meh

It is hot, and I can't sleep and I am grumpy.

And I can smell cake. and there is no cake, and it is making me hungry. It is carrot cake with lemon cream cheese frosting.

and it is hot.

and i am hungry.

I want to move to the mountains.

Andavadoaka

So far, the second year of teaching far out strips the first, but I still have a bucket full of doubts about the whole malarkey.

Sometimes it is nice to remember/be reminded that I lived here for a while.













Even if I never get a chance to go back.

migratory habits of food in the kitchen

This one got lost somewhere, it is here now.
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 05:49:07 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: migratory habits of food in the kitchen.


When I was little someone gave me a book on migration and it fascinated me.

I have noticed the same phenomenon in the kitchen. The only notable difference is that the food separates into two migratory factions. The food you chase around the kitchen and the food that follows you round the kitchen.

I arrive at work. I begin my mis-en-place (preparation for service). I notice that my sugar (which I filled last night) is missing. I hunt down a 1-litre bucket and descend to the dry store. I fill the bucket and return, complete. My task here is done.

Later. An order is called away for toffee-apple kebabs. The sugar is gone. I find it in larder (section). I use it and put it on my shelf.

5 mins later. It is gone.

The stuff that follows you is more insidious. No matter how many times you put it away or take it downstairs, it always returns to somewhere you won't see it and will tip it over. Fish stock is particularly prone to this. Incidentally, fish stock is the hardest kitchen stain (apart from ball point pen) to remove from your clothes. I have got everything else out (including my own blood), but not the fish stock or the ink.

Maybe it is the teatowel dragon who is taking the sugar. The teatowel dragon slinks around the kitchen, breathing steam and puffing little pilot lights of blue flame. The neon light glints off her invisible scales and she waits, watching, for an opportunity to snag that teatowel to just beyond your grasping fingertips.

She sets them alight when you are not concentrating and lobs them up behind the bamboo steamers when you lapse in vigilance.

Mum says I have an overactive imagination and that I romanticise life excessively.

2007

2007

old friends

1998, Tatyoon















1999, Station Street















2002, Amy's Place















2003 (?) Amy's Place















2005, Melbourne Airport

















These photos make me happy.

old friends

1993, Library Lawn
















1994, Boarding House
















1995, Library Lawn
















1996, Amy's House
















1997, St Marks

the kitchen

Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: the kitchen.

Just to clear up any confusion - I was asked to work for an extra week at the kitchen and as I was contractually obliged I agreed. But as of Saturday last I am a free woman, and have spent the time to good effect, lounging round the house and soaking up the sunshine.

When I stop feeling antisocial, I’ll be in touch.

I'm painting my nails on Sunday

Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: I'm painting my nails on Sunday.


I can peel an orange and get the peel in one long strip. But only when I’m concentrating.

Ceels's crash course in leadership-skills:
1. Never bitch to any one 'lower' than you about anyone on their tier of the hierarchy or above.

2. Pick the rules and stick with them

3. Delegate but never make anyone else do something you are not prepared to so yourself

4. Never panic and always pretend you know what's going on.

The rest of the course I will think of later.

There is construction going on in the alley outside the kitchen and that and the recent rain is driving all the M-O-U-S-E-S (said in loud stage whisper so the punters don't hear) inside. The other night we had one in the kitchen.

I was hiding behind the oven grabbing a bite to eat and Dan said 'did you see that, did you see that? There was an m-o-u-s-e in the kitchen.' it then did a runner from the dishwasher, past me and under the grill section fridges. I had a mouthful of food and was in no position to comment.

We then fetched a broom and, being the only person in the kitchen who is not afraid of mice, I got down on my hands and knees and tried to get it out. I was just about to give up when it appeared; it took a curve around the dumb waiter, jumped Suzy’s feet and slid past Kelly under the larder benches. I leapt to my feet and screamed, Suz jumped and screamed, Kelly jumped and screamed. It was like a domino effect and we figured the punters must know what was going on.

