Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
Untitled - ScholarWorks Home - California State University, Northridge
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a basket of chicken, especially during a dinner rush. Besides that, most customers wanted<br />
to cut all the bull crap, order, and get out with their chicken, cole slaw, and biscuits.<br />
Second I learned to make side orders. The big secret was the recipe for cole<br />
slaw because if it weren't for the cole slaw then our customers would probably have<br />
gone to our competition. The recipe for cole slaw was a short list of ingredients: one box<br />
of cabbage, two large onions, three to four carrots, and two bags of sauce. The sauce was<br />
the secret, and even the boxes carrying the bags to the restaurant listed no ingredients.<br />
I'm not sure even Thelma knew what was in it, only that it should be prepared a certain<br />
way.<br />
Making cole slaw requires mounting a large shredder on the industrial sized<br />
mixer (which normally combines the mashed potato powder with the hot water). The<br />
vegetables are no less than quartered. The cabbage is the green kind, but most of the time<br />
I was employed it was off season so the cabbage was white. The carrots are not skinned<br />
of the brown stuff I'd normally peel off at home. There is supposed to be some order, a<br />
few heads of cabbage, then one carrot, then half an onion, then repeat until all is gone,<br />
but everyone made it their own way when Thelma wasn't there. When all the vegetables<br />
were shredded the two large plastic bags of cole slaw sauce were poured onto the<br />
vegetables. Then, because the only spoon in the whole place was used for the baked<br />
beans, I put my hands in plastic gloves to play with the mixture until the white sauce<br />
covered the vegetables.<br />
Biscuits were simple and the only side order which didn't have a particular<br />
way it was supposed to be done, even though the method only mattered when Thelma<br />
was present. Place twelve frozen puck-like objects on a cookie sheet and place it in the<br />
timed oven, another pre-packaged, pre-frozen item with unknown ingredients. I could<br />
have all the biscuits I wanted, even when I wasn't on break. I would sit on the back<br />
counter where I prepared side orders and eat biscuits with strawberry jelly. I loved the<br />
biscuits, soft in the middle, hard and crispy on the outside but nothing my teeth couldn't<br />
get through it. I could guess as to what the ingredients were, the main being butter.<br />
Except for the chicken, everything else was heat, ntix, and serve, but I wasn't<br />
responsible for chicken. It was cooked in vats full of grease. In it's former state the grease<br />
was a block of white lard, that is until the heat was applied and the lard became like<br />
syrup on hot sausages. The chicken was dipped and breaded, then greased until it was<br />
no longer raw.<br />
One night Javier pulled some green chicken out of the fridge.<br />
"Hey, come here. Does this smell bad?"<br />
"It's green, I'm not going to smell it."<br />
"But it looks bad to you?" My answer was insignificant.<br />
"Cocinas este polio, Marcelas."<br />
He called me to the back later.<br />
"Can I still sell this?"<br />
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