Cooking Teams (#2)

If you missed the first installment of Cooking Teams you can catch up here.

My role as Chief Cook/Lead Chef (the title really does seem to change on a whim) sounds good on paper.  The reason I say that is because on paper my hours are from 8 to 5 Monday thru Friday (Riiiiiiiight).  I guess it could be in certain circumstances or if I really didn't care and wanted to get on with life outside the kitchen, but I am one of those people who love it.  I usually stay hanging around the kitchen thru to 6 or 630pm just to see things thru or just do some recipe research or the small 'pushing paper' part of my job by creating menu's or questions to bother my boss about, he loves it. (I am being sarcastic)

In the past we had some special events, functions, and dinners which usually involved me working on the weekends, and if you are actually on the ship when are you really ever off from emergencies and unknowns?  Believe me, a lot of unknowns or surprise things need to be done that involve guess what?  That's it, the galley!

If you remember me talking about the earlier schedules of the cooking teams in my last post you will see that my schedule has me working with both teams thru out the week (remember team Fried Chicken and team Watermelon?).  Oh and by the way, I named the teams not to be cliche (ok maybe partly because I thought it would be funny) but because I actually like both of those foods allot...although I try to keep my fried chicken intake down for all the obvious reasons.  Being able to consistently to work with both teams on and off thru the week really helps me to keep a good handle on things and to see both strengths and weaknesses in each team.  And that in turn helps me to know how to menu plan, clean, cook, and get organized in the kitchen/galley depending on the character and quirks of the team working.

Now that most of the special events or food functions have passed away I may actually have weekends off...BUT the joy in that is now I can start 'hanging out' or signing up for other projects and events.  This weekend I have signed up to go out Saturday to help work on construction projects for a local orphanage, Stephanie has also signed up for a totally different project than mine and she will get to visit with handicapped kids (& maybe some adults) at a home.