Hello all
I just woke up from sleeping 12 hours and I am glad that the Easter Season is over and done with for another year.
I had tuesday & wednesday (in theory) of last week off. I was a bum around the apartment all of tuesday. I was designing computer art until 6:30 am in the morning when I decided to cash in the chips to go to bed. At 8:45 am I hear my machine go off and it is my boss in his thick Austrian accent asking me to come in because we had a large party amd one of my coworkers called in sick because of her kid. It seems our hotel is increadibly lienient when it comes to this or maybe it is because 3 of the women in our department have young kids. so after 2 hours sleep I go into work.
After my shift was done I wanted to start working on the chocolate displays that we would need. I had planned to come in after doing errands around town anyways to do this so since I was already working there on my day off I might as well do it. So I got some balloons from room service and blew them up to capacity about 16 inches round. and I started painting them with chocolate. I got half way done with the first coat and Pop there went the first balloon and chocolate was everywhere. My other Coworker was laughing her head off. so I knew I had a cleanup job ahead of me anyhow so I blew up the second balloon and I got about as far as the first one and Pop ! This one went totally covered me, my glasses and my face and neck etc .... My coworker was just howling. The third one popped pretty quick and dididnt make much of an impact. But I got to the Forth one 3/4 done and there she went.
So I said "I give up" and I spent the next 2 hours cleaning up half of the pastry shop. The walls the windows the cooler doors the exhaust hood and worst of all the ceiling ha ha ha, with the water dripping down my arms. The ceiling tiles were not so bad but getting the chocolate out and off of those textured plastic light covers was a real pain in the butt. Then I had to bring all of our plates upstairs to be run though the big dish machine to get off the spattered chocolate. So many coworkers from other departments just looked at me all covered in chocolate and said what happened to you? I joked with the Executive Sous Chef who was working that night .... "Ok I am ready to go out and explain the desserts to the people on table 14 now ... ha ha ha" At least the night Cleaner cleaned up the floor for me.
The next day after getting grief from all of my other coworkers I decided to try it again but this time the ovens were off so it was cooler in the pastry shop and no one else was around. Learning from the previous night I Painted them inside of the cookie box (a smaller controlled environment). the first one was fine the second one blew up but the damage was minimal because some of the chocolate had set up and the third and forth ones were successfull.
I used 2 cake giant cake pans and filled then about 3/4 of an inch with chocolate for bases. I left work at 5 30 AM and returned at 1 PM.
Friday evening I deflated the ballons inside of the Chocolate and I cut out openings for doors. I also used molds and I made 2 Chickens to place inside of the eggs and I made about 36 individual chocolate eggs with differnt designs.
I used the chocolate to glue the large chocolate balloon eggs to the bases. Again I went home at 5 30 and I went back in at 12 pm.
Saturday after my normal shift I made a rabbit out of White chocolate and I cut apart the third large egg and glued the 2 pieces together as of it had just cracked open. I glued the Rabbit inside of it and glued some of the smaller eggs inside of it also. I found a nice big basket and put the large chocolate egg inside of the basket on top of a nice cloth and that great green fake grass we all love so much.
Finally it was time to make the roofs for the other 2 giant eggs houses. But I had a heck of a fight doing this because I was running out of time as the Easter morning shift was coming in soon and my roofs kept on breaking. I finally got the pieces on and I slathered chocolate on top to fuse the two peices of each roof together. I glued the chickens inside of the eggs and stuck the remaining smaller eggs to the bases.
I took my photos and left at 4 30 as my second coworker was arriviing and I just missed my boss by about 1 minute. I went to bed at 5 am and woke up at 9 am. Called mom to wish her happy Easter like a good son, and I went off to work by 10 am. We fed over 1500 people at about $ 75 per person for brunch. Got a quick attaboy from the executive chef and I got home by 8 pm. and slept.
Its funny that after working 3 16 - 18 hour days in a row mostly with chocolate. We were setting up the display for the night time desserts. There was a box of those tiny milk chicolate eggs wrapped in shiny foil to scatter around the display. I was attracted to it and wanted some. but I I had to stop and rationalize that I needed more chocolate right now like I needed a hole in my head. besides I am not crazy about milk Chocolate either.
Thank for listening to my tale here. I wish I could say that this has all been a cruel APRIL FOOLS DAY joke on you all for reading this .... but it's true what happenened here to me over the last few days.
Windmill Boy
