Papapoopski needs therapy and food

[Meadow Skipper]

It's like you guys are complaining that he said it wasn't over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. Forget it, he's rolling.

^ This

[Cruiser]

Pipe down you 2...

[BmillsSkier]

That's me on the right.

[riser4]

That's me on the right.

Trick question: stage right?

[BmillsSkier]

Lookers right.

[EWG]

Lookers right.

You've seen better days.

[BmillsSkier]

COVID has been hard.

[skaredshtles]

That reminds me - have you seen the Mark Birbiglia stand-up special where he talks about cursing when doing a comedy show in Canada with the Muppets?

That guys is hilarious. I don't think that he's as funny as Papapoopski, but he's funny.

[Marshall Tucker]

Pipe down you 2...

GTF off my lawn.
punk.

[papapoopski]

No, you guys are right to question. Truth and details matter to me.

I worked at a Hyatt Hotel in the mid 90’s. Google tells me that it had about 500 rooms and banquets for only 600.

I was told that at the time this was the largest banquet facility on the east coast and that it had the capacity to serve 10,000. Maybe they counted that as 10,000 meals per day at total food capacity for the hotel in 6 restaurants, room service and banquets. I don't know. A calculator gets me to about 8000 meals or so per day not counting employee meals, outside events and outdoor food areas all going 24 hours a day. But then the 3000 plated? Not sure. I’m fine with the questions. Go ahead and poke holes in my information. I think you should. If I saw it with my own eyes it is the truth. I just accepted that number and never thought about it until someone questioned it. Lesson learned. I'll do better and stick to what I've seen with my own eyes and know to be true. Back then I was 19 at the time. These days I can tell you the exact numbers for just about everything because I have to know them. Back then it was just shut up and do what we tell you. Misrepresentation bothers the fuck out of me and that's what I just did. Dear self, fuck you.

Most of my time there was in the show kitchen. I would get pulled to work on bigger events here and there. On one such event I worked on a line for a huge plated dinner. I was the green bean guy for about 45 minutes. Before my tub of green beans ran out I would have to yell “green beans, line 1”. We were told the goal was to move about 1 plate per second. There were two lines moving the food forward making identical plates. Each person put one food item on a plate and slid it down the line to the next person. The chef was at the end of the two converging lines instructing waiters to get the fucking food into the fucking hot boxes faster and get it to the fucking banquet room. He was pissed that day. The sous chefs were getting ripped apart by the chef, which was fine, they were mostly ass holes.

I saw steamship rounds wheeled out one after another to a massive room that had electric dividers to either enclose half the room or open the whole thing. I was stationed as a carving guy on one of those steamship rounds. A steamship round is a whole hind quarter of beef, roasted on the bone. One steamship round serves a fuckton of people. This was a standing room event with no tables which allows for a lot more bodies. I don't know how many steamship rounds we served.

At times I think the simple truth is enough to stand on its own, a simple statement. At times I describe the truth in fun or to express myself, like calling the inside of a giant rotating oven the ferris wheel of death. Nobody is actually in there eating corn dogs. Or I may sugar coat it, like a Christmas tree. "Look honey, let's put lights and shiny ornaments on our dead branch." Everything about the dead branch is real and true, it just looks better than a plain old dead branch. It'll be the same with my words. I will always endeavor to tell the truth. I have the word truth tattooed on my back in Norse runes as part of a bigger design that I drew. Next to the word truth is the word courage, because that’s what I need to tell all of the truth. I'll be telling you just about everything that I can, some of it described with humor which I think is just decorating the truth with words.

There's no rhyme or reason to any of what I'm going to tell you. I just need to get this shit out of me. I've given you junk food so far, the easy stuff. I'm afraid this isn't going to go in the direction you may want or expect. You're going to get all of me here. I use humor as a shield. I'm sorry in advance.

By the way I hate chef hats. I had to wear a tall paper chef hat in the show kitchen in SC. I would sweat through the paper and it would fall over my eyes while cooking, pan in one hand, tongs in the other. So, I'd knock it off myself with my arm. Sometimes it would fall on the grill and catch fire. It got sucked up into the hood once during service.
I was told to keep a small bain of oil with a rag in it to mop over the grill so the guests could see big flames every now and then. You want flames, I'm your guy. I could ignite flames up over my head and into the hood system. I was told to tone it down.

