Cooking

I am a terrible cook. Occasionally something will turn out, but it is rare. I remember one time I had my cousin Brian over for Thanksgiving dinner and everything was horrible. The turkey was dry and tasteless, the coleslaw was horrible, the scalloped potatoes were underdone, etc. etc. For dessert, I made pecan tassies and they were good. My cousin says, "These are good, you must have bought them." I punished him for his insolence by sending food home with him.

So it is really ironic that cooking has saved me. I fry cooked my way through college, I got a job cooking at the Shelby Truck Stop when I was completely broke (well, I had $16, no gas and a dead battery when I stopped - went to work that same day), I got a job here in Montana when I was destitute again. I really hate fry cooking. If Studs Terkel ever rewrites Working, I would like to contribute this:
Cooking is dirty, greasy and sweaty. Anyone with a stove at home knows how dirty it gets, so just imagine that 1000 times worse. The grills can raise the temperature in the kitchen to well over 100 degrees in the summer, and though the public area is clean and air conditioned, the actual work area is hot and miserable. You are always covered in grease splatter burns and cuts from hurrying to slice things. When orders come in, you have to assess them quickly and throw the things that take the longest on while keeping in your head the relative times of the other meals on that ticket. Anyone who cooks one ticket at a time and does not work fast is out the door. You have to constantly glance ahead and find things that take a long time. When it is busy, the grills cool down, and things take even longer, so your timing is even more compromised. The stress and intensity is so extreme I cannot describe it. If a waitress calls back and wants some salsa or sour cream, it destroys your concentration, frustrates you and makes you angry. If something is sent back, it depresses you that you did not do a good job, plus repairing the order messes up your sequence. Some things like eggs benedict have four or more steps to them and making salads takes you from the grill and you sometimes lose your place. Mel's Diner with the crabby cook is a cliche because it is true. If you do a really good job and the food is great, the waitress gets a good tip for setting it on the table and they very seldom share. They go home looking just as good as they came in and the cook goes home exhausted, greasy and bedraggled.
I usually leave the waitress a small tip and walk back and give a healthy one to the cook - even when the food was not that good - cause I've been there.