Hard to blog with no computer and 15 hour work days

Keller Steven Pickren

Georgia/Florida weekend's coming up. Mike I challenge you to a pumpkin carving contest

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So for the past 3 months or so I've been the Garde Manger Chef for the Plantation. Trying to find the medium between refinement and feeding the masses. A little overwhelmed but enthusiastic about my new position. I'm starting to understand why chef's I had worked for always told me to enjoy being a cook while you can. Just come in and enjoy working with the food with a clear head and no fires to put out. No personalities to try and understand and figure out how to manage all while inspiring them to actually care about what they do(garde manger being one of the hardest things to get people to care about. Now I walk in the door ready to be greeted with a slew of problems. I'm starting to understand how to balance it all though. Back to back 15 hour days for weeks at a time take their toll but oddly enough you start to get used it and adjust. I guess chefs build up an immunity to long hours overtime. Sometimes I don't know how Dale's still standing at the end of the day when he hasn't taken a day off in two weeks, came in an hour before I did and left two hours later every night. The guy's a machine. I'm enjoying my new position and all hours, responsibilities and pressures that come along with it and feel like I'm already becoming a better chef from it. I'm excited that the Plantation was bought by a company with such high standards and the resources to truly build the it up to it's full potential. The sky's the limit now, expect big things to happen at the Plantation. To add on to all of the pressures and changes at work, I'm over joyed and a little frightened to say that I'm also going to be a dad in less than two months. Talk about motivation to push myself even harder. There's a new meaning to life now.