Moments before I sat down with the owner yesterday afternoon to talk about my externship and employment opportunities, I was hit with a wave of detachment. It was thrilling.

I realized that whether she liked me and I got the job or she didn’t and I had to plot out a Plan B, the hardest part is over and I already have the reward for my risk. The goal for the past 9 months has been to be motivated by desire rather than fear, to act rather than to react. And I’m there.

Perhaps as a result, the interview was as successful as it was casual. After some talk about the whys and hows of going from literary theory to publishing to the Bank to cooking school, she offered me the job. Turns out she was watching me this whole time.

Within a month, I can stop my freelance gig. Soon I’ll have some schedule stability which means I can start training for a race. Within a couple of months I can stop paying COBRA. I can get really good at cooking on a line.

But the best part is that starting in just two weeks, for the first time in my adult life, I will get paid for work that is meaningful to me.

I haven’t had much exposure to the owner-chef of the restaurant where I’m doing my externship. Although she has always been hands on in the kitchen in the past, recently she’s been finishing a book, filming some television, traveling in Europe gathering new ideas about food and hospitality.

She’s a tough cookie - you have to be to open a restaurant on your own in your early thirties and make it a success over a many years. She’s smart and driven and passionate.

I want a real job there, and know that hiring begins and ends with her, and that she doesn’t know me from Adam. That I have a great relationship with the front and back of house staff and can cook and understand food and don’t freak out under pressure all helps, but really it is all about whether she likes me.

She asked me to come in an hour early today so that we can get to know each other. So we’ll see how much I can make her like me.

The days of the week have started holding limited relevance for me. 

I generally work at least one job on each day (this is not a complaint as I like a lot of the work I do, and one of the “jobs” is far more about love than money and consists of reading cookbooks.  I’d be a jerk to complain.) 

Because I work in the evenings, I don’t have a television show to anchor me (is Lost still on?)  Because I work freelance, I don’t have weekly recurring meetings I need to attend.  Sundays are still sort of defined because the restaurant closes an hour early and because the cook consort has Sundays off, in theory at least. But Mon - Sat is more about where I need to be next, and although I do the majority of my sleeping overnight I do plump up the hours with naps between tasks when I can, so rather than thinking of time in 24 hour blocks I think I’m thinking about it in larger, week-long increments.

Conversely, I always know the date because I write it all over food I’ve prepared and wrapped up for later use.
So that’s one practical difference between working in an office and working all over the place.

Finding the place where you are smart and engaged but clearly eager to learn new things can be challenging in a new work environment.

In my case it means stifling the desire to explain my thought processes - why I think what I think - a desire which is rooted in curiousity about how other people think and act, and is intended to serve as a spark for dialogue but can come off as a little defensive and smarty pants. I’m allowed to ask questions, but not to provide unsolicited answers.  

As outlined in my post on breakfast day in cooking school, I know how to hard boil an egg. I’ve always HB’d as I outlined in that post; cooking school reinforced my idea that the short simmer/long sit method is the best for obtaining firm but yielding whites and cheery yolks with no grey ring.

Yesterday while at work I was asked to HB 30 eggs (for deviled, natch). I got my flat of eggs and was placing them gently in a pot, intending to fill that pot with cold water and bring it to a simmer.

“What are you doing?” the chef asked.

“Hard boiling eggs”, I replied.

“No, you’re not.  Boil a pot of water first, and then drop them in.  Boil exactly nine minutes, turn off and let sit for one minute, then plunge into cold water.”

Seriously alarmed that the chef would think I don’t know how to hard cook an egg, I started to explain the the way I had been taught…but caught myself within the first few words. Don’t be the explaining person. It comes off as defensive.  Smile and say ‘yep!’ This chef doesn’t care. 

Seeing that I was holding my tongue, the chef patiently said, “Good.  This is the way we hardcook eggs. So this is now the way you hardcook eggs. Just boil the eggs our way.”

And you know? They were pretty easy to peel.