It has now been five days since my last post, and I can now finally say that my kitchen time has officially started! As I wrote in the last post, I was supposed to start in the kitchen last Thursday but a cold put an end to that. I wasn’t able to go there on the following Friday either so my first official day was Saturday. That was the first time I got to meet some of the other staff, and I’d say that went pretty good! Pretty much all of them seem to very easy going and very supportive which makes me feel good and relaxed.
The first day was very much about just getting acquainted with the kitchen, the staff and to learn a little about how they work and their routines. It’s gonna take me quite som time to remember it all but I’ll get there eventually. I hope… haha… The thing that really caught my eye was the way they do the inventory etc every other day, and how clear it was to everyone what everyone has to do when they get to work. That I will definitely take with me back home.

The kitchen itself is pretty small, or at least the pastry part of it. Normally (at least during low season) the first person starts at 5.30 am, then at 7 the second one arrives, the pastry chef (the boss) comes in around 10-11 and then two more people arrive between 12 and 1pm. The two last ones are the ones that stays until 10 pm to ”work the line” so to speak which means plating etc when orders come in from the servers. At the Inn we do both plated desserts/fine dining, smaller bites for the lounge and pralines and truffles. The nightshift do all the bread, which also actually includes cinnamon buns! I have been asked to to show them how to to ”real ones”/traditional ones (without the icing), and I’ve also been asked to show them how to make cardamom buns. Very much looking forward to that! I guess we will do that when we have the time. This week I think we have a wedding cake tasting, not sure if I’ll be allowed to join on that one but we’ll see.
My schedule for now is that I work from 7 am to 2 pm (7-14) which is kind of nice. Early mornings yes, but I prefer coming home early so this fits me very good. When we move in to high season (starting end of March maybe) the working hours will probably be longer but that’s ok since I’m used to working at least 8-9 hr shifts. The way the schedule works right now (for the full time workers) is that they work 10 hr shifts and instead gets three days per week off.

After my two days at work, I have now had two days off. Yesterday I decided to go to a mall to see what they’re offering. The mall is not very far from here but you can’t get there on foot so I had to use Lyft to get there. It’s not cheap but not really super expensive either. Generally it’s very har do get around over here without a car. There aren’t a lot of buses either so Lyft or Uber are probably the best choices if you don’t have a car. If I need to go to Walmart etc I can take the bus but the bus stop is about a 15 min walk from here and the bus only leaves once every hour so you need to plan ahead. Yesterday I went to the mall first and then Walmart to get some groceries before I went back home. So now I think I’m all set for at least a week!

Today I decided to take a walk to Biltmore Village which is located pretty close to my apartment. There you’ll find some smaller stores and I had lunch at a cute little bakery. Just nice to get some fresh air and today the sun has been shining the whole day (about 10 degrees celsius)!

Tomorrow it’s back to work again and I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable in my position and in the kitchen. As always my biggest challenge is to believe in myself, that I am good at what I do. Hopefully my time here can get me well on the way towards that!