The Voltage Gate

We had a huge catering function for parent's weekend, brunch for this past Saturday and Sunday for 800 people. That may sound like a lot, and it does take some work, but it's not a feat in itself. When I was working back in Annapolis, I remember prepping boxed lunches for the Naval Academy for literally thousands, so a buffet brunch for 800 people is usually- pardon the pun - a piece of cake.

But like any catering gig, there's always a catch. The kitchen we were using was deficient. Our steamer was down, one of the convection ovens was glitchy and the conventional oven under the range/salamander was painfully slow. So three hundred pounds of quartered red potatoes had to be transported offsite to be steamed, hotel pans of seasoned turkeys and cheesed ziti were lined up waiting for an open rack and sheets of pumpkin roll were turning out like worthless, rusty paste until the remaining oven was clear for 15 minutes. We usually call this kind of situation a "cluster", and I'm sure you can figure out what that's short for.

It's been over a year since I've worked in a kitchen. Most things you never forget - knife skills, the heat, the grease, speed walking through a crowd of appliances and people - but the more subtle things can be somewhat shocking upon return. In my case, I had forgotten how wasteful most kitchens are, especially when catering events.

Following the order for a brunch for 800 people, you need 1200+ pastries (donuts, danishes, bagels, and sweet breads), a few hundred pieces of whole fruit, hundreds of pounds of boxed liquid eggs, five pounds of cheese for the eggs, six cases of French toast, four cases of sausage, six cases of bacon, hundreds of pounds of cubed potatoes for hash browns (precut and packaged for convenience), 300 pounds of red potatoes for mashing, 10+ roasted turkey breasts, five pit hams, 800+ dinner rolls, ten #10 cans marinara, enough sauce for 40 pounds of pasta for baked ziti, urns and urns of coffee, cider and tea, bottled water, canned soda, seven full sheet cakes, four cheesecakes, then materials for two omelet stations - more veggies, ham, bacon and cheese. The list goes on, believe it or not, but that's a good enough idea for now.

All of these pieces are more or less unprepared. They need to be removed of whatever packaging they come in - cardboard, Styrofoam, cans, bags, bubble wrap, plastic flats - and of all of the restaurants in which I have worked (12 years worth), none of them have recycled any of these materials. They are all collapsed and tossed in the confusion, a slim afterthought.

So for one party we generated enough trash to fill a master bedroom (not including the amount of leftovers, which can be staggering if you're a bad judge of portions) and all of it ended up in the dump - boxes, plastics, trapped rotting organics, everything.

It gets damn busy in the kitchen. You're usually short-staffed and underpaid, and the last thing on a chef's mind is where her trash will end up when she's knee deep in the weeds. I understand that, I really do. Most kitchens could use a bit of environmental enlightenment, however, and it wouldn't be too much of a change if properly implemented and organized. It would just take a few designated areas for recycling and some new directions for the staff.

Last year, before I left to work full time at the newspaper, Heather and I were taking all of the cardboard from the kitchen to the recycling drop off outside of town (they have yet to institute curbside recycling in our area), but with days as busy as this one, you can imagine our limits.

It's times like this when I realize just how much work needs to be done in convincing people to conserve. The recent "green" movement - or whatever you want to call it - seems contradictory. Instead of promoting a philosophy, we are told how we can buy our way out of our environmental crisis. How can we fix our consumption problem in this country by consuming more? If the entire beltway was spinning with hybrids, it still wouldn't be as effective as a major shift to carpooling/public transportation.

The same goes for our kitchen. The university's president is trying to buy his way out of a pinch with his newly copped environmentally friendly vision of Frostburg State. At a higher cost to the students, he has forced campus dining to use biodegradable plastics instead of funding a comprehensive recycling/composting program, which could be demonstrative to their environmental science program. But for the president, it's all about politics, not action. It's pretty hip to care about the Earth right now, it makes one seem relevant and trustworthy, but it's damn hard to be an example for others when you're still driving an SUV and living in a $600,000 home (in an area where the average price for a nice three bedroom is about $70k), both funded by the taxpayers. I know this is normal for high ranking university officials, but it doesn't mean it's acceptable.

So I would really like to hear about restaurants out there making a change in their disposal habits, especially if these places are local and vocal about it. Leave a comment and point me in the right direction, if you would.