[Mazderati]

I hope there are onion volcanos.

[skaredshtles]

<snip>
By the way I hate chef hats. I had to wear a tall paper chef hat in the show kitchen in SC. I would sweat through the paper and it would fall over my eyes while cooking, pan in one hand, tongs in the other. So, I'd knock it off myself with my arm. Sometimes it would fall on the grill and catch fire. It got sucked up into the hood once during service.
I was told to keep a small bain of oil with a rag in it to mop over the grill so the guests could see big flames every now and then. You want flames, I'm your guy. I could ignite flames up over my head and into the hood system. I was told to tone it down.

For some reason, *this* one really made me laff. Thanks for that.

[BmillsSkier]

No, you guys are right to question. Truth and details matter to me.

I worked at a Hyatt Hotel in the mid 90’s. Google tells me that it had about 500 rooms and banquets for only 600.

I was told that at the time this was the largest banquet facility on the east coast and that it had the capacity to serve 10,000. Maybe they counted that as 10,000 meals per day at total food capacity for the hotel in 6 restaurants, room service and banquets. I don't know. A calculator gets me to about 8000 meals or so per day not counting employee meals, outside events and outdoor food areas all going 24 hours a day. But then the 3000 plated? Not sure. I’m fine with the questions. Go ahead and poke holes in my information. I think you should. If I saw it with my own eyes it is the truth. I just accepted that number and never thought about it until someone questioned it. Lesson learned. I'll do better and stick to what I've seen with my own eyes and know to be true. Back then I was 19 at the time. These days I can tell you the exact numbers for just about everything because I have to know them. Back then it was just shut up and do what we tell you. Misrepresentation bothers the fuck out of me and that's what I just did. Dear self, fuck you.

Most of my time there was in the show kitchen. I would get pulled to work on bigger events here and there. On one such event I worked on a line for a huge plated dinner. I was the green bean guy for about 45 minutes. Before my tub of green beans ran out I would have to yell “green beans, line 1”. We were told the goal was to move about 1 plate per second. There were two lines moving the food forward making identical plates. Each person put one food item on a plate and slid it down the line to the next person. The chef was at the end of the two converging lines instructing waiters to get the fucking food into the fucking hot boxes faster and get it to the fucking banquet room. He was pissed that day. The sous chefs were getting ripped apart by the chef, which was fine, they were mostly ass holes.

I saw steamship rounds wheeled out one after another to a massive room that had electric dividers to either enclose half the room or open the whole thing. I was stationed as a carving guy on one of those steamship rounds. A steamship round is a whole hind quarter of beef, roasted on the bone. One steamship round serves a fuckton of people. This was a standing room event with no tables which allows for a lot more bodies. I don't know how many steamship rounds we served.

At times I think the simple truth is enough to stand on its own, a simple statement. At times I describe the truth in fun or to express myself, like calling the inside of a giant rotating oven the ferris wheel of death. Nobody is actually in there eating corn dogs. Or I may sugar coat it, like a Christmas tree. "Look honey, let's put lights and shiny ornaments on our dead branch." Everything about the dead branch is real and true, it just looks better than a plain old dead branch. It'll be the same with my words. I will always endeavor to tell the truth. I have the word truth tattooed on my back in Norse runes as part of a bigger design that I drew. Next to the word truth is the word courage, because that’s what I need to tell all of the truth. I'll be telling you just about everything that I can, some of it described with humor which I think is just decorating the truth with words.

There's no rhyme or reason to any of what I'm going to tell you. I just need to get this shit out of me. I've given you junk food so far, the easy stuff. I'm afraid this isn't going to go in the direction you may want or expect. You're going to get all of me here. I use humor as a shield. I'm sorry in advance.

By the way I hate chef hats. I had to wear a tall paper chef hat in the show kitchen in SC. I would sweat through the paper and it would fall over my eyes while cooking, pan in one hand, tongs in the other. So, I'd knock it off myself with my arm. Sometimes it would fall on the grill and catch fire. It got sucked up into the hood once during service.
I was told to keep a small bain of oil with a rag in it to mop over the grill so the guests could see big flames every now and then. You want flames, I'm your guy. I could ignite flames up over my head and into the hood system. I was told to tone it down.

