Bob's Kitchen Catastrophe

Bob had a job which he took very seriously. His sole purpose in life was cooking lobsters. Obviously, there is more that goes into preparing a dish fit for a king, and Bob was up for the task. Bob clocked in at his normal time. He was never late for work, nor was he ever upset over the monotony of it all. The restaurant he worked at was in a bustling city which drew throngs of people who wanted to eat. And today was a Saturday, the busiest day of the week. Before the restaurant opened, there was much prep to be done. A giant pot had to be filled with water, and brought to the boiling point, live lobsters had to be taken from their place in the walk-in refrigerator, and laid on sheet pans, and frozen lobster tails that were thawed out overnight, had to be carefully cut into and set up for service. Sides of baked potatoes, coleslaw, and clarified butter had to be prepared also. The potatoes were smothered with butter and seasoned with salt before being baked in the oven at a low temperature for two hours. Cabbage and carrots had to be shredded for the coleslaw, then mixed together with mayo, vinegar, and the correct amount of seasoning. And the butter was slowly melted over a low flame until the solids separated from the liquids, and the solids could be skimmed off the top.

After all this was done, a flood of customers streamed into the restaurant, chomping at the bit for some of Bob’s famous cuisine. He was not the only cook in the kitchen, of course, but lobster was the primary food of choice for most, but Bob was prepared for it. With tongs in hand, he instinctively threw ten lobsters in the boiling pot. He knew that they would take at least ten minutes to fully cook, and then they had to be cracked open and be cleansed of their innards by running water into their open chest cavity. When the first ten lobsters were done cooking, he threw ten more in. If there were more than ten lobsters in the pot at any given time, the pot would become overcrowded, which would increase the cooking time substantially.

There were now over five hundred people waiting to be served, and Bob and his crew were frantically struggling to keep up. In a moment of panic because of all the orders streaming in, Bob accidentally dipped his hand into the boiling pot, burning his hand severely.

“Son of a gun!” he yelled, seething in agony.

“What happened, Bob?” asked his head chef, Melvin, who was hanging tickets on the order rail.

“I burned me damn self!” shouted Bob, clutching his hand tightly.

“Oh shit,” Melvin replied, “this is not a good time for that.”

He called for a busboy to bring him a bag of ice, but there were none available to help him. His hand was now throbbing, but he had to keep working. He now had over fifty lobsters to crack open with the blunt end of his chef’s knife, and he had to use his left hand, which he was not accustomed to using. It was awkward at first, as he swung down his knife on the lobster’s claws. He missed and hit the table with a loud bang. It took several attempts to hit his mark with enough force, but he finally did it, breaking the shell and revealing the precious meat inside. Then, he had to split the tail in half, using the sharp bladed end of his knife. This required precision and pressure which his bad and shaking hands could not provide.

All the while, tickets were being called by his superior, so he had to stop what he was doing, and ‘fire’ the food which was ready to be taken out to the hungry customers. To do this, he simply had to reheat it in the pot, which sounds easy, but is complicated by the fact that there were already a number of lobsters cooking in the pot, which made finding the right one difficult.

“Bob, we need twelve lobsters from you.” Chef Melvin nervously barked.

“I’m way behind chef, I need more time!” said Bob, as his knife slipped and nearly punctured his hand.

“We don’t have time!” Chef Melvin responded angrily, “We need those lobsters now!”

The tickets were now piling up, and Bob had no time to sort through them all. Instead, he quickly acted, gathering all the uncooked lobsters from the pot onto one sheet pan, then dumping the ones that needed to be fired into the pot so that there would be no confusion when it came time to plate them up. The plates they used were large oval shaped plates that fit the size of the lobsters perfectly. Bob waited five minutes for his food to heat up, lifted them out of the water one by one with his 16” tongs, and let the water drain before placing them on the oval plates. The baked potatoes also went with the dish, which he had to heat up in the oven briefly. Finally, round ramekins of coleslaw and clarified butter which were prepared earlier, were set on the plate and covered by the claws.

After all the food had gone out, service started to slow down a bit, and the whole kitchen could relax and start cleaning up. Still in pain, Bob went to the back of the kitchen where the first aid was, and procured himself some burn cream for his burn. It felt cold when he applied it, and he instantly felt some relief. He wrapped the now blistering wound with some gauze, and put a latex glove over it to protect it while he cleaned up his station. It was a mess, but nothing some soapy water and some elbow grease couldn’t fix. He scrubbed down the stove top which had been splashed with scummy lobster water, and wiped down the oven which was covered in greasy fingerprints. Once the whole kitchen was rendered spotless, the chef allowed Bob and the crew to go home.