“How you doing, love?” Bill said to her next time around. He did not lose stride in his work, did not change rhythm or miss a beat.
“I’m good,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”
“Just fine,” Bill said.
Then she was gone again, and forever as it were since this banquet was only for three hundred and she was one of many in the wait staff. Bill did not know it yet but he would see her again in the morning at the breakfast banquet and he would peek in on her shortly.
After the dish-up, after cleaning up what they had to on their stations, storing their tools and putting all leftover food together in one place for storage, Jimmy Banquet Chef led Bill through a labyrinth of back corridors all in the “back of the house” to one of the kitchen areas adjacent to the banquet room where this banquet was being held. This hotel had many party rooms and banquet rooms, and it sported a grand ballroom banquet room capable of serving upwards of five thousand people.
Together, they stood at an entryway, like behind the wings on the stage in a theater, and looked out upon the activity in the room.
“I wanted you to see the product,” Jimmy said.
The people were almost all done with the main course by this time. Bill saw that the waiters and waitresses were busy cleaning used dishes from tables. Of course what each particular one was doing depended upon the needs at the tables they were handling. Bill did notice the way the tuxedo pants clung to the backside of that waitress.
“Where does the desert come from?” Bill asked.
“Depends upon the banquet,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said.
“How so?”
“Well, depends upon the menu, upon the occasion, whether or not they bring their own cake. We generally don’t bake here, so we have a pastry and bread supplier. You’ve probably seen their trucks on the loading dock and just haven’t noted them.”
“Yeah. I probably have,” Bill said.
“Well,” the banquet chef said, “we’re done. We got a little more clean-up to do. Then your time is yours until you start for the Falstaff Room. It isn’t much. But tomorrow you’ll have plenty of free time after the breakfast. The chef and me agreed we’ll pay you straight through, no matter what. That’s cause he can’t give you a raise until your probation ends. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t sit right with some of the other cooks.”
“Okay,” Bill said. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” Jimmy Banquet Chef said. “And I want you to work all the banquets you want that you can fit in your schedule.”
“Great,” Bill said.
Back in the kitchen, the cooks, pantry people and even the stewards ate roast tenderloin of beef for lunch. Jimmy Banquet Chef and Bill served up after they’d set the main kitchen completely in order and ready for the cleaning crew that steam-cleaned and polished overnight.
Jimmy gave Bill and Jimmy G one whole tenderloin to feed the Falstaff Room staff, and since there were still some left over tenderloins, he gave them those too for Caesar to run as a dinner special. These were set aside with the Falstaff Room food along with the left over broccoli and scalloped potatoes. That would be the vegetable for the night and a potato du jour.
No muss, no fuss, no waste. Food cost was always an issue.
Jimmy G and Bill could stretch their free time to almost an hour since they were already both there and had some things in place.
“Don’t forget to put on a clean uniform,” Jimmy Banquet Chef told Bill. He gave Bill a big wink.