On Tuesday we were sitting in the actual restaurant. The menu had changed and Suzy was explaining how to make everything. Two customers leapt to their feet and stood by the pass. We just smiled and waved. Mice had come out from the couches and jumped over their bags. Later I saw a woman leap up, fling a five-dollar note at a waiter and sprint out the front door.

The health department has a few issues with the proposition that what the punters don't know won't hurt them and it appears the punters agree.
ceels

new lizard shape mobile phone covers – you too can look like you’re talking to a reptile’s arse

Date: Fri, 15 Sept 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: new lizard shape mobile phone covers – you too can look like you’re talking to a reptile’s arse.

The kitchen hand at work last night said that in order to get the 'undesirable' aboriginal population out of Redfern in Sydney before the Olympics, the government (or who ever) cut the water and power to the area and sent in the police to hassle and beat up the kids. He said, also, that a large amount of heroin and the heroin trade has been pushed into the suburb. My immediate reaction was 'bullshit' but I don't know. Can anyone enlighten me as to the truth of this rumour?

On a lighter note (but more personally embarrassing) a bad thing happened at work last night. I grabbed one of the chefs in the, well, right where you shouldn't grab someone unless you know him VERY well.

You see I slipped and rather than fall down I reached out for something to hold on to. Fortunately the oven was on my other side and I got a better grip on that rather than doing any damage to, well, you know.

The oven was quite hot. But it seemed the better option to burn my hand than to land on the floor or... any way... I don't want to talk about it any more.

sunny ceels

Date: Wed, 13 Sept 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: sunny ceels.

If you work three or four shifts in a row, you don't see the sun for a couple of days. You walk with your shoulders slumped because it is too difficult or too painful to straighten them. Your feet ache from standing on concrete for eight hours and you trudge trying to work out which one hurts most. You haven't slept properly since sometime last week and it makes you feel a bit teary and life seems impossible. Then you step out of the kitchen and take a deep breath. The sun is shining even if you can't see it because the city's in the way.

What bliss to curl your legs under you on the lawn of the state library and tip your face into the sunshine. it seems worth it. Listening to the heart of Saturday night and thinking dreamy half thoughts. It’s like a peaceful night's sleep, or a full tummy, or a hug.

Of course in the city a bit of stress helps with survival. You don't want to be so relaxed that you don't notice things like the lights changing.

Especially in the middle of the road.

I have discovered the worst thing about living with your friends. You can't write emails about them because many of the people you are writing to know them too. They are both so fascinating that I want to tell you all about it. But for about half of you they are not characters in some email, they are real people.

Oh well.

Date: Tue, 12 Sept 2000
From: Ceels
Subject:

Oh mi god

I am in love again. I sent an email to a boy because I liked his name and he wrote back and I have been swept off my feet into a cloud of erudite deliciousness.

I was worried for a while because I haven't fallen in love for ages. But since I quit the kitchen I have gone back to my old habit of falling in love eight or nine times a day with various fictional/ non-fictional people.

Now I just have to decide what to write back.

love you (all)
ceels

panic served three ways, with a warm side plate of fear and denial

Date: Tue, 12 Sept 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: panic served three ways, with a warm side plate of fear and denial.

Oh mi god,

Steven just re-did the roster for the week after next and I am not on it. In two weeks I am going to be a chick all on her own with no job and no hair.

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?

This is a shocking tragedy. When I said I wanted to leave I didn't think it was going to be so sudden. What if I’ve changed my mind?

And here was I worrying about the washing machine (which appears to have taken up a vendetta against my favourite skirt. It keeps dumping grease on it then refusing to do the spin cycle while it is in there) I haven't finished paying off my uniform yet. What if I don't have enough money, what if I can't get it clean enough to give back?

What will I do while I don't have a job. I don't know if I know how to relax any more (any kind hearted person wanting to give massages to poor aching chefs?). I can't go yet, what will I have to complain about.

