Pleasing him was her greatest pleasure she told him before they went to sleep. She knew exactly what he liked and exactly how he liked it, so this was precisely what she did. She also knew how to please herself while pleasing him and she made sure that happened.
Afterward, she got up to get a towel and washcloth. She was wiping herself as she came into the bedroom, then went on to wash and wipe him.
“Good?” she asked.
“You bet.”
“I’m glad. I love you and I know you’re working really hard for us.”
“I am,” he said.
“I know it was never what you’d planned, even ever thought of.”
“That’s for shit sure,” he said.
He thought. The notion of being a cook, a chef, any kind of kitchen or restaurant worker, had never been in his frame of reference, not until the moment Robert whisked him away and into Suburban.
Ain’t it funny how the night moves?
He wondered now, now that she brought it up and he was thinking about it, if he ever would have fooled around if he’d never been in kitchens. The messing around had started almost instantaneously and it wasn’t started by him. How many times? How many times could you be tempted and say no? If you were tempted day after day, over and over, how long was it until you finally gave in? It was that same lesson he learned from his high school football days. Perseverance won out in the end. Bea, Alfreda, Marie—it was only a matter of time.
And now, in a hotel, a whole new set of women were on him. He’d hoped to stop fooling around once he actually got married. That hadn’t worked out too well so far. Arlene had made it nearly impossible. Then the move up to Cleveland was at least promising. There was the move and the interim when he wasn’t working. But then the hotel job was it. Not even a full calendar week yet and… Millie, Beverly and Rosie. Edelgarde was just waiting in the wings.
Done washing him and with everything she was doing out of bed, his wife switched off the light and slid back in under the covers. As she sidled up to him and settled herself against him he never felt more like a dirty dog. He was a dirty dog and that was that. For a moment, a very brief moment, he felt like blurting everything out, just throwing all caution to the wind and telling her all about his life as a cook. He thought maybe she would understand, maybe she would forgive him and let it slide. He thought maybe, when all was said and done they might be able to put his infidelity behind them and even as the newlyweds they were be able to start fresh, start all over, start anew.
It wasn’t a panic attack that stopped him from doing so. Nope. Quite to the contrary, it was a logic attack and a moment of clarity that stopped him, that brought him to his senses. You crazy? He asked himself this. You out of your mind? He was laying on his back. She was next to him. He had his arm around her and was softly stroking her on her arm. Yes, he thought. You are crazy. You are out of your mind. You really are out of your mind.
But he wasn’t out of his mind for wanting to come clean and wanting to get honest. No. Not at all. He was out of his mind for doing what he was doing and having done what he’d done. That was the truth as he saw it. That was the real deal as he lay there next to the one who continually professed her love for him and the one he said he loved.
But then one of those crazy thoughts came over him and he found himself asking himself if he really loved her. Do I? Do you? How do you know you do? What do you know about love? What you know about anything?
Well, he thought, what do you know?
By Peter Weiss
He made love to them through her, or mostly. Or maybe. Or not exactly. Or it all got convoluted and mixed up. The initial desire, which was almost always there at his age was from them. That was all he thought about while he showered, that was the image in his mind. It was a good image, a fun image, a picture he could reinforce with what he’d actually seen of them in real life. Dog that he was, he knew what Rosie felt like inside and out. That was a whole other matter and a good one too.
He took his beer in the shower with him, kept it on the edge of the bathtub and away from the water spray. He drank from the bottle, put it back down. He washed himself meticulously, thoroughly, two complete times, and then little by little he turned the water hotter and hotter and stood in it, languished in it. He stayed in the water until he finished his beer and then he shut the water and stepped out of the tub.
After he’d dried himself, Bill brushed and flossed his teeth. He stood naked looking at his teeth in the mirror. When he was satisfied, he grabbed up his beer bottle and returned it to the kitchen.