I think I can speak for Marshall when I say, please, absolutely no apologies necessary. We’re just a couple of clowns lucky enough to spend a fair bit of time on that island and it’s fun trying to determine the location of a place when someone mentions your town.

It’s the same reason I still jump up and point at the TV every time they show an arial view of ATL. Hey! There’s our house! Doesn’t matter if no one else is in the room. It’s silly and I can’t help it.

[papapoopski]

Crazy Lady in Ripped Stockings

In the restaurant we decided to set up a makeshift casino night for fun. This would be just for us and way after hours. There were only 3 of us. I have a full size slot machine that came out of a casino that we keep in storage. We had cards, dice, tons of shitty canned beer despite having good stuff on tap right next us. There's a rack full of hats that guests have left here over the years. We wear them and assume made up personalities. We were pretending to be high rollers and just yelled at each other.

A few hours into the middle of the night a woman shows up inside the restaurant in a tiny outfit with ripped fishnet stockings. She is terrified and shaking and talking about how her boyfriend wants to kill her. We ask where she came from and she mumbles across the street. That's a corn field. The three of us get all drunken gung ho and grab a piece firewood each as we head out the door. We can't find him. We come back in and call the cops, then hide all the casino shit. She tells us that her boyfriend is a marine, a body builder and usually carries a gun. Fucking hell lady we coulda used that info 15 minutes ago before we grabbed the kindling and left.

Cops arrive and find the guy. We never saw the woman again. The cops come over to question me, I don't have much to tell that they can't see for themselves. I very specifically ask that they not include us in the details of him getting caught. Five minutes later a cop car drives into my lot with the guy cuffed in the back staring at me like a god damn demon. Thanks dicks.

[riser4]

At least they weren't trailer park dicks.

[dan_pdx]

Not a candle to Papapoopski (is there a story behind that name?), but one summer in high school, I bussed tables on a floating restaurant in the Willamette in downtown Portland. There was an outside deck with maybe 20-30 tables that would be staffed with a couple of servers and one busboy. Bussing the deck in the summer was typically a noon to midnight shift and I would be deep in the weeds from happy hour until close, but after getting tipped out by the servers, I would walk with about $100 in cash -- back when minimum wage was $3.25.

On my first day working there, the manager gave me a tour and introduced me to the staff. When he introduced the sous chefs, he told me "These are the sous chefs. 'Sous' means 'sauce' in French." I was a lippy little shit who'd had a few years of French in junior high and high school, but even so I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

[Core Shot]

There's no rhyme or reason to any of what I'm going to tell you. I just need to get this shit out of me. I've given you junk food so far, the easy stuff. I'm afraid this isn't going to go in the direction you may want or expect. You're going to get all of me here. I use humor as a shield. I'm sorry in advance.

Excellent

[jono]

I learned a valuable lesson that day about not freaking the fuck out when presented with a problem. The problem would be there whether or not I am calm, frustrated, angry, drunk, screaming or whatever. I had a choice on how to handle the problem. Thanks Chef P.

That's awesome. Lots of good stuff in here but this really stood out to me. Great longform thread, thanks!

[papapoopski]

Welp, slow night of service, as expected. Dumping some more.

For those wondering where the name papapoopski cam from. I really have no idea. It just sounded funny to me at the time.

[papapoopski]

Guests
Thomas Keller wrote that he does not have customers, he has guests. I like that. Some of our guests are ass holes.

I was in the kitchen, prepping for service. A couple comes to the kitchen door and asks about dining with us that night. Happy to have you. I make a reservation for them. Their arms are very loose and floppy, like all the bones fell out. I thought it was weird but whatever. Good luck using your fork later.

They were very strange coming in for their reservation. She ordered and then drank two bottles of white zinfandel. She passes out and falls out of her chair. She gets up, refuses medical attention, fuck that, we call anyway. She refuses to talk to the paramedics, just wants to finish her dinner. Her husband is driving. About 20 minutes later she projectile vomits on her table and the two tables next to her. We had tried to move the guests at the other tables prior to this because the lady was really loud and obnoxious. But they really wanted those seats. Shoulda listened.

They leave. We clean up her vomit from the old wide plank floors, the Riedel stemware on the hutch and off of the painting on the wall.

