Buzzzzzz

If I write a book about my life in pizza, today's events and goings on will definitely emerge as the begining of the fun part of text. Yesterday started in chaos and miserable feelings and emerged and ended into order and happy vibes. Today started with happy vibes and a lot of productivity and ended in chaos and upset people and a chef/owner who was threatening mutiny at himself (!?) There was not a communication breakdown between me and L so much as a personality breakdown, something that I've never experienced and don't quite know how to describe. L apologized and copped to making a mistake by the end of the night, but it was all a bit...weird. It's now 3am, I need to be back at the shop in 7 hours, and I'm still buzzing on the fumes.

It all started with a side of fresh garlic requested by a customer. It all went quickly downhill from there. Remind me to tell you this story some time. I'm goin' to bed and gonna snuggle hard with my B and her big ol' B-belly!

BREAKFAST: 8am, apple juice, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, small organic oatmeal with mango and grapes, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
L was nice and brought me a hi-quality energy food get us going.

LUNCH: 2pm, a slice, a Manhattan Special, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

RESTAURANT HAZE: 3pm-2am, not sure what I ate, vaguely remember a cream soda, a couple of small pieces of experimental squid pizza, a few bottles of water, a taste of meat ball, a scoop of chestnut honey gelato, ? bowls, hunger ?/5

AM WATERING: 2:30am, quart of liquid NYC tap

The Most Passive Aggresive Pizza Ever.

Weighed in at 219.4 this evening, after a long hard shift at the restaurant. I went to school this morning, and when I came in, L was on the warpath and the kitchen staff was literally on the edge of quitting. My hunkering down, sucking it up, leading by example, and offering some positive commentary helped to calm things down a bit. But when L gave us a lunch of one meat ball each, I went back to him and pointedly asked, Ware we having with that? So he sent out the most passive aggressive pizza EVER, a medium pie with only sauce and basil leaves...no cheese, no oregano, no nuthin'....and he didn't even let me cut it, he said, "Tear it." Weird.

The dinner rush came, and despite all the ill will and yelling, we pulled it together and got each other's backs. Not too bad. By the end of the night, L and I were smiling at each other. We did better. Not great, not even good, but better. I'm not ready to crank out pizzas along side him yet, but I've been watching closely, taking the abuse, taking notes, and feel ready for tomorrow.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic chex with dead organic milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9am, salami on french bread slices with herbed butter, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 5:30pm, 1 meatball, small amount of cheeseless pizza, sprite, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

RESTAURANT DAZE: 5:30pm-12:30pm, water straight from tap, a few snippets of mushroom, a cream soda, a cranberry lime GuS, half a glass of tap beer, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
I gotta bring in a water bottle tomorrow.

AM WATERING: 1:15am, a quart o' aqua, por favor.

No More Cheese

Played hooky from school to spend the day at the 2nd full day of the restaurant being open. It went both a lot better and a lot worse -- on one hand, the kitchen staff is really coming together, we're figuring out who does what, who can do what, who can't, stations are being established, we're getting some the supplies we need, and the lunch services was a lot more organized. On the worse side, by 8:30 we were deep in the weeds, some customers were PISSED because they were waiting over an hour for a pizza, and on top of that, we ran out of friggin' mozzarella! We closed the pizza kitchen down to new orders at 9pm, with the line that we were 'sold out'. Yeah, sold out, but that's more poor ordering than being too successful. L copped that it was his fault, but in the next few weeks, when things are smoother, it'll be my fault!

Remembered to eat today, and reminded L to feed the staff, which we did, good vibes all around. Becoming friendlier with the front of house -- all the comments I collected from them yesterday, I was able to respond to today after consulting with L.

Long day, but it was cool. Looking forward to going to school, and looking forward to the weekend -- spend some quality time with the B and hopefully do some presential trading with the HVS!