He was already roused when he slid in under the covers in his spot. Lots of times when he slid in next to her he was desirous of her, but usually he did not disturb her in her sleep. Tonight he was undecided about what he was going to do. He had a need and he and he wanted to satisfy it. Tomorrow was Sunday. She could sleep in if she wanted. He lay in the dark next to her, quiet, still.
Most nights when he slid into bed she knew he was there. She would move close to him, press herself against him not in a sexual way but in an intimate way. Without words, in her action she was saying she wanted to be close. He usually responded in kind, moved to her, fixed it so that he was holding her or spooning her. Sometimes she turned on her side before moving up to him, let him know she wanted to be spooned. That’s what she did this night. She turned on her side and pressed up against him so that he turned on his side and met her.
It was easy then because she could feel his desire pushing against her. He knew this because she shifted, adjusted herself to settle him in a more intimate spot. She uttered a soft “Mmm.”
“Mmm is right,” he said. He pressed her harder and found she responded in kind.
“You awake?” he asked. As he asked, he reached under the blanket and gently spread her legs.
“Depends,” she said. She helped him by moving freely with his hand.
“On what?”
“On whether it’s worth my while.”
He leaned in and kissed her on the neck in just the place she loved it, that place that drove her crazy. “That give you an idea?”
“Oh, I got the idea,” she said. She turned to face him and then they both lay on their sides facing each other. “Tired?” she asked.
He said, “Yeah. First time since I started this job.”
“Poor boy,” she said. “Maybe I ought to do the work.”
“Maybe you ought to,” he said.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “Tell me what work you want me to do.”
For him, for Bill Wynn, for who he was, this was a hard thing to do. He was raised and taught to not put himself first, to put others first and make sure they were taken care of. So he had to bite the bullet in a sense. He had to fight the instinct to tell her to tell him what she wanted and to go on and please himself.
And this he did.
By Peter Weiss
I was listening to classic rock, which is one of my favorite things to listen to, and some Bruce Springsteen came on. Springsteen, whose music I like, was one of the first musicians to come out with political positions a long, long time ago. What he said back then was enough to make me not want to listen to his music anymore. And I haven’t. When he came on, I remembered that right away and I turned to a different station.
It’s okay to have political positions. It’s okay to have political positions I don’t agree with. It’s okay for us to disagree and we can still be friends. We can discuss and converse. We can exchange ideas and learn from each other.
But it’s not okay for people like Springsteen and more recently like Taylor Swift (who I think is somewhat talented) to be making proclamations to us from their elevated positions. What they do is speak in platitudes. For example, the people of Hollywood and the entertainment industry tell us medical care should be free for everyone and they endorse the Medicare for everyone position.
The point is: there’s nothing wrong with that position. It’s a position. You can agree with it or not, as you wish, no big deal either way. But you shouldn’t be endorsing a position you, yourself, will never adhere to. Springsteen and all those high-rollers, the moment they get sick they are off to their high-cost private doctors and clinics, paying for it in cash no matter what the cost because whatever the cost is, it’s a drop in the bucket to them.
And so it goes.
The most classic examples are Al Gore and the Hollywood special people like DiCaprio who fly around in their private planes imploring us to adhere to their climate policies. You know who these people are. We all know who they are.
Same thing for the abortion issue. Everyone of those powerful-position females like Madonna if they ever wanted an abortion aren’t going to Planned Parenthood. They talk to us in platitudes knowing full well that their money affords them opportunity to do as they please regardless of what the laws are.
Netflix now has available George Carlin’s last HBO special. He’d just turned seventy. In that special he proclaims loud and clear that it’s all BS. You know what? Most of what we hear from our leaders and those we set up as role models is pure BS. Like Bernie who actually knows what he’s saying, they speak in platitudes making proclamations they have no personal intentions of ever having to follow or live by. It is all BS and they are full of it.
So don’t get any on you.
By Peter Weiss
So forget our government. As regards information, these days, take what you need and leave the rest. Regarding all the rest, they’re full of it, and you just choose what “it” smells best to you.
