The New Abnormal — Hutong Provisions

It’s a new world. I started working three days after I had the equivalent of a long plastic sword cocktail pick shoved up my nostril to tickle my brain. It sucked. The cute nurse asked me if I was crying. I’m not crying. You’re crying. But truth be told, my eyes did water a bit. It was definitely not a pleasurable experience, but it’s one that I’d do over and over again if need be.

It was less than a week since restaurants on the island were allowed to have diners inside the restaurant at a 25% capacity and a couple of weeks since they were allowed to have outdoor dining. I have to say that the retrofitting of the restaurant was impressive. The alleyway that led to the back of the restaurant had a handful of tables, as did the area that used to house a bike rack on the other side of the building. We took over the parking space of the shop next door as well and put a table out front of the restaurant on the sidewalk. the owners built a counter and support that hung out of one of the front windows and a window behind the bar turned into a service bar/point of service station. Chef told me that they essentially put it all together in 48 hours.

This week, I feel like we’ve been doing about half to two thirds of the dine-in guests that we would be feeding per day during any other summer season. I guess that’s good, because we have five cooks plus the chef. Compared to every other season, we’re down one full time line cook, plus at least two interns. I would say that we have two thirds of the manpower in the kitchen then. The great thing that I can say is that everyone in the kitchen is a player. Everyone there is talented and hard working. We all bust our asses and bang out the food. We’re all experienced and are ready to go to bat for each other.

The menu is pared down quite a bit from past years. This means that we’re burning through product like never before. I have been hand cutting and blanching at least a 22 quart (21 liter) container of fries every day, but more likely it has been two 18 quart (17 liter) containers. That’s about 36 pounds (17 kilos) of potatoes per day. It’s a lot. Couple that with cutting and blanching another 20-30 pounds (9-14 kilo) of sweet potatoes, breaking down a case of broccoli crowns, making sauces, cutting and picking garnish, straining and cleaning the fryer, and making 24 pound (11 kilo) batches of dredges, it’s quite a lot of work. I have made bigger and bigger batches of everything in an effort to try to get two days out of every batch. Once I can get there, I can do half of the elements one day and the other half the next, and just leave the garnishes as the everyday prep.

One of the most insane parts of my prep is that I have to guess how many fried chicken orders I’ll sell on any given night. When you have two fryers, there are only so many fried chicken portions you can fry off at a time. So, just before the start of service, I’ll get the number of pre-ordered fried chickens and then par-cook off a guestimate of how many I’ll sell.

Just to give you an idea of why I need to do this, I’ll break it down for you. I can probably fit four whole orders of fried chicken in a fryer at one time. So, before service, I have both fryers set to the appropriate temperature, and fry off my guestimate. Once service starts, I have to turn up one of my fryers to fry other things at the appropriate temperature. That leaves me with one fryer to cook chicken should I not have enough to cover what we sell that night. It just takes up a lot of space.

It also takes quite a long time to make sure that your fried chicken is cooked through. I check the temperature of each piece of chicken just to make sure I don’t send a single piece out raw or undercooked. If I did that, I’d have to commit harakiri and the guy working pasta would have to behead me.

There have been nights where I have overshot the number of fried chicken orders by ten or so, and we have sold them to the dine-in guests as a special. However there have also been nights where i have undershot the number of fried chicken orders, and I have to find a way to dredge and fry the chicken to order while also dealing with the orders coming in from the dining room and patios. Just last night, I found myself six orders down with all of my fryer bays full. It takes a lot of mental maneuvering to figure out how to get it all done. At one time, I had to pick up six fried chicken, six orders of fried broccoli, three orders of sweet potatoes, an order of green tomatoes, and some fries that I had to pass down to the station that handled the burgers. It was a very trying time, but I figured it out.

All in all, I am very pleased that we are as busy as we are. Guests seem happy, as do the take out folks. Truth be told, I half expected to be standing around with my thumb up my ass this summer waiting for a trickle of orders to come in. Again, big kudos to the owners of the restaurant that I work at.

For the most part, I have been working from eleven in the morning until eleven at night, again, with a great group of people, probably the nicest crew that I have ever been a part of, with the exception of one of the lineups at Night Market (and only one of the lineups at Night Market… we had some real assholes there at times… sometimes I was one of them). I would work with any of these guys, anytime, anywhere. Usually, there will be a time here or there in a kitchen when I get irked by people, but it really hasn’t happened. I guess it has only been a couple of weeks, but I worked with them all last year, and I don’t see it happening.

I’m not living at the same place that I did last summer. Last summer, I was about a twenty or thirty minute walk to work. I lived five minutes from the grocery store and the fish monger of choice. This summer, I’m at the staff housing three miles from work. This equates to about an hour walk each way. There are some busses, but they don’t really run on schedule, and there have been some days where I have waited for upwards of 45 minutes for a bus that never came, only to hail an Uber and spend $15-20 to get to work.

So, I bit the bullet and bought an ebike. Now it’s a 15-20 minutes pedal assisted bike ride into work. I have to say that it’s super nice.

I haven’t decided whether I’ll sell it at the end of the season, or if I’ll bring it back to Boston with me. It’s got fat tires, which make it really nice for riding on sand/dirt roads, very handy for an island, and it folds up. I have to be honest. I haven’t folded it up yet, but I can see folding it up if I were to be keeping it in my apartment in Boston.

I charge it every other day, unless I go out on a day off joyride, like I did today. I probably put fifteen miles (24 km) on it today riding out to Siasconset at the eastern most part of the island and back.

Riding back from work gets a little harrowing at times. I’m on a bike path for most of the way, but even with my bike light, it’s hard to see all of the turns and stop signs. There have been a couple of times where I have said to myself, “Uh… oops…. there’s the grass.” and “STOP SIGN!”

I’m planning on taking as many joy rides as I can on my days off. I have only had two days off since I got the ebike, and riding around seems like a great way to get out into the fresh air and not spend too much money.

As I said, today, I headed out to Siasconset (Sconset for short). I hadn’t been out that way since the first year of my first stint on the island. There is a straight shot bike path that follows Milestone Road from the staff house, almost all of the way to the beach there.

I didn’t bring my whole beach setup, but I did manage to have some quality time sitting on the sand.

For the ride back, I took the longer Polpis Road bike path back to mid-island. I don’t think that I have ever taken that bike path, and it was really gorgeous. Aside from the golf course, I rode past the Sankaty Lighthouse.

And ended up at Moors End Farm where they were selling gorgeous lettuces out of a bathtub.

So that’s what life looks like for me right now. All in all, it’s not too bad, all things considered.

I still miss Thailand something fierce, and I wonder how I’ll be able to get back there. With all that has been happening in the world, and the weakening of the American passport, I wonder if anywhere will let us in again. On the Fourth of July, someone I know said, “I have never been more disappointed in my country.” To be honest, I have been disappointed in my country for a long, long time, and wonder if will ever be able to live up the promise and ideal that was written so many years ago, whether those founding fathers had it in their hearts for things to truly be equal and for everyone to truly have an opportunity to thrive. The longer I look around, the more I feel that hope, and that “American dream” slip away. I think that “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is rapidly becoming, or maybe always has been “of the few, by the few, and for the few” masked friendly faces giving you the finger under the table.

Okay. I guess “not too bad, all things considered” doesn’t mean great. Hopefully, it’s a work in progress.