The next day we have a voicemail waiting at the restaurant. The woman states that although she loved dinner and appreciates out graciousness, but she would like to be compensated, monetarily, for contributing to her condition. I call her back. Turns out she was the photographer for a local event at a winery and had been drinking all day before her arrival. She was also taking antibiotics.

She's got balls. I'll give her that.

[papapoopski]

Hurricane Irene at the Restaurant

The recession years starting in 2008 had already beaten the ever loving shit out of me. Keeping a fine dining restaurant afloat through those years is one of my best professional accomplishments.

On August 28, 2011 Irene came to town. You bitch. A state of emergency was called at 9pm. We had opened earlier that day but closed up early. All staff were out by 6pm. I did my usual routine for heavy rain, check the gutters and down spouts. I set up an extra sump pump just in case. That's two, 2" lines running off of two pretty big pumps. Then I went home. My wife and kids went to stay with her Mom, I would watch the house. At about 10pm a wall of wind and rain came in. It was intense but I didn't think too much of it.

First thing next day, call my wife, they're fine. Great, I'm going to check the restaurant. After 3 minutes of driving I see that this storm is different. Raging rivers in corn fields, power lines down, sections of road are gone. Fuck. I drive through very deep water several times. No big deal, done it before. It took me a long time to get to the restaurant.

The restaurant parking lot is underwater. I cannot conceive how this is possible. The bridge up the street is washed out. The river has overflowed over the top of the bridge. WTF.

There is six feet of water inside one of the dining rooms of the restaurant. The upper level is ok. The furnace is underwater. The chest freezer in the basement is floating but running somehow. The electrical panel has water going up to the bottom 2 breakers. Tables and chairs are floating. Holy fuck. Both sump pumps are still running. How is this possible?

The power goes out later that day. Well fuck, not much I can do now. I taped off the walk-in and locked the door and hoped for the best.

The water just kept rising.

A week later Tropical storm Lee came to town. Fuck you Lee. That was the nail in the coffin. All food lost in the walk-in. Furniture and equipment trashed. A steady stream of water ran through the building for 3 weeks.

My home was far worse. I lost the house, both of our cars, everything we owned. We had the clothes on our back and that was it.

At this point in my life I knew how to deal with problems, but damn this was a big one. My wife I and my two children slept on the floor under bathroom towels with couch pillows. My oldest was 3. One night she insisted on making our "bed". She proudly laid out the towels and pillows. She wanted to tuck us all in. She crawled up between us and just beemed with happiness at me that she could do this for us. For all we had just lost she didn't care. She taught me a lot that night.

It took me about five or so years to fully recover from that storm. Financially and otherwise. Those years were more difficult than the storm itself. Fighting the bank, fighting to keep what I had worked for. Just the constant fight, every fucking day, for years. Being served foreclosure papers for my house, while at work, while guests are walking in the front door was tough. I had to teach myself how to be a lawyer. I worked with countless agencies like FEMA etc. I received no insurance money for home or business. Just the cars, that's it. One of the toughest parts was that many around me were not heavily affected so nobody could understand what was happening. I had to keep up appearances at the restaurant, that foie torchon better be just right, never mind that my kids don't have a home. The long slow grind of trying to get back up wore on me.

I worked my way out of it eventually. My kids are strong, smart and resilient. Somehow my marriage stayed intact. My kids have a home. I fought and I won.


Some of you here on this site helped me get through that time with simple small acts of kindness. I am forever grateful.

[papapoopski]

How to punch a fish in the face

I'm not proud of this.

When I was little, my brothers and I would go out to the docks at a nearby lake and spit in the water. When the sunfish would come up to see if it was food, we'd punch them in the face. We called it sunny-punching. What a bunch of ass holes we were. When my dad found out he set us straight.

I have a lot more respect for fish now.

[papapoopski]

My kitchen and Rocky

In my kitchen nobody calls me chef. We don’t have titles. The name boss or bossman seems to have stuck but I don’t ask that anyone calls me anything. We just do the work. I usually train up dishwashers or young cooks still in high school. I watch them work and ask if they have an interest in cooking. If so, we start slow. Giving responsibility to the young can be a powerful thing. They usually own it. I have guys that stay with me for a long time, until it's time for them to grow professionally. It's bittersweet to see them go but I know they're going on to better things.