In a nutshell, that’s it.
As far as the media goes, you know, Pravda USA, they’re so far off the mark that they can’t even see the mark anymore. It’s all about agendas, personal agendas.
So there’s a good line in the movie Shooter spoken by Ned Beatty. He says “There are no sides, son, there’s only haves and have-nots.”
Overall, clear as day, and make no mistake about it, that is what drives the agendas. Envision it any way you choose. We are the zombies, they are the people. We are in the districts, they are in the gated city. We are the cows in the pasture who have to produce the milk. They own the farm and drink the champagne they buy with the money made from selling the milk that we must produce for them.
And so it goes.
No. I’m not really bitter. I have my feelings and my resentments. I have my experiences and the effects of them, and I have what was superimposed upon me by my parents and those people who have had any influence in my life. It is what it is.
If anything, especially now, I’m thankful. I woke up this morning. My family has its medical issues but we are mostly okay. I’m thankful I worked all my life and while we are not rich, we are okay. I’m thankful I have a job and I’m set up to work from home and can do so for this period of time, whatever it will be. I’m thankful that my parents taught me to work hard, to rely upon myself, to not be wasteful and to save for the future. Especially in times like now, I’m glad I didn’t spend my money on two hundred dollar sneakers or brand-new cars that I couldn’t afford the payments for. I’m glad that I bought what I could afford, saved my money and am prepared for a rainy day. Today might be that rainy day in this environment. I don’t think so, but it just might be, and that’s the whole point of not living beyond your means or being dependent upon others.
I’m grateful for so much more too. I wrote about that in the little piece on gratitude. I’m most glad I’m in America, and this even though our government is FOS. It is FOS, no question about it. But still and all, America is the best place to be, at least as as I see it.
Right now, and at least for now, everything is quiet in my house. Last night when I wrote some of this, one dog was downstairs watching TV with my wife. One was in bed with my daughter. They were both sleeping peacefully.
Thank God for the little things. I thought that then and still think it now.
That’s about it altogether. The only thing I implore everyone to do is to look clearly and closely at everything. Believe nothing the government and Pravda USA say until you verify it for yourself. Follow the Golden Rule and remember man is by nature selfish and greedy. Try not to be one of the greedy and selfish. Fight that instinct. Being able to understand our instincts and to temper them is what it means to be human.
By Peter Weiss
It was after one when Bill clocked out. He was tired and he felt funky. He’d spent a long day in the kitchen and he’d performed a lot of tasks. He’d sautéed chicken and he’d handled fish, two things that were a big part of the funk he was feeling. He wanted nothing more than to get home and take a long shower.
And this is precisely what he intended to do as he stepped out of the employee entrance and onto the loading dock area. Out there he discovered a crisp Fall night in Cleveland. The air, fresh air which he hadn’t felt since the morning, was titillating. He breathed it in, breathed it out, saw his steamy exhalation in the night. He also saw Rosie’s car parked, like the other night, beside his. Smoke was coming out of her exhaust pipe, gray into the black night, and her two red tail lights shone.
“Hey baby,” Rosie said. “Going our way?”
Bill stopped by her car and leaned in her open window. Edelgarde was sitting next to Rosie over in the passenger seat. He could see they were both wearing miniskirts and were both sitting so that he could easily see their legs.
“I was planning to go home and shower,” he said.
“So were we,” Edelgarde said.
Bill smiled at them.
“We could all shower together,” Rosie said.
“That would be nice,” Bill said. “But it’s late and I have to be in in the morning. How about a rain check?”
“Well, we were hoping,” Edelgarde said. “Be fun, you know?
“I can imagine,” Bill said. “I’d like to, really. But really, it’s late.”
“Up to you,” Rosie said. “Eddie and me just have to shower without you.”
“Won’t be the same,” Edelgarde said.
