ways to tick off the camp manager

I sense that I have a different way of dealing with stress than the 1st cook does. I have noticed that in the past few days the 1st cook has taken to coming into the kitchen, running around like a complete and total mad man trying to get everything done in the shortest time possible and then leaving the kitchen for a 'quick smoke' (won't go into my usual confusion of how a smoker can take 8 ten minute smoke breaks a day, plus their coffee break and lunch break, and be considered a hard worker but a non-smoker takes an extra 10 minute break on top of their coffee break and lunch break and they are considered lazy) and then comes back into the kitchen with a frenzied look in his eyes and does the cycle over again. However, my method of dealing with the stress and all is just to basically shut down everything, plod away at what I have to do and have the attitude of 'if it gets done, it gets done; if it doesn't, then it didn't get done'.

For instance, we have to make a vegetarian dish every night for the herbivores (all 5 of them) in camp. The 1st cook had no idea what to make so he grabbed the eggplant (that has been in the fridge for quite some time) and threw together some eggplant Parmesan, or at least the camp version of it. Cut the eggplant into large round circles, dredged them in flour, deep fried them and then stacked them in the baking pan with spaghetti sauce (sauce, eggplant, mozza cheese, eggplant, mozza cheese, parm cheese). They must have looked really good cause most guys during dinner service would go 'wow, that looks tasty' and grab the spatula and just as they were getting one to put on their plate they asked me 'what is it?' and when I said 'eggplant Parmesan' it instantly got put back in the pan and they made a face and moved on. Anyways, he came out with two pans of eggplant and said "ok, I have 20 parmesans, think that will be enough?" I looked at the pans and asked "do you have any more eggplant?" to which he replied "nope" so my simple answer was 'then I guess that is enough'. He sort of looked at me dumbfounded like 'my god, why didn't I think of that logic?!?!?!?' and smiled and went "I like the way you are thinking" and went off on another frenzy run.

So what does our differing attitude have to do with what I am going to say? well, I have discovered that from my total lack of enthusiasm and all in camp this rotation I have discovered 3 ways to tick off Tony.

#1 : Purple cabbage out as a vegetable.
As 2nd cook duties I am responsible for putting out a vegetable. I found that green steamed cabbage seems to go pretty good but I was out of that and wondered how purple cabbage would go over. I had it cut up for Mondays dinner but was told by Tony not to put it out with the other vegetable cause the two were not that strong and no one eats steamed cabbage. I had the cabbage already cut up so I ran it as a vegetable on Tuesday. I noticed his look of disgust when he was walking by the vegetable part of the steam line.

#2 : Play 'guess the spice' in the food.
I made the roast potatoes for supper. As they were coming out of the oven Tony came by and took one and bite into it. Without thinking I asked 'can you taste the rosemary?' to which he said "oh yeah, lots of it". Well there was no rosemary and I told him that there wasn't because "I know better than to put rosemary into anything when you are in camp". Tony hates rosemary in anything it seems. He says it isn't the taste but the fact that you sometimes get the needles stabbing you in the mouth/gums when you bite into the item. He looked at me with either a look of 'you ticked me off, mortal!' or 'no rosemary, so what am I tasting?' I did mention it was another herb he hates and he got it on the next guess. I said there was basil, thyme (the other spice he hates), pepper, seasoning salt and paprika. He said that basil and thyme do not go together since basil goes with food and thyme goes with the garbage.

#3 : say you will get something when you have no right, apparently, to do so
There is a guy in camp that we call craphead (well, technically another word for crap but yeah, you get the idea). We call him this cause he is a pain in the butt and he has dreadlocks that are curled and tied up on his head and, as the 1st cook puts it, he looks 'like someone did a triple coiler on his head'. Anyways, the guy came up to me and asked if we had a set menu (I confirmed our set 8 week menu) and asked if he could get a copy of it to take to a nutritionist. I only said that I would check with the cook and all and see about getting a copy. I asked the 1st cook and was told 'tell him to go to hell'; I asked Stephanie in the office and was told 'tell him to go to hell'; and then I asked Tony and was told 'tell him to fornicate himself and then go to hell'. As well as having the same answer to the request they had the same reason. Apparently they are worried that he doesn't want it for his own personal use but because he wants to take the menu to one of the big wigs to complain that there are not enough vegetarian options and say that we are starving the vegetarians with all our meat eating ways. The big bosses then will force us to make half and half vegetarian to meat eating food items which will make more work for the cooks plus drive food costs up since that means a lot more vegetables. The big bosses however will have no clue that it is not a good idea because there are about 195 mouths that are meat and potato loving men and only 5 pseudo-vegetarians since most of them are the main eaters of chicken wings on junk food night and will kill any poached/steamed fish that we put on the line.

In the end I told craphead that he had to talk to Tony about the menu since they all agreed that a menu does nothing for a nutritionist since it isn't what is on the menu that they need to know but what goes into that food item and how it is cooked. The menu may say "chicken breasts" but there is a difference between a slow steamed chicken breast with no seasoning or skin and a chicken breast that is battered with bread crumbs, deep fried and served with a white gravy sauce. So yeah, Tony was not impressed on that one either since I apparently leaked out that we have a set menu now that is hanging on our back board and the menu isn't a 'make it up as you go along with what is available' type deal.

So yeah, three ways to tick off Tony. Now if that had happened a year or even 6 months ago I would have been stressing out on the fact that I might have done a bad job and be worried about the consequences to my actions. These days I look and go 'it was done, get over it' and go about my regular plugging away.

On the bright side, we are getting our two new cooks (HOPEFULLY) today, if there is a plane coming in and all. Though they wont be going right to work since they have to waste half a day in orientation learning the proper way to dispose of oil and other industrial fluids like brake, transmission fluids and drilling lubricant as well as the proper procedure for laying down drilling hoses on ice so as not to melt away portions that could cause an unsafe working condition. Another general broad spectrum waste of time brought to you by your friendly minds of the company. So we are thinking that I am on days until Thursday afternoon and then I go to sleep for half of the day and get up to do Thursday 8:30pm to Friday morning 8:30am and then I am on nights for one week to do breakfast.