It's Thursday, so I am a little behind on writing, so for this entry, pretend it's still Wednesday, lol.
Wednesday morning I just took it easy, for some reason I did not get much sleep. Could be all that itching from bug bites on my legs and arms. Oh, well, this to shall pass.
When I got to work I started helping Janee with the Rotary dinner. I made a huge salad with romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, shreded carrots and diced red onion. Once that was done, it was on to cutting and roasting huge batch of of red potatoes (potatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic). I also made a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and a touch of honey to take the edge off the tartness of the vinaigrette. Then I sliced and roasted a smaller batch of red potatoes (using olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme). I sliced bread and then did some cleaning. Two of our coolers went down today so food needed to be moved and stored elsewhere or just thrown away. I also organized and cleaned up the walk-in. Drew is still orienting and I think they would like to get him further along before they put me on hotline, etc. Being an intern is not very glamourous but if I can learn all I can learn now, that's ok.
Janee sent me to Iggie's to see how they set up their West Indies buffet. The only things I recognized were chicken, broccoli and cauliflower, island rice and peas (a different version of what they use at the Lobster Grille, which is just white rice, mirepouix and seasonings), mac'n'cheese (!?!) and fish. There were also some cold salads and desserts and a carving station with roasted beef and pork. Gabriel showed me around and explained how they set up, etc. Gabriel was born in LA, moved to Brazil with his family, then back to LA and experienced what he calls "culture shock". Apparently things were not the same as when he left, lol. He has a little bit of an accent, which is why I asked where he was from originally. Then it was back to the Grille and more cleaning.
At 8pm, Janee sent me back to Iggie's so I could watch the Carnival Celebration. Apparently this happens almost every Wednesday. Veronica, who runs the gift shop, is the MC for this show. She had told me my first day that she was in charge of all things fun, lol, I guess that's true! First they had a Congo line and she took everyone in the Congo line back up on stage with her. Then came Karen, an already tall woman wearing stilts and a sparkly costume (all of which made her 7-8 feet tall!). She got all the men, then all the women, then all the children to dance with her. I think I would need a lot of alcohol or maybe just knowing that I was on vacation for me to get up there! After Karen, came what Vernita calls "Dancing with the Stars, Island Style". She asked for four couples to come up on the stage. She also said they had to be married. Cuple number one had been married 23 years, couple number two had been married for seven years, couple number three for 14 years and couple number four for ONE HOUR! Each couple danced to a song the steel drum band played, then the audience chose the winner. Couple #4 won. Each couple got some sort of prize, so everyone was a winner. Then came King Herod, who hails from Aruba. He's a small, thin, black man with long dreadlocks who comes on stage bear foot. First he walked on glass (wine and beer bottles that he broke right in front of the audience), then he poured lighter fluid on the glass and set it on fire and jumped onto the burning glass from the height of a chair. The finale of his act was doing the limbo. He had three bottles that were burning from cloth that had been soaked in lighter fluid. He held one bottle in each hand and balanced the third bottle on his forehead. Each pass brought the bar lower and lower and the bottle on his forehead started the limbo bar on fire. He took the burning bar and placed it on the bottom set of hooks, then did the limbo and had to lay flat to get under the burning bar. Impressive, but he is crazy! There are also island crafts for sale outside the bar area before, during and after the show.
After the show (I did not stay for the end where everyone was suppose to come up on stage and dance) I went back to the Grille, where Ryan made me a deconstructed Salad Nicoise for dinner. They roast potatoes (the ones I roasted earlier), put those on a plate, grill some tuna steaks (rare-medium rare), put that on top, then top the tuna with a Mediterranean salsa and basil aioli. That is then surrounded by quartered hard boiled eggs. It is one of our new menu items. Very nice!
So not a very exciting life, but what a beautiful place to live! I will come back later and add a picture of King Herod (wonder how he got that name?).
