In the Weeds

I'm ready for a drink.

We've been in the weeds all day.  Yesterday too.  Honestly?  Most of the week.

If you work in the restaurant industry you know this expression.  If you don't, you probably get the picture.

In the weeds.  According to Restaurantschools.com, it is an expression used when persons are near or beyond their capacity to handle a situation.  Yep, that pretty much covers it.

We had four weddings.  Each had a bride's cake AND a groom's cake.  And a bunch of cupcakes (with little fondant t-shirts and paper game-day tents on them).  Adding them all up, we made, delivered, and set up enough wedding cake to serve about 1500 guests.  And that's on top of eleven other cakes, just for today.

It started with the damn freezer door and cooking camp on Tuesday, which took a lot more out of our day than I had planned.  I knew we were going to be down one worker.  (What was I thinking when I told her she could take the week off to go to the beach on a long-planned holiday?  And just because I can't take a week off to go to the beach doesn't mean nobody else can -- or should.)

The fact that someone had left the freezer door open on Saturday, and it went unnoticed until we opened on Tuesday, didn't help.  Mostly cookie doughs and melted gelato.  And my insurance policy doesn't cover dumb acts by humans who work here.

Then we lose one worker on Thursday afternoons to the Farmer's Market.  That was another "not-so-well-thought-out" moment.  My rationale at the time was that we don't have that many cakes going out on Friday.  But I had no contingency plan if we were down anyone else or any of the remaining employees lose efficiency.  You know, have an bad day.

Then on Friday we just could not get our act together until about 4 pm.  So we ordered pizza and decorated cakes until we could no longer see clearly, which was almost 10.

By Saturday morning, the grooms cakes were done, but the bride's cakes ranged from "not even crumb coated" to "iced but not decorated."  We were at 100 mph all day.  Oh, and did I mention the heat index outside is over 110^o?

The last cake has finally been delivered.  The kitchen cleaned, and the cases emptied.  And I have two full days off before we have to do it again next week.

I have a new camera, and am just getting used to it, so I only have pics of some of the wedding cakes.

Our other favorite expression?  That would be "on the fly."  Which is (officially) a directive given when food is needed in a hurry.  As in the customer is waiting.  RIGHT NOW.  That happened to us today too.

Comments

[Delilah Boyd]

To quote my teacher, Roland Mesnier: "Slow down; we're in a hurry." He always said that when there was no recovery time for errors in the schedule.

Congrats on your successful completion of such a monumental task! Your cakes are beautiful!