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, glass of apple cider, .5 bowl hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3pm, 2 slices pizza, sprite, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM TASTING: 4:30pm, small slice lobster pizza, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

PM SODA: 7pm, cream soda, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM DRINK: 9pm, glass of latte di mandorla, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9:45pm, a few small squares of cheeseless Sicilian, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM WATERING: 12:45am, quart of the wet stuff

Open Sesame

Got to the restaurant at 10am, left after midnight, went by in a blink. Lunch was only a handful of customers but we had a good 2 seatings, near capacity, the kitchen didn't collapse but we did get backed up, one customer waited an hour for their pizza. A lot of systems and habits to be worked out, but the team is...good. I suspect there is a lot of accounting and reflection tomorrow.

I will be playing hooky from management class tomorrow, as I have to...actually manage a newly opening restaurant! How neat is that?

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, yogurt with nuts, honey, vanilla, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

RESTAURANT HAZE: 10am-12:30am, a meat ball, a GuS soda, cup of latte de mendorla, a few glasses of water, a slice of pizza, a taste of wine, a small portion of house salad, a few bites of over-fried cheese, a Sprite, 1 bowl or so, hunger 2 to 4/5
Wouldn't have had that Sprite at the end of the night but I was running my mouth at L, telling him everything we needed for the next day, and my throat just started to stick to itself.

AM WATERING: 1:15am, quart of the wet stuff

On the cusp

After class, shot over to the restaurant for the first and only real day of prep before opening. Most of the day was spent trying to get organized, figuring out how things will be made, where they should go, discovering what equipment we need -- and what we really need NOW -- while L dealt with the circus of salesmen, purveyors, and friends...just when I needed his attention the most. There was a front-of-house staff meeting, at which I spoke. By the end of the night, only 1 specialty pizza and a few toppings will be available tomorrow, thanks to thoughtful menu design (pat myself on the back here.)

Don't know how it's going to be tomorrow, but I hope it's not too much of a sh@tshow! It's a soft opening, so hopefully no one will judge us too harshly if things don't go totally smooth.

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, swig of apple cider

AM SNACK: 10:15am, apple fritter, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3pm, quarter of a turkey sandwich, half a soup, cream soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM TASTING: 4-9pm, bits of cheeses, vegetable, a meatball, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 10pm, 2 slices Sicilian, 1 beer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING WATERING: 11:30, quart

Pizza geekfest

Volunteered at the Astor Center today on a pretty excellent pizza class from this guy, really impressive. First a short walking tour of some classic food supply shops on Grand Street, Little Italy, then to the kitchen where we made dough and banged out a series of pizzas. It was wonderful to talk to and relate to a guy who has similar passion for pizza as myself, but clearly knows much more, has much more experience, and can cook pizza much better.

Since his class was geared toward home cooking, we used a fresh rather than aged dough, in ovens running between 500-600 on stones. He demonstrated a straight-ahead marg similar in style to L's, then a white pie redolent in rosemary and potato, similar to R's at the Prospect Heights restaurant. At the end of class, he demonstrated a dessert pie which at first had me doubting -- he was using tallegio, a cheese that I love, but the only pie with it I had was at Otto, and it was just not working. But Mark's application of the cheese was nice and light, and he matched it with a little bit of thinly sliced pear, honey, and truffle oil. Oh my, this guy knows what he's doing.

I talked with him a bit, we both confessed our love for Stouffer's french bread pizza, he's very much a Totonno's guy (like L) and our feelings on various pizza topics like Franny's price-point, the recent pizza trend, our shared passion for Pepe's clam pie. He does a pizza roundtable in his home for his friends, I could only hope to someday be invited -- a pizza-geek's wet dream.

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, organic chex with organic dead milk, 1 chocolate chip cookie, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH 11am-4pm, taste of different cheeses and salamis, various tiny wedges of many pizzas, taste of 5 wine paring, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER; 7pm, bulgogi, dumplings, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, a couple of spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream