Firefighters Dig Out Snowed-in Bride on Wedding Day

Mary O'Toole knew something was wrong when she woke up to the sounds of snowplows on her wedding day. By 7 a.m. Friday, she realized she and her bridesmaids were snowed in at her home.

"I was in a state of panic," O'Toole, 26, said. 

A limo was scheduled to take them to the Church of St. Aidan in Williston Park by 4 p.m. Desperate, O'Toole and her friends scribbled a frantic message and hung it on her front door: "Help. I'm getting married. Shovel us out!"

With the snow about a foot high, they began shoveling themselves. But even after a few neighbors pitched in, "We weren't getting anywhere," said O'Toole, who teaches middle school English in Yonkers.

Then firefighters from Engine Company Three in Mineola stepped in. 

About 8 a.m., a bridesmaid called a sister who has a friend at the firehouse. Lt. Michael Stack took the call and quickly enlisted the help of fellow volunteer fireman Michael Eich. The two uniformed firefighters arrived at the home in a black pickup, and used large plows to clear her driveway and sidewalk in less than 30 minutes.

Jacqueline Hazel, 27, a bridesmaid, was shoveling when the pair arrived. "We were shocked," she said. "We thought it was amazing that the firemen came."

"Knowing that she can get married and that her day can go on makes me feel great," Stack said later. 

Hours after the excavation, the home was filled with the laughter and the excitement that comes with weddings.

O'Toole sat among her friends at her dining room with hairpins neatly assembled in her hair. "It's really nice to see people helping out, especially on your wedding day," she said.

The groom, Christopher Flaherty, 26, said he remained optimistic throughout the day. "Even if we had to drive in a four-by-four vehicle, Mary and I were going to get married today," said Flaherty, a New York City firefighter.

By 3:30 p.m. about 150 guests - 50 fewer than expected - had assembled at the church. Most said they had little trouble getting through the snow. By 5:30 p.m., the couple were married.

And as for the experience earlier in the day? "I'm going to have really pretty pictures and a great story to tell," Mary Flaherty said.

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I Ain’t Going to The Restaurant Show In New York Anymore!

This sucks!  I just found out that my free, all expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple this weekend got canceled.  I was told we can’t afford it.  That sucks big-time.

Not only were we (my F and B Director, The Chef and I) going, but we had plans for dinner at the Waldorf and then staying overnight.  That was supposed to be our “surprise” year-end bonus!  Do you believe it? I was actually getting a bonus and a trip to New York!  I must have done something right this past year.

Well I guess I’m just getting an “atta-boy” and a pat on the back now.  Maybe we’ll get taken out to Denny’s instead.

The worst part with this whole thing is that somehow I even got my wife to agree to let me go to this friggin’ thing in the first place.  Now it got canceled…that really bites the big one.  That might be the last time she agrees to let me out of her sight!

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Hey Waiter…Stand ‘Yer Ass Up Already!

I know I’m a banquet manager and we do things differently than in a restaurant, but who teaches you a la carte servers this shit?

I went out to lunch this afternoon with my wife to one of those theme restaurants (it doesn’t matter where ‘cause the same crap has happened to me in many of those chain places).  It goes like this…

• Pretty, but young, waitress greets us at the door and asks “two people”?  “Ok, right this way” she says as she leads us to our table.  That’s ok I guess
• Then a just as young male waiter, in a faded black t-shirt and an earring in each ear, greets us at our table, “How are you guys doing today”?  I HATE that shit!  And to top it all off he’s kneeling down while talking to me like I’m a f*#%ing 4 year old.  I HATE this shit even more! 
• The rosey-cheeked young waiter takes our order and returns to the kitchen.
• We didn’t order any apps so our entrees came out pretty quick.  They were delivered not by our young waiter-boy but by a girl food-runner, I guess that’s who she was. 
• She then says, “Who got the chicken and shrimp”?  WHAT THE F%^* IS WRONG WITH THESE DAMM PLACES?
• The stupid waiter couldn’t write down seat positions for 2 lousy people?  What the hell else was he doing?  Jacking-off in the kitchen?  Son-of-a bitch!  It’s not that hard to take the orders of 2 people and then deliver the correct meal to the correct guest.
• Whatever happened to the 2 minute or 2 bites rule?  This fresh-faced kid waiter sure doesn’t know it.  Now he’s behind the bar bullshitting with the bartender and both of them are facing my table.  You see, we were seated at the deuce right next to the same stinking bar that this putz was yappin’ from.  Do you think that he knew our food was delivered?  Do you think he came over within the 2 minute rule time?  Of course not!
• I’m on my last 3 bites when he finally came over to check on us.  I was nice and didn’t give him hell.  Good thing there was nothing wrong with our orders.  As a matter of fact the food was very good, no issues.

