No rest for the wicked. They worked. It was not particularly hard work, but it was steady work and it went straight through.
Dish-up for the afternoon parties was a little after two. This was the time that Bill and Jimmy G would be setting up for their room for the dinner service. But that wasn’t happening as per the usual. Jimmy G was instructed to set up on his own until Bill finished with the banquets, and so he went off, away from what was happening in the main kitchen. He’d done this set up alone many times, so in fact it was no big deal. It was just more work.
As was the norm, the closer it got to dish-up the more the pace picked up and the more active the main kitchen became. Stewards began rolling in the warmer trucks. They set the trucks in place and plugged them in so they were ready to be turned on and heated up.
The cooks, the stewards and the pantry women were now all in place in the main kitchen and all getting ready to begin putting their part of the whole meal together. Vegetables were in the rotary oven getting hot. Potatoes were finishing. The prime ribs were coming out. The chicken was finishing up and the rolled filet of sole was just going into the oven to bake. It would cook while everything else was being plated, and when all the other meals were set, that fish would be ready and ready to be served.
Jimmy Banquet Chef was like a symphony conductor now. For a moment he stepped back and watched. He stepped back and directed. Everyone knew what they had to do and they knew how to do it. The pantry women knew exactly how much salad had to go on the plates and exactly how much dressing to toss it in, if it were being tossed. Many times the salad went out naked and the dressings were on the tables. Jimmy Banquet Chef watched everything, directed everything, supervised everything.
Into all of this as it got close to service time came the wait staff. The captains spoke with Jimmy Banquet Chef and the waiters and waitresses stayed off to the side while they waited to go where they were being assigned. Where they were assigned, which banquet, didn’t matter. All tips were built into the banquet charge. Banquet waiters and waitresses only made their hourly wage which was a different fee structure than for restaurant wait staff. Any tips that came over and above what was built in were divvied up. Generally tips depended upon how good the captains were with the customers paying for the banquet.
Beverly was there. Bill saw her as soon as she walked into the kitchen. She looked sharp in her tuxedo. She always looked sharp. To her credit, she completely stayed away from Bill, didn’t acknowledge him at all. Bill was thankful for this and did the same. He looked her over as he would any cute female in the kitchen and then he focused his sights on the next one.
There were only two others. One was older, kind of like Jo Ann in her looks. Like Jo Ann, she was only interested in business. She said hello, good-bye and only business-related talk. The other was French. She was small, no more than five feet tall. She wore her black hair in a page-boy and wore dark red lipstick. It was neither sexy nor suggestive. It was just what she wore. Bill would find she wore it all the time, was always the same in her look.
“Bonjour,” she said to Bill as she passed him by.
“Bonjour,” Bill said. “Ça va?”
“Ça va bien,” she said. She smiled briefly and walked on.
Bill, Victor and Jimmy Banquet Chef were busy now. They’d done the prep, had a smoke during the brief lull, and now they were in full swing.
By Peter Weiss
