for two days this week i was a gardener-maintainer-landscape artist.
yesterday, i joined a fascinating team of catering chefs.
inspired by all this culinary splendor, today, i opened "le bonne cuisine" and hunted for a recipe for beef brains or 'les cervelle du buerre noir'
mmmmm… it was yummy.
i can't use any names because everyone is so secretive around here. but i can plug lafoodworks.com
they can hardly object to free advertising.
i arrived five minutes late in west hollywood yesterday. that was because i have this habit of guessing wrong when i should turn either right or left. then it takes a while to correct the mistake.
i fell in love with the site of lafoodworks from the start. it had a nice entrance, then a patio with outdoor tables made with ceramic tiles. everything was sunny and green.
but inside was the epitome of culinary ambiance…. the light, the equipment, the cleanliness and order were impressive.
after meeting a few of the chefs for this occassion (a dinner for 80 people) i was sent to the market for some supplies. it was an adventure and all went well except that i was given $100 cash and the bill turned out to be $216. even though i had my cellphone, i of course, as is my idiotic propensity, chose to handle it myself. so i floated a check on a bank balance already in 'overdraft'.
but i was determined to not come back without the list i was given being fulfilled to the last detail.
the crab for the crabcakes was seven eight ounce cold containers in a new packaging (not cans). i was told to get cans. they didn't have cans. anyway these 'cans' are not really what we call cans but round plastic coated aluminum containers with hermetically sealed lids. that's the way you get it in the ice near the fresh fish counter.
so i was sent back to return the expensive crab meat and continue on to 'smart and final' to find the other form of crab meat.
the first thing the manager said to me looking at my seven containers of crab was "but these are no good… they're warm." i showed her the time on the receipt and she relented, but wouldn't let me buy back my check. instead she punched in some data which i provided and handed me a sparkling new creditcard explaining that the card represented a 'store credit' for the $118 worth of returned crab.
i accepted it, somewhat tickled at modern life. but my boss was not at all pleased and it cost me being eliminated from the staff for the main event… the party on sunday night.
no problem. "the way of the flow of the river of life is written in the sands."
so i climbed the hill again today to go collect my measly pay for saturday, they were gone to the 'site' as we say. i called my connection and instead of telling me where he was, put me off until monday morning at 9:00 a.m. at his house. now he's supposed to be a good friend of seven years standing. if he had paid me at the end of the day on saturday, knowing that i would be dropped from the team for the final presentation/celebration, he would have saved me two trips from the valley to west hollywood. my cost for going back and forth not to mention the agony of the time wasted and the sweatbox of my jeep in 90 degree weather in los angeles traffic two additional days totally wipes out any profit from the enterprise for me. i put twenty dollars into an empty gas tank and it's empty again.
so, i went shopping. that,for me is groceries.
i know it's a strange story. but what am i blogging for except to entertain my friends?
have some brains… on me. who seems to be in short supply of them lately.
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after a rich dinner last night i was walking and found a dollar in the street. i went a little further and found another.