But why don’t the managers of these chain restaurants teach their staff basic service skills or the proper way to greet a guest that is willing to spend their hard-earned money in their establishment?  Plus, give those waiters something more to wear than a shit-stained black t-shirt already.  That looks like crap!  Treat me like the adult I am and put a tie on!

Is it that the managers are just as weak as the servers and they don’t know the basics themselves?  Is it that they are too overworked to even be able to oversee their staff and make sure they are doing the right thing?  Is it that they just don’t care?  WTF…

I sure wish my readers that work in restaurants could help me understand this stuff ‘cause I sure can’t.

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It Went Perfect Last Night

Just a quick note to say the banquet manager is a happy man this morning.  We had a very large VIP group in-house last night for a real high-end awards dinner.  All the bells and whistles.  And everything went off as planned.  "Perfect", was the way the host described the event.


Sometimes this job is not that bad...
...but there's always tomorrow.




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Italian TV Chef Makes Cat Stew

Then they FIRED his ass!  Good...

Complaints pour in after 77-year-old Giuseppe Bigazzi expresses a fondness for feline flesh live on air

Among other things, Giuseppe "Beppe" Bigazzi is known for his prize-winning cookbook La cucina semplice dei sapori d'Italia ("The simple cuisine of the flavours of Italy"). 

But as of this week, the flavour with which the TV gastronome is likely to be most closely associated is that of stewed cat.

Bigazzi is familiar to millions of viewers of the publicly-owned RAI network as the white-haired co-presenter of a popular pre-lunchtime programme, La prova del cuoco ("The proof of the cook"). But today he was experiencing his first day without television commitments in 10 years after being axed for expressing his enthusiasm for the flesh of felines.

His remarks came after mentioning how, in the desperate conditions of post-war Italy, some people had taken to boiling stray mogs.

As his fellow-presenter, Elisa Isoardi, looked on aghast, the 77-year-old Bigazzi told viewers that, far from being a last resort in times of near-famine, gatto in umido was "one of the great dishes of the Valdarno [in Tuscany]".

The secret, he disclosed, was to leave the cat in a fast-running stream for three days. "What comes out is a delicacy", he enthused. "Many a time I've eaten its white meat."

Isoardi, herself a cat owner, tried to interrupt, but to no avail. Cat in a thick sauce was "better than chicken, rabbit or pigeon", he said.

During a commercial break, the producers unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the celebrity gourmet that he should apologise when the programme resumed. Soon afterwards, RAI's switchboard was jammed with calls from appalled viewers.

Bigazzi was today quoted by the newspaper Corriere della Sera as saying he had been referring to events in the past, adding: "You can't judge things from 70 years ago".

But that was not enough for Italy's National Animal Protection Board, whose president, Carla Rocchi, announced she had instructed its lawyers to begin proceedings against Bigazzi for inciting cruelty to animals.

A junior minister in Silvio Berlusconi's government, Francesca Martini, said what had happened was "of the utmost gravity".

Not everyone agreed, however. The blogosphere was today buzzing with comments, some in Bigazzi's favour. One maintained that it was "truly astonishing" that Bigazzi had been dropped by RAI "for having recollected a recipe from his native region, albeit one not acceptable to most people".

Link to original story.

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• 15 Interesting Food Facts - Part 3

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Pet Peeve #3 - Missing Garbage Can

Can't the f'in dishwashers ever learn that when they remove the now-overflowing garbage can they need to replace it with an empty one?  Of course not.  They always seem to wait until the absolutely worst time to take it away...just as my staff are clearing the entree from a 200 person event.

Now I have 15 or so waiters rushing into the kitchen with football trays full of silverware and dirty plates and nowhere to put the leftover food.  WTF!  Where's the damm garbage can you bastards?

Oh, I guess we can just follow the trail of dirty food-scrap water toward the elevator and down to the street to find the damm can.  Son-of-a-bitch...

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Restaurant Promotes Sex in it's Bathrooms

Mildred's Temple Kitchen is inviting customers to have sex in its bathrooms.

The Valentine's weekend promotion takes uncomfortable but electrifying sex from the close confines of an airplane and transfers it to the unisex stalls of the Hanna Avenue restaurant.  The Liberty Village restaurant proposes its modern bathrooms become one of the "101 places to have sex before you die."

Mildred's has always elicited a certain response. One customer, who didn't want to be named, remembers going to a wedding at the eatery's old location and seeing a copy of the Kama Sutra in the bathroom.  "They invite it," said the customer.  This time, the invitation is explicit. On its website, Mildred's asks: "Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom?

"Check out Mildred's Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love. You get the picture."  Actually, the picture is clouded by practicalities. Is the restaurant supplying condoms? What about the health risks of body fluids? And who's cleaning up?

