Oh my. Please bare with me for a bit as I recollect my Valentine's Day for you. It was more or less uneventful until my work began. To make a long story short, it was just about the worst night to be a server at Ada Grill. While I think everyone was unprepared for the massive, united flock of diners continuously pouring through the door, the men in the kitchen took unpreparedness to a whole new level. From the time our restaurant was full to the time our doors locked, I don't think I served any of my tables food that took less than 45 minutes to make it to their table. According to my fellow servers, the same was true for them. I, however, bit the biggest of bullets. Two of them. After having waited for approximately one hour for their food, two separate tables of mine vocalized their concerns.
Table number one: 'Umm, it's been about an hour. Do you know if our food is coming? Because if it's going to be much longer, we're not going to be able to stay.'
Table number two: 'Hey, I don't mean to be a bother, but I'm just trying to spend some time having a Valentine's dinner with my family before I have to go back to work. Do you know how much longer this will be?'
As if it's not painful enough to have to constantly apologize for the (inexcusably) long wait for food, I went back to check with the kitchen on the status of both of these orders. Turns out... the kitchen managed to lose BOTH of these tickets and neither of them had even been started. I was mortified. I delivered the bad news and talked to the owner of the restaurant about it. He spoke with both my tables (unbelievably, I had to request he do this) and everything was made okay. Their meals were free. I spent much of the rest of the night thanking whatever higher order there may be for helping my two troubled tables keep enough peace of mind to not take their impatience and empty stomachs out on me.
Needless to say, I felt pretty defeated by the end of the night, but there were a few highlights.
1. I finished the night at the bar with my similarly drained coworkers and two very delicious, very stiff drinks.
2. My boyfriend, the wonder of whom cannot be described in words, called the restaurant and told my manager it was an emergency to get me on the phone... only to tell me Happy Valentine's Day and that he loves me. I was WAY too busy to express the wholeness of my appreciation. So, Zak, thank you and I love you. You're the greatest. Period.
3. One of my tables told me that they remembered me serving them once or twice before and praised me for my wonderful serving skills. While it is certainly not my ambition in life to perfect my expertise in delivering plates of food, I still do find much pride in doing whatever it is you do to the very best of your ability. Serving isn't what I'll be doing forever. But I'm doing it now. And I hope to do it well.
4. My dad came in to eat with my mother and their two wonderful friends, The Johnsons. I love their company while I'm at work, but, admittedly, I love the payoff more. Dad always takes care of me :).
PHEW. ONTO THE FUN STUFF.
I recently made a delicious dinner for my parents and myself. Confession: I had NEVER eaten chicken pot pie before this night, let alone made it. (Assuming you do not count the single bite I once had of Zak's frozen Stouffer's chicken pot pie.) I kept forgetting to photo-document along the way, but I did get enough.
Roasting the chicken. (I did this and made the dough a day in advance.)
Peeling a MILLION (actually 52) pearl onions. The recipe called for the frozen, pre-peeled variety, but I tried three different grocery stores and couldn't find them! These worked just fine and the extra time required was SO worth it.
The nude little guys:
Onions and butter. Two of my all-time favorite things.
Onions and butter after the flour was introduced. A magnificent rue, indeed.
This is when things started to look yummy. Everybody in the pool!
Nom nom.
It's gettin' hot in hereeee so take of all... ahem. what?
Cannot wait to...
DIG IN!
If this looks tasty to you (aka if you are human) you can check out the recipe here.
While you're at it, check out the rest of that website. Perhaps my favorite food blog.
She mentions that the recipe is a slightly modified version of Food Network Personality Ina Garten's chicken pot pie. While that woman and her husband drive me clinically mad, she knows her stuff! When it comes to the classics, you cannot go wrong with Ina. Her french onion soup is also TO DIE FOR (though, you should certainly put gruyere or at least your basic swiss cheese on top). That recipe can be found here.
I also made a salad to go along with the pot pie. And I took this idea from my friend Claire's mom.
Romaine, purple cabbage, apple, avocado, toasted slivered (or sliced) almonds, celery, bleu cheese, and your favorite balsamic vinaigrette. It was the first time I had ever had celery in a salad. Revelation. Almost as significant as the first time I had fresh herbs in a salad.
* * * * *
Today is a good day. It was over 40 degrees. I didn't have work. I'm blogging. I had Chipotle for lunch. My mom is almost done with our meatloaf dinner. YUM. And currently, I look like this:
Favorite chair
Favorite jeans
Favorite drink (Jack and Coke)
Favorite new wine-bottle-turned-glass
New bracelet from Mom and Dad (V-Day gift...made me cry)
I hope all your 214 days were magnificent. But, as my title indicates, I'm thrilled it's over and done with!
I'm going to cuddle my cat until it's dinner time.
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