Archive for May, 2009
Dish Detail
Saturday, May 30th, 2009 | daily | 1 Comment
Not all of the freshmen are afraid of me. The lunch dish guys spend a couple of hours a day close enough to learn I don’t really bite. The day I took this picture, I had asked Scott if he was okay because he seemed a little down and he stopped to tell me about the physics exam he was preparing for. It’s baffling to me, but the guys hate getting dish duty more than cleaning bathrooms–in a frat house! When the health inspector once asked me if he could take a look at our bathrooms I couldn’t have been more mortified if he’d ask me to fry up the dead rat he’d found at the previous house. Past dish duty people have included Steven L., who regularly needed Johnny to show him clean from dirty, Kevin and Julien who reminded me of George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, and Stephen, whose glumness over the task was so depressingly infectious, it made me want to hang myself. “You’re coming back in the fall, aren’t you?” Scott asked as I snapped this photo, and then, “who’ll take care of us if you don’t?” Which is so sweet I almost smiled.
Magical Thing
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | daily | 4 Comments
Sometimes I’m reminded that other people don’t have the kind of job I have, they have normal jobs–the kind where they’re not permitted to tell their customers to “shut up and eat it.” I was reminded of this today when my new sales guy stopped in. This is John and he is so conscientious, so eager to do a competent job, so determined to please, that I was completely thrown off. His boss is my friend Rod and that just made it all the more perplexing. “Didn’t Rod tell you I’m a crazy bitch?” I blurted out when the niceness had gotten out of control. And when that didn’t produce the correct answer, “He didn’t tell you to read my blog?!” I was getting a little pouty as it became clear to me that I wasn’t going to be able to throw expletive-laced tirades around this sunny salesman, but then, as he watched me spooning buckets of fat off of the pot roast he did the magical thing of asking me what I was doing. And then asked me what I was going to do with the fat. And seemed interested. A food sales guy who’s curious about food. Wow.
Clueless
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | daily | 4 Comments
I had this idea today that instead of roasting the chickens, I would butcher them, roll the pieces in a mayonnaise-creole mustard mixture, coat them in fresh herbs and breadcrumbs and bake the pieces. It’s a great idea. For a family of 4. I just love butchery, but after the 30th chicken, I became utterly convinced they were procreating…dead chickens begetting more dead chickens. It was at some point during my delirium that Jake passed through the kitchen and stopped to ask me if he could have the big pile of “gross stuff” on the side of the cutting board. One of the things you learn as a fraternity cook is to question every seemingly innocent request…can I have a Ziploc bag? An apple? A piece of plastic wrap? It’s all highly suspicious. “It’s for, uh…a school project,” he stammered as I insisted on a reason. I let it go, but when I went to wash my largest pot and saw that it had disappeared from the kitchen, I was pretty sure I’d been an unwitting accomplice in…something. I heard today that any future contract will have a clause forbidding me to divulge any secret information and I find this so very funny because I can’t even get an accurate headcount around here, let alone an accounting of what the heads are up to.
Darleneaphobia
Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | daily | 1 Comment
Ryan is our Spring Pledge and his hazing for the week is to spend an hour a day with me. But he already has my vote (not that I get one) because he’s not stupid or lazy, he’s a good eater, and he knows kitchen terms like FIFO. The year is almost over and most of the freshmen still have Darleneaphobia. I know this because just the other day, Matt came into the kitchen to announce that “the freshmen are too afraid to come ask you for more chicken wings.” Dumbfounded, I replied that they would rather starve than come talk to me. “Go tell them I said that.” At which point Matt turned to the dining hall and yelled, “Darlene says stop being pussies!” I’m sort of glum today because yesterday I fired Kirk. He took it really well as he helped himself to one of the paninis I pulled from the oven. You know how when you’re having a really unpleasant conversation and you just can’t keep it short and bitter, you just have to go on for a hundred words too many? That’s how I was feeling as I blabbed on an on ending with “It’s just that you bring out the very worst in me.” Which is great blog material and is hugely entertaining for the guys, but does nothing to increase their respect for me. So we’re getting a new sales person and I told the guys to be nice to him when he stops in tomorrow. “Does he know what a hard ass you are?” Zach asked with the sort of smirk that only Zach can fully master. Which is funny, because that was the first question that popped into my head.