I made a powerpoint sheet with scaled models of all the equipment in my kitchen. I move around the kitchen equipment every so often for no reason. I just desire change which I hope to equate with progress. Most times it works. I include the kitchen crew in the thoughts so that they understand that you should consider which way a door swings and that people criss crossing paths will suck. If the change doesn’t work on paper then fine but we're still better for the experience. Changes like this keep all of us on our toes, never complacent. The previous owners expanded this kitchen. They did much of the work themselves. Coming from some NYC kitchens, this kitchen is very big for the size of restaurant I have.

I try to give as much creative freedom to the crew as possible. I push them to bring in ideas. I still have final say in all decisions because someone has to. I ask them where they see themselves in 5 years, what their hopes and dreams are.

If they ask me what I think of something I always counter with, what do you think? They fucking hate it when I do that. But you’re not leaving here as a robot. You will leave here on your own two feet. If you never cook again fine, but take the work ethic with you. While you are here I will show how to be a machine of war on the hot line. Organized, efficient, calm, ready for anything. I think it will help you in life. It did for me.

I don't know how the raccoon got into the hood system. I can only imagine it pulled the siding off, chewed through the duct work and wound up behind the fresh air intake. You little fucker. During service its little hands were poking out of the fresh air vents. This is not good. Mid service I have to determine levels of importance for each situation in order to get the food out and keep the guests happy. Kitchen drain pipe blows out during service puking all over the floor? I should handle that now. The raccoon situation would have to wait so I turned off the fresh air intake and closed the louvers on the vents. I don't think raccoons throw their poop like howler monkeys do but I'm not taking the chance.

The area above the kitchen has at most 18" of center height to the roofline. It is joists and insulation on the floor. Nails protrude through the roof shingles. The duct work for the hood system is a solid 30 feet into this crawl space. After work I put on my Tyvek suit (I use this for all the nasty shit that I have to deal with) and headlamp. I fashioned a spear with a broom handle, zip ties and an old kitchen knife and army crawled into the dark.

This poor fucker was terrified but wouldn't move. I didn't plan on killing it but if you rush at my face, you get the spear. I find that it's leg is caught up in wire from the insulation tube surrounding the air ducts. Rocky made a mess of himself and the duct work. I could see blood and flesh on his leg. Ok, get the wire cutters and fashion one of those animal control sticks out of 1" pvc and some rope. I can now loop the rope around his neck and keep his teeth away from my face while I cut away the wire. Holy shit Rocky, I can't make out anything between the fur, blood, wire and insulation all tangled together.

I was in there on my stomach for about an hour and a half, laying across the joists. One hand is keeping the rope taught so Rocky doesn't rip into my face, the other is trying to cut the wires away. This was summertime, in the crawlspace above the kitchen that had been running at full throttle all night, with the intake fan turned off. I could barely see through the sweat in my eyes. The Tyvek suit wasn't helping. I got Rocky out, we were both exhausted and pissed off. Sure I could have just killed Rocky and made my life easier but I know what being trapped feels like. I didn't want Rocky to have to go out like that.

I did all this after service because the textbook for my animal stuck in the hood system class at cooking school states that walking a bleeding, thrashing live animal through the restaurant during service is frowned upon. I let Rocky go, out by the dumpster. I knew he would like there. And I took no such class in cooking school.

[Meadow Skipper]

At this point in my life I knew how to deal with problems, but damn this was a big one. My wife I and my two children slept on the floor under bathroom towels with couch pillows. My oldest was 3. One night she insisted on making our "bed". She proudly laid out the towels and pillows. She wanted to tuck us all in. She crawled up between us and just beemed with happiness at me that she could do this for us. For all we had just lost she didn't care. She taught me a lot that night.

Dude... That was so poignant.

How to punch a fish in the face

I'm not proud of this.

When I was little, my brothers and I would go out to the docks at a nearby lake and spit in the water. When the sunfish would come up to see if it was food, we'd punch them in the face. We called it sunny-punching. What a bunch of ass holes we were. When my dad found out he set us straight.

I have a lot more respect for fish now.

That was pretty funny though.

ETA

I don't know how the raccoon got into the hood system.

That’s how a good story starts.

[BmillsSkier]

Dude... That was so poignant.


That was pretty funny though.

ETA

That’s how a good story starts.

Agreed on all points. But especially the first. That one left a lump in the throat.