Mmmm.... venison

During my shift on Friday, one of the culinary guys brought in some venison sausage on rolls with onions, peppers and whole mustard seeds. I scraped off the onion and peppers (don't judge me, I hate that crap) and damn was it good. I have no idea why they had venison to grind into sausage, because I am pretty sure venison doesn't appear anywhere on the menu. Maybe they were working on a new dish. Oh, and it was part venison and part pork -- a delicious marriage. Speaking of new dishes, the zucchini cake with goat cheese frosting is already on the menu. It's crazy how quickly stuff like that happens in a restaurant with a seasonal menu. I don't really know why, but I expected it to take longer than a week to implement something like that.

One thing that I have noticed regularly in our kitchen is a serious lack of solid knife skills. People using the wrong knife for the job, or using the right knife in the wrong way. Either way, Chef Norman would have a heart attack. (Chef Norman is a slightly cantankerous old man who loves using super cheesy puns while teaching the knife skills classes at my school.) Last week one girl was displaying VERY poor techniques and it really freaked me out. She could have easily given herself a serious injury. I even said, "Don't cut it that way" as I walked past. She didn't respond, so I am not sure if she heard me and chose to ignore me, or not.

Overall, Friday was a really good night. Even the music was pretty good. The girl who I worked with brought in her music for the CD player. The Velvet Underground is a VAST improvement over the endless stream of Counting Crows that I often have to endure. One girl on staff must REALLY love the Counting Crows (and nothing else) because she puts the CD on all the time, especially at the end of the night when we are trying to wrap up. I also think the Counting Crows CD is possessed by the devil or perhaps cursed in some way. Normally, when it gets to the last track of a CD, the player in the kitchen will just stop playing. This is not the case with Counting Crows. When that CD is in, it will automatically restart. I have no idea why. So that means I may end up listening to the entire CD multiple times in a row without realizing it, or without the ability to free myself up to change it. Oftentimes, I am so busy with something I can't step away to change the CD, and then next thing I know I have heard "Mr. Jones" three times. I didn't hate CC before (I was by no means a fan, though), but I totally hate them now.