“No way to convince you?” Rosie asked. She shifted in her seat. Bill looked. How could he not? She was attractive. Adorable. Enticing. And Edelgarde, she pouted her lips and looked at Bill with those puppy dog eyes.
“Goddammit,” he said.
“Goddamn what? Rosie said.
“You know what.”
“Yeah,” Rosie said. “We do know what, and we know what we want too.”
“Yup,” Bill said. “I think you do.”
“Well, be your loss, you know.”
So it was one of those existential decision times, one of those times when Bill knew what he should do and he knew what he wanted to do, this despite how tired he was and how funky he felt. It was one of those “F-it” moments. And that’s what he said to himself. He said “F-it” and he smiled at them both.
“You know,” he said, I love you and I’d really like to go with you. But it’s late and I’m tired. I smell like sautéed chicken and rolled filet of sole. So if it’s okay with you, we can surely do this another time. It’ll be something to look forward to.”
“Sure,” Rosie said. “We can definitely do it another time. That’s a promise. So you have a good night, hon.”
“You too,” Bill said. He tapped twice on Rose’s window, turned and went to his own car.
He did not feel righteous, just or virtuous. On one level he felt stupid. He wanted to go with them. At that moment he wanted to be single and free. But that wasn’t happening. So feeling stupid and feeling funky he drove home.
His wife, as per usual, was asleep. First thing he did was check in on her. Then he went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. On his way to the bathroom he peeked into the bedroom again. She hadn’t stirred and he hadn’t expected that she would. He stayed quiet but walked to where she slept. He gently lifted the cover to find she was naked, how he and she usually slept. He studied her for a moment, what he could see of her as she lay on her stomach.
“Hi hon,” she said.
“Hey baby.”
“Come to bed.”
“Soon as I grab a shower. I smell from kitchen.”
“See you soon,” his wife said.
By Peter Weiss
The fish was dished up last. It went in and was cooking while everything else was coming out. The stewards were in place working with their cook to arrange the dish-up station how the cook wanted it. Bill’s stewards, two of them, who now worked with him whenever he was working, knew Bill was a lefty. They set the station accordingly.
And so the banquets went.
Saturday night came and went too. The rush started early and ended late. Everyone worked hard, mostly non-stop until almost closing. Jo Ann stayed all the way to the end. She told Bill that Caesar was thinking of making them all work the same hours. She wasn’t crazy about the idea, but if the business level stayed as it was, it was worth it. She ate first, at 11:30. Bill offered her a choice of the rolled filet of sole or chicken breast. Joanne chose the fish.
Rosie and Edelgarde ate after Jo Ann. They both ate the fish too. They were famished, at least that’s what Rosie said. She said they’d really worked hard and she was sure they were making a lot of money. A lot of money for them on a night like this could be two or even three times what a cook’s salary was.
“Drinks on me,” Rosie said.
For the first time since he’d started this job, not even a full calendar week yet, Bill was tired. He could feel it in his bones. First thing he did when the board was empty and all the orders were out was run to the restroom. He did not dilly-dally. He did his business and went right back to the room. Katrina had espressos ready and handed them to him.
“Look after my nephew,” she said.
Bill looked at her. Her words surprised him, caught him off guard. Instinctively he said, “I’ll do my best to keep him out of trouble.”
“You good boy,” Kalista said. “My other Jimmy take care of you.”
So there it was. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. And it was okay. It pretty much assured Bill that he would fare well there and that Caesar would not be able to hurt him in any way. For all their notions of machismo, for all that male supremacy stuff, Kalista ran the family. She was the matriarch, the boss, and what she said went.
Jimmy G was sitting down resting. Bill handed him his espresso and stood by him to drink his own. It was almost midnight already and getting toward the end of a very long day.
“We’ll start to clean up in a few” Jimmy G said.
“My dogs are killing me,” Bill said.
“Ya,” Jim G said. “When we’re both ready. And then one trip, no more.”
“Good deal,” Bill said.
