optional vegetarian)
4. Penne caprese with chicken or plain (optional vegan)
5. Shrimp jambalaya
   
6. Salad niciose
7. Mexican rice (Vegan)
   
8. Asian noodle salad
9. Fettuccine Alfredo with bacon and shrimp or plain (optional vegetarian)
10. Burritos (optional vegan)
11. Cream of mushroom soup with tomato and cheese sandwiches (vegetarian)
12. Perogies (vegetarian)
13. Macaroni and Cheese (vegetarian)
14. Chili con carne
15. Spaghetti bolognese or alla arrabiata (optional vegetarian)
16. *Special occasion* Fettuccine with salmon and mushrooms in a brandy cream sauce
17. *Special occasion* Whitefish (whatever's available) encrusted with yams served with sautéed green beans and dill sauce
    

Obviously one of the major things to note is that my menu is limited by various dietary restrictions. I'm not sure exactly what kind of dietary restrictions my tour will be dealing with but it's a safe bet that at least several of them will be vegetarian and possibly there will be a celiac, vegan or lactose intolerant as well. This choice of meals should be fairly accommodating to such dietary restrictions! Also, another huge limitation is my lack of an oven. All my work must be done on a stove top alone. Finally, the most interesting element for menu restriction is the availability of ingredients. Most of this food must be cooked from canned or bought instead that day from the grocery store. Relying on grocery stores all across Canada to be consistently stocked on whatever ingredients we'll need for that day is a difficult task to say the least.

Working in a yard is not one of my strong points. I'm really waiting for our ship out date to come! My prescription aviators came in yesterday though so at least working outside will get a lot easier really soon.

Goodbye Dryden, hello Orangeville!

Yesterday I travelled the great gap between Dryden and Orangeville to arrive safely at my mom's house where I will be commuting to my job's training in Alliston from. It was sad to say goodbye to my Northern family as (being so remote) I will only get to see them once in a while from now on. I enjoyed my stay despite the fact that the weather was regularly between 0 and 10 degrees and was raining constantly since my arrival! We did manage to finish off that huge bottle of rum (with surprising ease I might add) before I boarded my plane in Thunder Bay to head down to spend time with my Southern family.

Who knew that 3 weeks in Dryden could ever turn a man quite this Canadian?

My good friend Megan (whom you may remember from our Montreal shenanigans) was there to pick me up from the airport because a) she's awesome and b) I left half of my stuff in her car due to poor planning! However, we made a good night of my arrival by going for a bit of a hike first and then heading to Orangeville for some lawn camping at my mom's house in the country. Sidenote: The highlight of the hike was Megan who upon arriving at a trail-sign, fence and a ladder which goes over the fence asks "Oh my God, what do we do!" not realizing that the ladder was for climbing.

Megan is very excited to be doing something as lame as backyard camping. Good for her!

We got to try out my new tent for the first time and all seems well! I love this little thing! However, there was only 1 air mattress and 1 sleeping bag, so I didn't get the greatest night's sleep seeing as how I was using a blanket on the floor of the tent in the cold!

However, there was beer enough for each of us, so I'm not going to complain too much.



This is my mom's fire pit which we spent the night sitting around. We trashed and torched an old dresser and it threw off quite the amount of heat! I actually have a bit of a UV burn on the front of my legs from wearing shorts that night.

Tonight I actually got to spend time with my mom and Bryan even though I arrived early yesterday! I made a simple dinner and then they toddled off to bed early. This week I'm quite busy even though I'm counting down the days until I start working! I'm visiting with Sam Bull and Rebecca Hayden (Kayla and Karen's Orangeville-residing sister) in the next couple of days, then I'm heading to Guelph to visit with Karen and Dana later in the week and then on the weekend I start my first day of training on Saturday morning. Pop in to this site next week and see what my first few days of training turn out like!

Site update and new e-mail address

Okay, so this should look a lot more readable now. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking with the black background.

Also, I have a new e-mail address! Since my university career has come to a close I am no longer able to count on having a university e-mail address! You can all reach me at kevin.a.bruner @ gmail.com (no spaces). Feel free to e-mail about anything as I'm not doing a whole lot in my spare time these days.

My Dad the Artist

I've been waking up early and cooking breakfast and dinner here every day in an attempt to get into a better routine for when I start work. One morning I awoke to find a "chalkboard menu" which was created by my dad. Nice start to my day and it makes me feel just that much more professional!

Martha, quick!! Get my chequebook!!

I cannot make stuff like this up. I found this on one of my walks on a country road which is only accessible to about 20 houses. It's made of rain-weathered particle board and leans on a good 45 degree angle. I love Dryden!

And so it begins...

Starting today I am getting up at 5:30am (central time) every day to acclimate myself to my eventual working conditions when the tour starts. For those of you familiar with my normal sleep schedule while in school or while working nights at restaurants you know that 5:30am was only a little bit after my usual bed time!

Today I woke up and the sun wasn't up yet and the puppies were still (amazingly) asleep. I didn't even know those dogs slept at all until this morning! I'm not feeling overly tired nor do I feel like punching sweet, innocent infants just yet but I fear that this is just a day 1 fluke. I fully expect that when the alarm goes off tomorrow that it will be an entirely different story and that this will be one hell of a difficult transition to make part of my day to day life.

For now I'm going to put on some coffee and make some eggs Jeanette for the family and send them off to work. I am then going to fight the overwhelming urge to go back to delicious, delicious sleep. Then later on tonight it's off to bed at 9:00pm. Last night I stared at the ceiling until 2am after getting in bed at 9! I must make good habits now as I can't afford to adjust while on the road.

Wish me luck everyone!