Falling apart...

...literally. If I ever get any followers that don't know me I should point out at this time that I'm a line cook at Tilth. The job, and the industry in general, is tough on the body. A year and half into this madness and I'm feeling weathered. I received a couple of cuts and burns('tis but a scratch) while in school and working. I was hoping that once school ended that the extra time off would give my body time to heal. Somehow the opposite has happened and the wheels are coming off.

About a month ago I got an amazing opportunity to do a stage at the Modernist Cuisine test kitchen. The prep work I was doing would be served to one of the dozens of Michelin star chefs that were rolling into the kitchen every few days as the book had just been released. I started the morning by cleaning snails. In a half hour my dream of opening a frog/snail ranch with friend Steve S. had dwindled along with my appetite. My next job after getting the snails readied was to slice onions, for employee lunch, on a mandoline.

 Staring into the teeth of the wicked beast

The mandoline, for those that don't know, is a blade on a plank. Slide the food over the plank and a slice of the food falls out the bottom. No, it's not a an annoying musical instrument as some have guessed, perhaps most disappointingly one of whom works in food service. The mandoline is a great tool to get uniform slices and julienne cuts. It's the best tool cooks both fear and respect. This fateful morning, I forgot to fear it. I simply went about my business sliding the onion back and forth when suddenly, well I don't really remember. I looked down and I was bleeding from my right pinky finger. I looked at it and figured I had cut off a little piece. No big deal, I'd just go over the sink, rinse it off and apply some pressure. I looked at it through the running water and thought, "that's not looking too good." Calmly, so as not to alarm the chefs, I walked over to my friend Aaron and asked where the first aid kit was. We walked over and he pulled out a band-aid.  I lifted the paper towel, he looked at me, then the pinky, then back at me. In restrospect I wish I could've come up with "we're going to need a bigger boat" on the spot. I'll attribute my lack of cleverness at the time to blood loss.

Flash forward a couple of hours. I'm out of the hospital, hand numbed and bandaged. It was slightly embarrassing showing back up to the kitchen to collect my knives and fill out have the nice lady fill out an accident report. I had spent most of my day at the hospital instead of cooking with amazing chefs.

Had I cut my left hand, I would've gone to work the next day. Cutting my right hand meant I was out of the rotation for a couple of days. Upon my return to work I was greeted with the nickname "Stubs".  This was very exciting to me because it meant they we're starting to accept me as one of them. Sadly it didn't stick and I still get called Christian every now and then.

I am happy to report that my pinky is getting better. I don't hit the return key with it still but I can bend it and grip with it. Great news right? It would be if I didn't just get a bunion(not part of the Allium family) on my right foot. Groan and sigh. It's not all about the food, sometimes it's all about me.