Jimmy G sat. Bill ended up doing something he rarely did which was sitting up on his counter opposite the Garland. He just about never did anything like this, but no more orders were coming in and no customers could see him where he was.
They rested a bit, and then, because they had to, they finally got up and started the last phase of the day’s work.
They worked slowly, meticulously, purposefully. Assured that the room was closed and no new orders would be coming in at all, first thing they shut down the stoves, the Garland, and the steam table. They left the warmer lights on, but that was just because those were the last things that were ever turned off. They wrapped everything that was staying here in this kitchen and put it away. Then they wrapped everything that was going back to the main kitchen. Jimmy retrieved their cart and they set everything on it.
Just before they headed out of this kitchen and back to the main kitchen, Bill asked Rosie to send Caesar over.
“We’re done,” he said to Caesar when Caesar was there. “We’re heading back to the main kitchen.”
Caesar did not say anything. Both Bill and Jimmy said good night to the waitresses and headed out.
By Peter Weiss
No rest for the wicked. They worked. It was not particularly hard work, but it was steady work and it went straight through.
Dish-up for the afternoon parties was a little after two. This was the time that Bill and Jimmy G would be setting up for their room for the dinner service. But that wasn’t happening as per the usual. Jimmy G was instructed to set up on his own until Bill finished with the banquets, and so he went off, away from what was happening in the main kitchen. He’d done this set up alone many times, so in fact it was no big deal. It was just more work.
As was the norm, the closer it got to dish-up the more the pace picked up and the more active the main kitchen became. Stewards began rolling in the warmer trucks. They set the trucks in place and plugged them in so they were ready to be turned on and heated up.
The cooks, the stewards and the pantry women were now all in place in the main kitchen and all getting ready to begin putting their part of the whole meal together. Vegetables were in the rotary oven getting hot. Potatoes were finishing. The prime ribs were coming out. The chicken was finishing up and the rolled filet of sole was just going into the oven to bake. It would cook while everything else was being plated, and when all the other meals were set, that fish would be ready and ready to be served.
Jimmy Banquet Chef was like a symphony conductor now. For a moment he stepped back and watched. He stepped back and directed. Everyone knew what they had to do and they knew how to do it. The pantry women knew exactly how much salad had to go on the plates and exactly how much dressing to toss it in, if it were being tossed. Many times the salad went out naked and the dressings were on the tables. Jimmy Banquet Chef watched everything, directed everything, supervised everything.
Into all of this as it got close to service time came the wait staff. The captains spoke with Jimmy Banquet Chef and the waiters and waitresses stayed off to the side while they waited to go where they were being assigned. Where they were assigned, which banquet, didn’t matter. All tips were built into the banquet charge. Banquet waiters and waitresses only made their hourly wage which was a different fee structure than for restaurant wait staff. Any tips that came over and above what was built in were divvied up. Generally tips depended upon how good the captains were with the customers paying for the banquet.
Beverly was there. Bill saw her as soon as she walked into the kitchen. She looked sharp in her tuxedo. She always looked sharp. To her credit, she completely stayed away from Bill, didn’t acknowledge him at all. Bill was thankful for this and did the same. He looked her over as he would any cute female in the kitchen and then he focused his sights on the next one.
There were only two others. One was older, kind of like Jo Ann in her looks. Like Jo Ann, she was only interested in business. She said hello, good-bye and only business-related talk. The other was French. She was small, no more than five feet tall. She wore her black hair in a page-boy and wore dark red lipstick. It was neither sexy nor suggestive. It was just what she wore. Bill would find she wore it all the time, was always the same in her look.
“Bonjour,” she said to Bill as she passed him by.
“Bonjour,” Bill said. “Ça va?”
“Ça va bien,” she said. She smiled briefly and walked on.
Bill, Victor and Jimmy Banquet Chef were busy now. They’d done the prep, had a smoke during the brief lull, and now they were in full swing.