"We've always had little trysts in our bathrooms," says chef/co-owner Donna Dooher, pointing to lingering weekday lunches as a popular time. "We're taking it to the next level on Valentine's weekend."

The restaurant's four bathrooms light up outside when occupied. Staff have learned to watch the light flicker twice when two customers enter the same bathroom, usually a few minutes apart. 

Toronto Public Health says as long as there's no sex in the kitchen and the restaurant keeps its washrooms clean and sanitized, it's not fussed. "As far as bodily fluids, it's pretty much similar to the other human functions going on in there," says Jim Chan, manager of the food safety program.

Dooher says customers must bring their own condoms but she's hiring a maid to tidy the washrooms that weekend. "She'll be there with her feather duster and cleaning supplies."

At least diners aren't encouraged to use furry handcuffs, part of a $55 "naughty love hamper," while at Mildred's. "Best to savour and enjoy (those) long after you leave the restaurant," the restaurant says.

Do you believe this shit?   WTF!


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Ritz Carlton to Close 5 Diamond Las Vegas Hotel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co will close its five-diamond property in Las Vegas this May, after the hotel struggled with a slide in demand and revenue.

"It's nothing the hotel did. It's a simple lack of business and a decline in the tourism industry," said Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl.  The owners of the 348-room property, Village Hospitality LLC, an arm of Deutsche Bank, will stop funding the Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas day-to-day operations on May 2.  "That was the owner's decision and we reluctantly agreed to go along with it," Deuschl said.

Luxury properties have been hit hard in the past year and a half. Corporate travel and business from associations accounts for the bulk revenue of these hotels, but companies and groups have cut back on travel spending in the past year.

Village Hospitality, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank's German American Capital Corp, acquired the hotel in a nonjudicial foreclosure sale in February 2009.  "The unprecedented economic downturn has had a significant impact on the hotel's operations," said Deutsche Bank spokesman Scott Helfman. "As a result, Village Hospitality LLC concluded that continuing to fund operations was no longer economically viable and consequently decided to close the hotel effective May 2, 2010."  Ritz-Carlton is a division of Marriott International .

The hotel opened seven years ago and has played host to an array of celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Celine Dion and the late pop icon Michael Jackson.

The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas property employs some 350 people, Deuschl said, some of whom may be relocated to other Ritz-Carlton properties or other Las Vegas hotels.

THE "AIG" EFFECT

Located 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip, the hotel boasts retail boutiques, a wedding chapel and gondola rides, according to the hotel's website.

It received a "five-diamond" rating from the American Automobile Association for 2010.

Last year, revenue for U.S. luxury hotels fell nearly 17 percent, outpacing the 14 percent drop in the overall industry, according to an analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

Revenue per available room (RevPAR), a fiscal measure of health in the industry, plummeted about 24 percent, compared with a 16.4 percent drop for the industry overall.

Luxury hotels have also suffered from the backlash from the so-called "AIG effect," referring to the uproar caused by American International Group's decision to fly top brokers and executives to a resort shortly after receiving a bailout check from the U.S. government.

"The whole demonization of luxury meetings and companies' pulling back on having their high-end meetings in luxury hotels -- this has had a tremendous impact on Las Vegas," Deuschl said. "I can't think of another destination that has had to defend itself more against comments from politicians."

Deuschl did not comment specifically on the hotel's occupancy level, but said it was lower than the company would have liked. (Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman, editing by Maureen Bavdek and Tim Dobbyn)

I feel sorry for the banquet managers that work there...

How's your hotel or restaurant doing in this crappy economy?   Let us know...

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My Waiter Poured Liquid Eggs in Her Coffee!

Do you f'in believe it?  My dumb-ass waiter put liquid eggs in a customer's coffee cup instead of half and half. How stupid could she be?

Here's the story...

We had a wedding for 213 people on Saturday and all was going well.  The band stopped playing when I asked to, the kitchen did their job and gave us plenty of food for the cocktail hour (another miracle) and my staff was on their game.  I did my usual routine; bride and groom intros, first dances, parents dances, cake cutting ceremony, with no issues.

Just as the waiters started to pour the coffee, I noticed one of my newer girls walk over to the cook's refrigerator and take out a carton of milk, or so I thought.  At first I didn't think much of it but something about the container bothered me so I walked over to check it out.

I asked the waitress what she was looking for and she said "the guest wanted soy milk and I thought there may be some in the cook's refrigerator, and look I found some" she said with a smile as she walked away.

Well ok, it's soy milk, but I've never seen soy milk here, how the hell did she find soy milk? I decided to look in the refrigerator just to check it out and didn't find any soy milk.  But I found a shit-load of quart containers of liquid eggs!  And to top it all off, it was the same brand as the regular milk and half & half milk we already use.  