But it would be kinda nice to leave, I am pretty much over all the politics in the kitchen and getting up early in the morning after working the night before and carrying a couple of hundred kilograms of fruit and veg up and down the stairs.

The kind of stress we had the other night can't be good for you. It is giving me wrinkles. I’m tired all the time.

Maybe Sal is right and i should take a week off to look for jobs and relax.

I’ll miss everybody there.

I'll be a free woman in two weeks

WHO WANTS TO HELP ME CELEBRATE?

love ceels

three Kevin Kline movies in one day (what’s a poor sailor to do?) part 2

Mel was on the pass and it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it. There was a point where we were cooking for six tables and there were six or seven dockets hanging out of the machine that we hadn't even seen yet. Sal was on the grill and she is a pro, but even she was losing her grip. Dan was on woks and by the end of the night he was chucking food at me saying, "Here, cook this. You’re responsible for it, I don't want to hear about it again."

You start to do crazy things like lean across open flame and grab a hot pan, praying that the smell of burning hair is your arms and not your eyebrows. Grab colanders of vegetables straight from the boiling water. Lob pots and buckets at the sink (don't look, just hope). Open the steamer and stick your arm in for the rice without waiting for the steam to escape. Duck under Dan as he swings a pan round. Slide across the wet floor until you manage to grab hold of something (or someone). Drop beetroot in the rice custard. Drop salmon tartare in the rice custard. Drop the rice custard. Collapse exhausted. Clean everything in sight. Drink one beer at the end of the night. Get home and fall asleep on a chair because you can't face the stairs.

I guess it is kinda fun. And the adrenalin is pretty cool. But the stress was such that I nearly vomited on the floor (I didn't because it was the middle of service and Dan might have been mad). (Besides, there wasn't time). We did a hundred and fifteen people in under two hours.

Today a funny (or not funny) thing happened. We were carrying boxes of stuff down stairs at the end of the shift and when we got the bottom Mel dropped hers. There was (was) a bottle of balsamic vinegar in there, which exploded. She cursed for a second, rang upstairs to get Abbi (kitchen hand) to come clean it up.

She went back to the box with the vinegar to grab the peppercorns. On the way knocking over a vase full of water and weeping willow. The vase disintegrated across the floor.

She reached for the peppercorns, only to discover that they too had not maintained structural integrity as they poured in all directions.

I cannot decide if this is a funny or a not funny thing.

love you all

ceels

three Kevin Kline movies in one day (what’s a poor sailor to do?)

Date: Mon, 11 Sept 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: three Kevin Kline movies in one day (what’s a poor sailor to do?).

Well, I’ve done it, I’ve quit. I was running out of things to write anyway. And I am perpetually grumpy.

And I have grated all my knuckles off, although my fingertips have healed. I wonder if my hands will ever forgive me. Besides, the kitchen was getting in the way of my plans for world domination (and s11 think all the trouble is at the casino, tee hee hee hee <>). Also, all the cute waiters have quit. I am listening to Tom Waits to improve my mood.

So does anyone know of any interesting job prospects for a chick with no hair? (I think I am going to go and make coffee for a few months, Bridget promises she will come and visit me all the time if I work in the coffee shop on Elizabeth street).

We had a service from hell on Saturday night and any uncertainty I had about resigning on Friday was wiped clean.

It started quietly, an ominous hush in the bright light of the kitchen. I was running up and down the stairs fetching last minute forgotten things. Then at about five to nine Dan (whom I am now very fond of) sent me for the chickpea ragu. I arrived back in the kitchen to find twelve oysters needed to be shucked and chaos had stepped in. (incidentally Santo Cilaro (sp?) was in one night and even if you're famous, you still have the apprentice shucking your oysters (but the head chef picks them out for you)) (I’m the fastest shucker in the kitchen ) I want to try and explain the insanity of that night, but I don't know that I’m up to it.