By Peter Weiss
While the ribs roasted, after the fish was set up and ready to pop into the oven, they did the chicken. Jimmy Banquet Chef and Bill did the sauté work while Victor cleaned up and put away the breading station. They breaded all the chicken for all the parties at one time, by exact count but always with a couple of extra to spare. The breaded chicken for the evening parties was trayed, wrapped in film and set in a walk-in box.
Jimmy Banquet Chef and Bill talked while they worked. Mostly, the banquet chef explained about how things were done, not the cooking part of it, but the organizational and work part.
“If we had a really big volume,” the banquet chef said, “I would have kitchen help to do the breading. Today we don’t need that.”
“Understood,” Bill said. He worked his pan of chicken with a kitchen fork, as did the banquet chef, but he had his spatula close by and at the ready. There was always a stubborn sucker that refused to be turned, one that stuck to the pan, that required the extra TLC of a spatula gently slid under it, to tickle it, as it were, and coax it onto its other side.
“If it was really a lot,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said, “like getting up toward more than three hundred, I’d have had it done a day in advance. I knew you were here. I wanted you to do it with me.”
“Gee thanks,” Bill said.
“I want you familiar with every part of all of this.”
“And why is that?”
“In case I can’t be here. In case I really need help at any given time. Victor’s good. He and I have talked about it with the chef. We can really use your organizational skills.”
“This is only my fifth day here,” Bill said. “What do you know about my organizational skills?”
“You’re an ace,” the banquet chef said.
A metal splash screen ran down the row of stoves. Jimmy Banquet Chef worked one pan of chicken. Bill work the other. These were huge roasting pans, about nine square feet in size.
Rule is always flip toward the back, and if that’s not possible, never toward the person working next to you. So as the breasts were down long enough to be browned on the bottom side, Bill flipped them. He flipped toward the back, away from him and toward the splash screen. He was wholly unconcerned of grease hitting the splash screen but he tried to flip the chicken without any splash. That was a matter of pride. A good cook did not splash if he could at all help it. A good cook was always conscious of what he was doing, especially when he was working with hot or sharp things.
They did two pans apiece, and that was that. The browned chicken breasts were set onto sheet pans and the sheet pans were set into the rotary oven. Timing was set for them to be done and ready to come out at the same time as the ribs.
The lull.
There came a time when for the first two parties, the afternoon ones, everything was working and there was nothing more to be done. In this time period both the banquet chef and Bill went off to the side to smoke a cigarette. Before they did this they checked what was in the rotary oven and how it was looking. The banquet chef made sure all the vegetables were set and ready, all the salads were done and the potatoes, baked potatoes for these parties, were working as they should be.
“I’d like you to help me carve when these parties come up,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said. “Whatever set up is still needed for The Falstaff Room your partner can do. Be about time that lazy Greek did some work. I may have to take care of him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know he’s lazy.” Jimmy Banquet Chef laughed as if to himself. “I see everything,” he said.
By Peter Weiss
Strange days indeed. I had other things written, particularly more on the luck of the draw. It’s not insignificant, at least not from my perspective, but later. The Bill Wynn series continues and is fun. A new installment will appear later tonight.
So this is really about gratitude. Like all families and individuals in this unusual time, my family has had its issues. But thanks to the grace of God, we are standing up on the right side of the earth. I have gratitude.
I won’t bore you with the specifics. But I will say to the atheists that when any individual mocks faith and begins to think s/he is the center of the universe…
I hope you get my drift people like you-know-who-you-are.
So if nothing else, this whole virus episode clearly demonstrates that we’re all winging it. Yes. Sad to say, we’re all winging it. Many of us are experts in what we know, in what we’ve studied, you know, like a master plumber is an expert. Even master plumbers run into new situations where they “don’t know what they’re doing” and have to “wing-it.”
When we start to think we know things we don’t really know… Do I need to finish the statement?
