I had dinner last night at the Lobster Grille. Paul (one of the owners) and his wife Colleen were sitting at the bar, sampling the arancini so we talked for a bit. Janee stopped by to talk to us and asked about the Christmas party for employees. I'm not sure exactly when they are having their Christmas party (and I'm not sure they know either!), but Janee would like to just go this year and not have to cook first. Paul suggested there were other people who could cook the employee dinner, reminding her she also had an intern she could use so she did not have to cook. We'll see what happens....
12 noon as I head toward Iggie's. They have not finished installing the hood in the kitchen so it gets about 115 degrees in there. Holy cow, is it hot!!! I am tempted to spend the day sitting in front of one of the fans they have set up there, but that's not what I'm here for, lol. I ask Mary what she would like me to do. Most of the kitchen staff at Iggie's are islanders. With heavy island accents, which sometimes I have a hard time understanding (and I thought I was good at accents!). I often have to ask them to repeat themselves. First I made coleslaw (3 head of ca-badge, tree ca-rote, one red pep-pa, den you use the salt and da pep-pa, a lee-tle honey, sam su-gar an den da coleslaw dressin'). I had to use the slicer to shred the cabbage and I have to say I am happy I used it when I was in school, otherwise, I'd be in trouble! Then I made hamburger patties out of two ten pound packages of ground beef. I was told to cut the packages in half (ok, so I cut them in half thru the middle when Mary wanted me to cut them length-wise), salt and pepper the meat, then fold it in half, get the scale, and measure the meat into 8 oz portions and place them on a tray. Once I had weighed all the meat, I was shown how to use the hamburger press so they would be round, look nice, etc, between pieces of deli paper. I think the only reason they don't think I'm totally stupid, is that I catch on quickly (at least that's what Arthur told me tonight when I was helping him with the all you can eat crab-that I catch on quick). Once I was done with the burgers, Mary had a sink full of thigh/leg chicken quarters that she wanted me to clean. I had to take off all the extra
fat and the "stuff" under the spine (their chicken quarters look like they cut the chicken in half through the "waist", then straight through the middle of the spine, so that it is still attached to the thigh (if that makes any sense). Once I finished that, Mary told me she didn't have any more for me to do so sHe sent me on a break.
When I came back, she had me work with Arthur, who isnin charge of setting up and getting ready for "all you can eat crab night" at Iggie's. They actually set it up outside of the restaurant on the stage, so everything has to be carried out onto the beach (3 tables, 5 chafing dishes, the two burner unit that attaches to propane tanks and two extremely large pots in which the crab gets boiled in, plates, napkins, serving pieces, buckets for the crab legs). Besides snow crab legs, you are served island rice, corn on the cob, clarified butter, a lemon wedge and cornbread with honey butter. I thought the guests came up and served themselves, but they don't. The order comes out onto the beach, they we make up the plates and the waitresses come and pick them up and deliver then food to each guest. The waitresses come back out to pick up more crab legs as needed. I was ready to go by 8pm! Nice I didn't have to clean up, lol!
The fans in the kitchen at Iggie's are working, at least a little, so it wasn't as hot as it has been. There was another wedding on the beach today. They had a one man steel drum band play for them, then he moved over to entertain at Iggie's. It's the same guy that plays at the Lobster Grille on weekends. He says he does "other people's music my way" (calypso). The wedding party had their dinner up by the Lobster Grille, althou they sat by the pool. It looked like a very nice set up.
Just before I left Iggie's we had another power outage. At least I knew I would have power to my room (as well as both restaurants and the lobby. No TV though. Anyway, tomorrow is my day off. The only thing I really need to get done is laundry. Maybe Sunday I'll try to do another tour of some sort.
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