Quitting Time
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 | daily | 2 Comments
This picture is from the morning of our Big Event on Saturday and I was too stressed at the time to really see what’s going on here, even though I took the picture. We’re happy, we are laughing. At the time, I was immersed in hollowing out 130 tomatoes (”remind me never to put this on a menu again” I told Badley who, upon observing me doing it had blurted out “well that looks like a big waste of time to me.”). The whole week–Greek Week and all it’s accompanying frat life cliches, followed by a major alumni dinner–was a trial. I mean like the medieval definition: ”subjection to suffering or grievous experience“…that sort of trial. Saturday morning the father of one of the guys entered the kitchen as I was working on dessert to tell me in really emotional terms how much it meant to him that I’m here for his son. I paused for a moment before telling him how nice it was to hear that because “I quit yesterday.” But it’s okay, really. I’m back. “I’m just like Kenny from South Park,” I told my husband and son over dinner on Sunday, “only, instead of getting killed, I just quit at the end of every episode.
Event Planning
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | daily | 3 Comments
Lucas and Daniel stopped into the kitchen yesterday to talk to me about our big event on Saturday. We have sorority girls coming to help and the last time we had such assistance, I thought they were…uh, the entertainment. “We’re your help,” they announced brightly and I thought the only thing they were going to be helpful for in that garb was to liven up the elderly alumni. “Don’t scare them off,” I told Lucas, “just tell them to dress like they’re visiting grandma.” As I write, I’m waiting for Kirk to arrive with The Pig, the star of our other major event this week. He didn’t want to personally deliver it to us; I could tell by the way he ignored my email yesterday with the clear subject heading “Wednesday Delivery” by replying that it would be coming on the truck with my regular Thursday delivery. He was glum on the phone when he assured me he’d personally take care of it on my preferred day. “I guess I’ll be sticking that thing in my trunk,” he moped, but I wasn’t about to indulge him. “Just put a pair of sunglasses and a wig on it and stick it in your passenger seat. You can take the HOV lane.”
Brian having a private moment
Pig Rub
Brian and Newman with the Beast
Greek Farce
Thursday, May 7th, 2009 | daily | No Comments
Rod sent me this picture to cheer me up after last week’s meltdown. It says something about my food sales guys that they know the proper response in my case is a picture of a pig-licking toddler. We’re pig-obsessed here right now and not just because of swine flu. Next week is Greek Week and the guys are going to entertain some other houses with a luau. I tried to order a dainty, manageable beast–the kind that fits in a commercial oven, but the only ones available are the size of…well, me. Which means we can neither store the thing here nor cook it inside. So we’ll rub her down on Wednesday, haul her off to a sorority for cold storage, and then bring her back for roasting on a spit early Thursday. Anyone who knows anything about Greek life can see this has FARCE written all over it. “It’s going to be a blog post,” I told Dan and Newman. “For all the wrong reasons.” And it’s not a complication I need because immediately after this, we have the biggest event of the year, an alumni dinner for 125. The guys asked me what events I’m participating in for Greek Week and I didn’t have to think too hard about this: “Working my ass off.”
Brotherly Love
Friday, May 1st, 2009 | daily | No Comments
Besides the fact that Mr. May needs a thesaurus and that, being such a teddy bear of a freshman, it was hard to take this seriously, what had us all laughing was that one of the sorority girls claimed to have written the second note. Exactly what happened to his belongings I don’t know, but I totally sympathize; this is how I feel every morning when I see the dining hall. But I’ve learned not to write the kind of vitriolic notes that just beg for ridicule. I was sitting in the dining hall doing some paperwork and B May’s work was Topic #1 for some time. Trevor finally owned up to being both the cause of the rage and the author of the second note. Earlier, we had had a little survey of who’s mom still does their laundry and Trevor had chimed in that not only did he have to do his own when he lived at home, but that if his mom found it in the dryer, she’d dump it on the floor. I’m not saying there’s any psychological connection between these two stories. I’m just saying that between these anecdotes and his glowing assessment of my ham and Swiss crepes for lunch, Trevor was my daymaker.
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