It gets worse when someone is in a position of power and uses that position wrongly. Start there with governments. Then remember, man is by nature selfish and greedy. Putin is the richest man in the world. He just doesn’t show up that way because his wealth is well hidden in the wealth of Russia. It’s co-joined, so to speak. He was a KGB agent. How do you get to be worth two hundred billion dollars as a KGB agent?
Why are the bulk of our politicians multi-millionaires?
All the dictators live like kings, and all our politicians live like princes and princesses.
That said, gratitude. I’m grateful I’m in the US. I’m grateful I’m alive, my family despite its health issues, is okay so far, safe so far, and doing okay. We have the simple things and much more. I’m grateful for that. I have a job, even in retirement, and in this time. I’m able to work from home. I’m grateful for that.
So many, many things to be grateful for, even if there is no toilet paper in the stores.
And then there’s more, so much more.
And on top of it all, I thank God for all.
So really, that’s today’s rant.
We are where we are at. It’s not a time for criticizing. It’s a time to be smart, to stay safe, and at least here in America to be thankful we are here in America.
By Peter Weiss
Bill worked the whole day side-by-side with Victor and Jimmy Banquet Chef doing banquet prep. Jimmy G was put with the stewards doing sleepy work, doing vegetables. And that made him happy because he was mostly able to sit on the side and read his Greek newspaper. When he wanted to, he could fool around with the guys, and that was alright too. Like he did when it was slow in The Falstaff Room, he took off for long periods of time. No one seemed to notice and no one seemed to care.
But that wasn’t true. What was true was that everyone noticed and a lot of people had resentments. Especially in big hotels with lots of kitchen workers who made different salaries, everyone wondered what everyone else was making and was watching what everyone else was doing. Everyone knew that Jimmy G was a goof-off. Everyone knew he was being carried by Jimmy Banquet Chef. Some people might have complained, but anyone who carried any weight with the chef belonged to the Greek family, the Greek mafia.
Not the best way to do business, for sure. But it was what it was.
They didn’t have any big banquets. This particular Saturday was a series of small parties, four of them, two in the afternoon and two at night. They were all weddings. They all had similar menus which consisted of a choice of broiled fish (the second choice), chicken breast (the least expensive choice) or prime rib (the most expensive and most popular choice). In total, it was only about five hundred people, three hundred of which were eating prime rib with baked potato. Altogether, in totality, it was an easy day overall.
Jimmy G and the stewards prepared the vegetables for all four parties. That was the easiest thing to do. Two separate pantry women, one early, one later, were scheduled. One of them could have prepared the salads for all the parties, but one needed to be around for dish-up for the evening. In the overlap of their shifts, they cleaned up all pantry-related items from the afternoon and set up for the evening.
Stewards set up the baked potatoes. Two of them worked in big sinks, well, they weren’t in the sinks, in the vegetable room. They carried in a bag of potatoes, dropped them into a sink, scrubbed the skins clean, dried them, then set them onto sheet trays lined up like soldiers. At Suburban Bill did this most afternoons, but because the quantity was so much less, the potatoes were just put into the convection oven, no sheet pan needed.
Bill, Victor and Jimmy Banquet Chef did the main courses. Not much to do in the scope of things. Prime rib was prime rib, set up the ribs for roasting and pop them into the oven. Not much more than that was needed until dish-up time when they had to be cut.
Fish was fish too. This was rolled filet of sole, two pieces to each serving. Bill had never worked with filet of sole this way before, not until he started working here on the square. They served it rolled like this in The Falstaff Room, or sautéed meuniere. So as he came to this day’s work, he knew exactly what had to be done.
Side-by-side they worked. They took the fish, salted and peppered it, rolled it, buttered the top and sprinkled it with paprika. No big deal. Same thing, over and over and over, each one the same as the next.
Last, and actually the most work, was the chicken. It was the most work because it had to be breaded first and that meant setting up a breading station. Once breaded, it had to be sautéed in oil to brown both sides. Then it had to be set in the oven to bake to finish.
And so it went.
Writer's play 