Some Minor Adjustments

It's officially been one week since I began my externship at Tallula Restaurant & Eat Bar in Arlington, VA.  There's been some interesting adjustments to make but all in all I think it went well.

For starters, I've had to transition from an early bird to a night owl, which means instead of waking up at 5:45AM and getting home around 5PM, I don't start work until the afternoon and get home closer to midnight.  My days off are Tues/Wed so sadly Patrick and I don't have a whole day to spend together anymore... :(  But at least I don't have to fight the heavy weekend crowds when I make my weekly trip to the grocery store.. right?!!

So what's it like working in a restaurant?  Right now it's a lot of learning but I'm glad to see that a lot of the principles and techniques that I learned in culinary school carry over to the real world... so I'm not a complete idiot when I'm asked to prepare things like risotto, vinaigrettes, and carrot cake.  Just kind of one.  Like when I couldn't figure out how to put the lid on the food processor the other day to grind some pistachios.  Yeah...

In addition to tricky lids, everything seems to have been strategically placed to make it difficult for the vertically challenged ones like myself.  I'm constantly having to ask people to reach things for me.  I found a comic on this blog that pretty much sums up my experience all week:

No joke.

Also there's this little thing called a language barrier.  I don't know why but I wasn't quite prepared for the number of Spanish-speaking employees at the restaurant (with very limited English skills), and I'm definitely regretting taking 5 years of French instead of Spanish.  Then again, I can't really converse in French either so maybe it would not have made a difference...

Anyway, this is how a typical conversation goes:

Me:  Hello!
Coworker:  Como estas?
Me:  Good, how are you?
Coworker:  Bien.

That's about as far as we get before things start getting lost in translation.  For example, here is a short exchange I had yesterday with one of my coworkers:

Coworker:  Are you tired?
Me:  No, I'm not on a diet.  Why?
Coworker:  You look tired.
Me:  I look like I need to diet?!?

This aside, all of my coworkers have been extremely nice and helpful and always greet me with a smile...  so who knows, maybe I will pick up a little Spanish over the next few months.  Also they introduced me to the Pupusa... a delicious El Salvadoran dish that consists of a tortilla filled with cheese and pork and rolled up with a cabbage slaw... yum!

On a completely different note, I downloaded over 40 Glee songs the other day and let's just say my ride into work just got a little more exciting.  No longer am I tempted to speed through those yellow lights (not that I did that in the first place) for fear of diminishing my listening opportunity.  Here's one mash-up that took some getting used to but now I'm loving it (mostly because of the performance):



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