In search of the tenth muse

The past week has been hectic, and my lack of posts certainly reflects that. My inability to sit in front of the computer and compose a relatively coherent piece of work is not due entirely to a lack of time and sleep, though both factors have contributed, but rather due to the fact that my eating habits have been horrifying, to say the least. Opening week at a restaurant is a wonderful/terrifying experience. I have never worked longer hours and yet so easily lost track of time. I leave for work at 7am and arrive home anytime after 7pm with little ability to account for what exactly transpired in that 12 hour span; I know only that I’m deservingly tired and hungry in a very serious way.

While the pace is demanding and everyone is keeping up beautifully, there are still kinks to be worked out. Some of them do revolve around the wait staff, and the fact that while we have six servers on the floor, one making drinks, and two designated bussers, we could easily use double that number as we push through hundreds of diners each day. Managers aren’t so much managing as they are also running frantically around the dining room tossing bread at hungry patrons because the servers are so pressed for time we rarely have a moment to deliver the bread tableside ourselves.

Some of the hiccups in this first week have involved the kitchen staff as well. They too are keeping up with the demanding pace during service, but it has come at a price: the staff meal has been lost in the shuffle. The first day we were served a mini-bagel each. I looked at the tiny wheat wheel in horror, quietly trying to control the hissy fit creeping towards me with the realization that I was expected to go eight hours on this bagel, and this bagel alone. By the end of the first night shift, even the floor manager was huddled in the corner with the servers as we all gnawed on the heels of bread; the remnants of innumerable loaves sliced throughout the day to be laid out on the tables while the guest awaited their entrees. There have been whispers and thoughts of scrambled eggs, and a few puff pastries and salad greens have materialized on the line a few mornings for us, but so far staff meal has been a bit lean, and that means that the rest of my eating habits are decidedly not so.

To say that I’m hungry when I leave work is a gross understatement. Starving or ravenous would be a closer approximation, and the terms desperate and irritable also apply. The best way I can think to describe my level of hunger is to say that I would eat my own foot if I could get it in my mouth. By the time I leave my shift, I would eat anything and everything I can get my hands on, and that means that, on more than one occasion, the leftover cheesecake from lunch service, random scraps of polenta, a wayward oyster, some crumbles of goat cheese, dregs of the cauliflower soup, and the crust off a quiche, among other odds and ends, were all consumed, all at once, and still my stomach could not be sated. Dinner is no longer a meal so much as a conglomeration of whatever I grab first from the cabinets and shovel into my mouth. Bowls, plates, and cutlery of any kind are all optional most evenings. My mother has not called me once before 9pm this past week. I can only assume she greatly fears the possibility of speaking to me while my blood sugar levels are still plummeting.

Gastrea is the tenth muse, created and named by author/philosopher Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in his work, The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy. Gastrea is essentially the muse of food, or that of the delights of taste and her creation is based on the idea that all that lives needs nourishment. I am acquainted with this tenth muse because I have spent the week slogging through a good chunk of homework, much of it devoted to different theories and methods through which gastronomy can be studied and discussed. I have found my readings in Transcendental Gastronomy and the invocation of Gastrea to resonate particularly boldy this week during which I have regretfully eaten food purely for nourishment while pleasure and creativity have been displaced to the back burner. There are certainly more details about work and school still to come, and recipes too, but for now I will leave you with this invocation of Gastrea, a hope for delicious things to satiate a never-ending appetite, and a simple sum up of this week's activities.

In the past week I have… 

started classes and am enjoying the material but am far too tired to talk about it,

put in a 50 hour waitressing work week, about which I am also too tired to go into detail,

still failed to produce a fried egg that looks halfway appetizing,

cut myself decently with the new ceramic knife Zach optimistically gave me for Christmas (we all knew it was just a matter of time),

eaten an unspeakable amount of honey directly from the jar to try to stage off moody sugar crashes with only limited success,

fallen asleep twice still dressed and with the lights on,

fallen asleep once still sitting at the kitchen table,

fallen asleep while on the phone with my boyfriend, who was kind enough just to hang up and not mention it in the morning,

dropped my apple on the Fenway, bite-side down, on my walk home from work and ate it anyway because I was so flipping hungry,

blown through a box and a half of bandages on pesky foot blisters,

and finally made one meal that looked moderately appetizing and sat on the plate long enough for me to snap a photo. The recipe follows. 

Black rice noodles with spinach, kale and pepita pesto and a fried egg.

You’ll need:
One serving of King Soba black rice noodles
2 cups combined kale and spinach leaves, stems removed and chopped roughly
1/4 cup pepitas
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbs. fresh basil if you have it (which I do, because the Thai basil plant is actually still alive. I don’t want to talk about the Genovese basil though) and a bit extra for garnish
1 Tbs. grated parmesan cheese
Enough water to reach the desired consistency, about 1/4 cup.

Makes about 1 cup pesto.

Begin by cooking your greens until they are wilted but still vibrant. Allow them to cool slightly, then add them to your blender or food processor along with the pepitas, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, basil, cheese, and water. Add the water in stages to avoid making the pesto too runny. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook your noodles. While you are cooking your noodles, poach or fry your egg. Since I don’t like to do dishes, I use the same pot for everything, cooking first the greens, then the noodles, and finally the egg and removing each from the boiling water with my mesh ladle. Serve hot and garnish with some fresh basil and salt and pepper.