Too Tired To Eat

I Need Another Refrigerator


Dang I'm Tired.

I'm starting to think that anyone who believes that working in the construction industry is harder than working in a restaurant kitchen should be taken out and flogged--or at least dressed in cooking attire and dumped into the Souse Chef position in a 50 seat restaurant for a couple of evenings.

Do that and you'll have a different attitude toward your restaurant experience the next time you go out to dinner.

Any way...this cooking for large crowds fantasy of mine is starting to get the best of me in spite of my best efforts. It's not the actual menu design and cooking that's the problem, it's the logistics of getting all of the food done on time, having it hot on the buffet line, and accomplishing same in a small residential kitchen.

In the past I've prepared an entire Cinco de Mayo feast for over thirty participants a couple of years ago and done several meals for six or eight, but I think that yesterday's "Christmas Feast for Sixteen" finally got my goat when it comes to single oven cooking.

By 3 PM yesterday I must have looked something like a whirling dervish, spinning around at orbital rotational velocity having already delivered my horseradish crusted beef tenderloin and two pans of uncooked cornbread dressing to our friend's home, along with chafing dishes and ancillary supplies that were in my way on the counter tops of my little kitchen.

Then reality set in as the oven, not my efforts and ability, proceeded to create a logjam in the food delivery process. Pat's scalloped potatoes took a little longer than planned, the glazed ham needed 75 minutes of heat at one temperature, and I still had shitaki mushroom gravy and the Oysters Rockefeller appetizer to put together.

Picture me stirring gravy with one hand and opening fresh oysters with the other.

It can't be done..but I had to wait until the last minute to open and prep the oysters because there wasn't room in our fridge for two pans containing two dozen oysters with spinach toppings. When it was all said and done, I figured out that I should have prepped the Oysters earlier in the day and delivered them along with the balance of the earlier shipment to the scene of the crime dinner venue.

When the dust finally settled about seven thirty PM, seven pounds of ham, five pounds of beef tenderloin, and gobs of other stuff that I can't recall right now were consumed and my Mom and Pat dragged me back home and laid me on the sofa to recuperate.

Unfortunately I didn't eat half of the dishes I cooked, and I didn't eat half of what did make it onto my plate because...

I'm Tired.

Why do I do this to myself?