"Be where you are. Otherwise, you will miss your life". -Buddha, from the little book of inspirational thoughts.
I was up at 9am, after a restless night. Had breakfast, then went to the beach for an hour-hour and a half. I love the sound of the waves hitting the beach. It is a very peaceful sound. It was windy today and if I had had more time, it would have been a good sailing day!
I went in to work 1/2 hour early so I could make Coconut Chocolate bar cookies. I got them all mixed and in the pan, they looked great, I walked over to the combi one with the pan in my hand, and some how dropped the cookie pan on the floor. I was able to save most of the dough, but was quite upset with myself!! I guess things like that happen to keep you humble. I knew they would taste good but didn't look as pretty as they did before the "fall". Millie laughed at me, Ryan and Drew kept silent (good guys). I couldn't see wasting good ingredients (sent to me by Jordan), so went ahead and baked what I had. They did taste good, even if they weren't pretty! People seemed to enjoy them.
Once I finished the cookies bars, Ryan gave me a list of things to do: roast a hotel pan of red potatoes, make lobster stuffing, cut four containers of cherry tomatoes (half of them in half, half of them in quarters), and make the employee dinner. I took chicken breasts out of the freezer first, so they could thaw while I worked on other things. I was going to do potatoes next, but we didn't have any so I skipped that until Ryan could go get a bag of Red Bliss potatoes from the warehouse. So I started on the lobster stuffing (one yellow onion, 2 red bell peppers, one green bell pepper, one carrot, 3 T garlic, 1 cup sherry, 3T lobster base, 3 cups diced tomatoes plus 2 cups tomato juice, 3 T dried basil leaves, water, 1/4 cup lemon juice, mini shrimp 1/3 bag, one large can crab and 1/3 bag Panko), which is kind of a big process. I roasted the chicken breasts with a lilttle oil, salt and pepper. I also roasted a bag of mixed vegetables with them. After 25 minutes in the oven, I took the pan out of the oven, brushed Dijon mustard over them, then sprinkled Panko over the mustard and pressed it down. I returned them to the oven to brown. I made some rice pilaf next and put that in the oven to bake. Then the potatoes came and I halved them, mixing a little olive oil over them, then flavored them with dried thyme, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for an hour or until golden brown. And I cleaned up after everyone. Ryan really did the Rotary dinner himself. He made meatloaf (what I call meatloaf surprise because he put ham and cheese in the middle of the meatloaf so it was layered. He made pasta primavera with ground beef, using my pasta dish from last night as a base. I made a green salad, then plated Otis Spunkmeyer brownies. The brownies crumbled very easily and I told Ryan that these brownies suck. He said in a loud voice, "whose in control here April, you or the brownies". It made me laugh but he was apparently serious. I did finally get them cut and plated. I cleaned the walk-in, peeled potatoes for tomorrow, then he said I could go. He was pretty nice to me all things considered. I had a glass of wine at the bar once I showered and Ryan, an orange tabby who lives at Bolongo, walked through the restaurant, looking for Harry (who shares his dinner with the cat when he works) and to see what handouts he could get from the guests. Pretty funny, though against Health Dept regs. But he is part for the Bolongo family, lol.
I work days tomorrow at the Lobster Grille, then leave for themairport for a trip to St Maarten at 5:30pm. Can't wait! As St Maarten is Dutch, and requires international phone service, I may not be writing my blog while I am gone. But I will start up again Sunday when I get back. Time for bed, no sleeping in tomorrow!
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