"What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow." — A.A. Milne

As I was peeling my second crate of potatoes for the day, which filled the 6th bucket in the last two days (that's a lot of potatoes), I was thinking not only how miserabley monotone peeling potatoes is (what was I thinking when I begged Cava to please hire me as I'd even peel the potatoes) but also thinking how much I liked working in a restaurant. The conviviality, the constant motion, the comfy unflattering outfits, the dopey paper hats, and the satisfaction from seeing food that I have prepared being used to plate dishes. I've been working on the "segundo" station (there's antipasta, pasta, segundo, dolce) so we are in charge of the meat/fish/veg main dishes. I'm shown what to do with an example and then am put to work - I'm just surprised that they trust me so much with my lack of professional culinary experience. My minced onion was larger than the brunoise-y carrots that took me probably 30 minutes to do what a real chef could do in 3. But in they went together for a salsa to be stuffed into an artichoke. I frequently laugh with embarrassment as I cannot imitate the arm motions needed for the cutting knife skills that look so flawless, so natural yet so clumsy and awkward on myself.

Back to the potatoes. In the morning, I cut up potatoes (previously peeled yesterday) to be boiled and then roasted with aromatic salt and rosemary. At lunch, we had roasted chicken and the potatoes I had "made." (made is peeled and cut - not technically in charge of the roasting time). Martin had taken them out of the oven and showing them to Matteo said, they are cooked perfectly. So as I sat down to lunch, I said to Marco, I made these! and later he made an "attenzione attenzione" announcement to the table that I had made the potatoes. I learned a new word. Arrossire means to blush.

Back to the potatoes. Everyone's making fun of me as they walk by for the constant potato action. Just as I'm thinking how horrible it was, Martin comes over and says basta. stop. He calls me over to his station and shows me how he plates some of the dishes as the tickets came in for the lunch service. Then he goes, in three minutes, it's your turn. AHHH. I plated a dish!  Branzino with seafood salad and a vegetable stuff phyllo-pastry. Complete with the sauce streak across the plate like I learned at Cava. It was thrilling and I was grateful and definitely worth all the potato peeling. I went happily back to my bucket, also known as un secchio, and dipped my hand into the icy cold water for another potato.