Earlier this summer Secretary Chu was in London talking about “cool roofs”. For those of you not down with the lingo, a cool roof is a flat topped roof painted white. Desert cultures have long known about the benefits of white stucco, which reflects heat. As opposed to black, which absorbs heat. Chu says he has a colleague who reckons that changing all flat-topped roofs to white and changing the color of all the roads in the world to a concrete color, as opposed to a black-top color, would reflect sun back into space and cool the planet. They say it’d be the equivilant of 44 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, offsetting the last 18 years of car emissions. …Read the rest »

Last night was my second training shift on garde manger, the salad and dessert station. It was a lot more fun than cleaning dishes and scrubbing greasy pots. After a month of learning how to prep much of the food we make, finishing dishes and plating them was rewarding. There are close to 30 salads and desserts between the lunch, dinner, and brunch menus and I can do most of them on my own now. Funny, the trickiest part of the new job is breaking everything down and cleaning up. …Read the rest »

In the second blog post of a short series about my new adventures in the restaurant world, I’d like to share with you, dear reader, the satisfaction that comes with earning new calluses. …Read the rest »

It’s been 11 days since I started my new job as a dishwasher/prep cook at High Hammock in Pawleys. I couldn’t have found a better restaurant to work for, even if most of my time is spent in the “dish pit”. It has been very physical, however, and my hands have taken quite a beating. Lots of cuts and scrapes, and as they soften through the shift due to their exposure to warm soapy water, the skin tears and cracks all the more easier. …Read the rest »

Earlier this month I started working as a dishwasher/prep cook at High Hammock Restaurant, here in Pawleys. This was the best option I could find, as none of the HVAC companies I queried were hiring summer helpers. When I told a friend that I was washing dishes, he told me, “that’s an honest day’s work.” Maybe that’s a kind way to say working hard for not a lot of money. …Read the rest »