WTF!  She is about to serve coffee with liquid eggs in it!  Holy shit!

Now I go running, yes running, through the kitchen screaming "Get outta my way, I gotta go" as I high-tail it into the ballroom.  Just then I see the waiter placing the coffee cup in front of the customer.  Screw me, now what?  So I go over to the guest and take the coffee cup away from her (well, what the hell else was I supposed to do, right?)

The lady gives me a puzzled, but pissed-off look and says, "Hey, what are you doing?"  Quick as I can I spouted off to her, "Oh I'm sorry but I noticed that when your waiter took the coffee from the kitchen, it was the last cup from the pot and I wanted to make sure that no coffee grinds had fallen into your cup".  "Please allow me to get you a fresh cup", I finished and with that I was on my way.

Now the waiter follows me into the kitchen and asks what happened.  What happened?  "Look in this cup you shithead", I wanted to say.  "I saw that you poured liquid eggs instead of half and half in the cup".  "You trying to get someone killed"?


Then came all the usual apologies and tearful looks from the newbie-waiter.  I wanted to ream her out but kept my cool and walked her to the cooks refrigerator and gave her a quick lesson of whats inside.  Then we poured a real cup of coffee with cream for the guest and delivered it to the still confused lady.  


By now the whole kitchen was wondering what the heck happened and so was my other waiters.  


Just another day in banquet manager paradise...

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15 Interesting Food Facts - Part 3

1. Large doses of coffee can be lethal. Ten grams, or 100 cups over 4 hours, can kill the average human.

2. Laws forbidding the sale of sodas on Sunday prompted William Garwood to invent the ice cream sundae in Evanston, IL, in 1875.

3. Mayonnaise is said to be the invention of the French chef of the Duke de Richelieu in 1756. While the Duke was defeating the British at Port Mahon, his chef was creating a victory feast that included a sauce made of cream and eggs. When the chef realized that there was no cream in the kitchen, he improvised, substituting olive oil for the cream. A new culinary masterpiece was born, and the chef named it "Mayonnaise" in honor of the Duke's victory.

4. McDonald's "Big Mac" slogan, introduced in 1975, is: "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun."

5. McDonalds and Burger King sugar-coat their fries so they will turn golden-brown.

6. Nabisco's "Oreo's" are the world's best-selling brand of cookie at a rate of 6 billion sold each year. The first Oreo was sold in 1912.

7. Per capita, the Irish eat more chocolate than Americans, Swedes, Danes, French, and Italians.

8. Persians first began using colored eggs to celebrate spring in 3,000 B.C. 13th century Macedonians were the first Christians on record to use colored eggs in Easter celebrations. Crusaders returning from the Middle East spread the custom of coloring eggs, and Europeans began to use them to celebrate Easter and other warm weather holidays.

9. Potato chips are American's favorite snack food. They are devoured at a rate of 1.2 billion pounds a year.

10. Potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs in 1853 by chef George Crum. They were a mocking response to a patron who complained that his French fries were too thick.

11. Refried beans aren't really what they seem. Although their name seems like a reasonable translation of Spanish frijoles refritos, the fact is that these beans aren't fried twice. In Spanish, refritos literally means "well-fried," not "re-fried."

12. Research show that only 43% of homemade dinners served in the US include vegetables.

13. Rice is the staple food of more than one-half of the world's population.

14. Saffron, made from the dried stamens of cultivated crocus flowers, is the most expensive cooking spice.

15. Since Hindus don't eat beef, the McDonald's in New Delhi makes its burgers with mutton.


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Hope you enjoyed these 3 posts about interesting food facts...I did.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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A Glass of Wine...

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine...
And those who don't and are always seen with a bottle of water in their hand.

As Ben Franklin said: 
In wine there is wisdom,
In beer there is freedom,
In water there is bacteria.

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Remember:
Water = Poop
Wine = Health

Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service!

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Pet Peeve #2 - Water on the Bathroom Sink

How many times have you gone into the bathroom at work, take care of your business, then walk over to the sink to wash your hands?  First off, I hope you ALL are washing your hands after taking care of your business...

Then as you bend over to wash your hands and face, your suit jacket rests on top of the sink and is now sitting in all the dirty soapy water from the last SOB that used the sink.  I hate this shit!

Why can't you MF's clean-up after yourselves?  If you spill water all over the sinktop, take a damm paper towel and dry it up for goodness sake.  Don't just leave it there for the next poor sole to deal with.  I got the bottom of my tuxedo jacket all f'in wet the other day.

Hey, putz...dry off the sink or pay for my drycleaning.  Plus, stop smoking in there too.  I don't need your cigarette smoke stinking up my clothes.  Bastards...

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