Summer

In my pre-cooking years, or “back when my hands were beautiful”, summer meant what I assume it means to most everyone else: rapidly melting popsicles, the _____ (body of water), and fun. These days it means at least 4 months of feeling like the aforementioned popsicle, and feeding more people than the other 8 months combined. If you think of summer as Jaws (cue the theme music), then we’re going to need a bigger boat. You know by now that a bigger boat isn’t in the budget, so you’ll have to do your best with the allotted inner tube and pointy stick. The bad news: we’re shark food. The good news: it happens to be a magic shark that shits you out alive at the end of every night. Perhaps a Pinocchio reference would be more tasteful, but this is the internet and tasteful is homeless here.

The other day my sous chef suggested that we both say goodbye to our girlfriends. Initially I thought that I was on the receiving end of my very first proposition, but it was actually just some good advice in a strange disguise. With hard work and long hours on the horizon, there won’t be time for much other than work (compression), talking about work (decompression), and sleeping. It’s pretty easy to convince yourself throughout most of the year that it isn’t too strange to be locked in the kitchen for the better part of most days. In the summer, however, it feels absolutely unnatural, and it’s impossible to ignore. Everybody but you seems to look good. In fact, you look awful. They’re kissed by the sun, and you’ve been fucked by florescent light. They’re living beer commercials, and you’re stuck in Oz.

Missing out is only part of the battle, it’s what you’re getting plenty of that makes it special. I’m talking about customers, and they’re not from around here, so things like “making reservations” are more or less forgotten. It’s during these few months that the reservation book gives you nothing but shitty information. 30 reservations can easily turn into a night of 100 served, thanks to the foot traffic. There’s no predicting anything, so brace yourself. They’ll be up to their usual tricks, and you’ll be forced to come up with new ones to cope with it. Staffing is a circus, and there always seems to be a revolving cast of good cooks and dummies alike, with the dummies out numbering the good cooks by about 5:1. Some cooks are getting deported, others are getting hit by taxis, and others are drowning on line. Despite all of this, the show goes on, and before you know it you’re doing more with less. You don’t know how, but wouldn’t dare question it. Impossible odds are surmounted daily, and while that feels terrific, it still leaves you longing for November. Oh, November, bring thine offerings of stability and rationale.

Missing out on the nice weather and good times make the kitchen comparable to prison. The “outside” is awfully appealing when the patios are open and the beer is, well, beer. Summer on the “inside”, however, isn’t actually all that bad; there’s plenty of beer to be had after service, you occasionally get fresh air (by taking out the garbage), and all of that hard work has its way making you tough. Too many customers, too much heat, and too little time get together and make legends out of line cooks. It’s that time of year when you drink 5 liters of water across 12 hours, and sweat so much that you didn’t piss once. These hard times do make for good stories, and any good line cook is full of them. Just pour them a pint and ask them about July 2007, they’ll light a smoke (even if they don’t) and then they’ll tell you about the time the hood fans died, leaving them with first degree black lung and a fleeting case of the vertigo.

For all of its nastiness, summer is ultimately the bread and butter for many restaurants. Make hay while the sun shines, they say, and the sun shines both brightest and longest during the summertime. I just want the world to know that the sun casts a shadow over the kitchen folk, and that’s part of why I’m so sickly pale.

~ Jacob Galbraith