“Well, we have the fryers,” she said. “We’ll have to set the temperature for fish, not for french fries, and then they’ll have to be babied.”
“I got it,” he said.
She watched him as he straightened his shoulders and stood a little taller. She nodded. “You do. So let’s see what you’ve got.”
With that, he grinned and turned back to his dish.
She wandered over to check on the roasted veggies. It was amazing just how much they shrunk down by the time they went through the oven, so, to end up with a great big roasting pan full of roasted vegetables, plus another full roasting pan for backup, meant that she would have to cook a good forty pounds of the raw veggies. She watched as they brought out the fresh parsnips. “Wow,” she said, reaching for a big long white one. “I haven’t seen anything this size for quite a few months.”
“They look really good,” Jose said, as he picked up his chopping knife and started whacking away at them.
She watched the veggie piles build up really fast. Then she grabbed the olive oil and drizzled it over them, throwing in rock salt and taking up her big pepper grinder. By the time all of the veggies were prepped, seasoned, and into great big roasting pans, all the ovens were ready, and everything went in.
She walked over and turned the air conditioner up a little bit. By the time the ovens were running at four hundred degrees, the kitchens got very hot. She didn’t mind hot, but she didn’t want it getting so hot that they all got tired and too fatigued. Lots left to do.
“Where are the desserts?” she called over to the far side of kitchen, where the sweet endings to a meal were being made. They had the usual things, like pudding, an institute staple. But also black forest cake, cardamom cake, and three pies, and it looked like Sandy was making some miniature crumbles. “Are you baking those?”
“No,” she said, “these aren’t custards though. They are cream based.”
“Interesting,” she said. She reached over with a spoon, snagged up a little taste, and nodded. “It’s a bit bland. Maybe a tad more vanilla.”
Obediently Sandy picked up the vanilla, added a bit more, and mixed it in, then tasted it herself. “Yeah, you’re right.” And she went back to work, creating these parfaits. What Ilse thought was crumble on the top was just spices.
With all of that on the go, she headed over to check on the basics, like bread, muffins, and buns that were done on another side of the kitchen. They had so many ovens going on a regular basis here that something was always cooking. As she watched, a whole mess of dinner buns came out of the oven. She smiled at the fresh yeast smell. “Do you have anything else to go in these ovens?” she asked Bert.
“These buns are done,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to go in for”—he checked his watch—“about forty-two minutes.”
“Oh, good,” she said, as she adjusted the temperature. “I’ve got six loaves to go in.”
They quickly got those in; they only took fifteen minutes. Once they were done, she brought them out, quickly sliced them, and set them on the counter. Most of the breakfast foods were done, but still a lot of people came through looking for something light. As soon as they smelled the fresh bread, it disappeared quickly, and, with such a commotion at the cafeteria line, many of the people sitting down got up and came back for some.
By the time she had a chance to turn around and to check the cafeteria line, all the loaves were gone, and just one tiny piece sat off to one side. She quickly snagged it up, stacked up all the pans the bread had been on, and brought them back in empty.
The guys looked at her, then looked at the pans. One shook his head. “Those guys are pigs.”
She laughed. “That they are, but they sure enjoyed it. One piece is left.” She handed it to Gerard.
He snagged it, took a bite, and a blissful smile crossed his face.
“Don’t tell me that’s your special bread you made this morning,” Sandy said sorrowfully.
“It is,” Ilse said. “Nothing’s left.” She pointed at all the empty serving dishes. “It’s all gone.”
Sandy shook her head. “Next time make twice as much.”
Laughing, Ilse said, “It wasn’t even what I intended to make.”
“That’s what you said last time too,” Gerard said. “It’s hardly fair when you don’t even intend to make something like this, and it turns out absolutely divine.”
“Well, maybe I’ll have to do something else tomorrow,” she said. “I just like to have dough in my hands.”
“Feel free,” Sandy said, “whatever you want to make.”
“I might make a nut braid or something or other for dessert tonight,” Ilse said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
The trouble was that, even as she was thinking, her hands were working. Or at least wanting to work. She snagged up another big bowl, started measuring in flour, added two pounds of chopped butter, then walked over and grabbed ice water from the fridge. She added more salt and more yeast, while everybody surreptitiously watched her. She ignored them.
She had recipes in her head from her grandmother and her mother, and this was an old favorite. It was super-superlight and fluffy, and, with the dough already mixed up, she chopped more butter in until it was flaky and almost too soft. Then she sprinkled out a bit of flour on the marble countertop, laid the dough there, and kneaded it gently. Then she kneaded more butter into it. By the time she was done, she had this huge ball of soft butter dough.
“What will you do with that?” Gerard asked, standing at her side. He was boiling fresh pasta noodles and making a bacon and cream sauce beside her. Leftover bacon from breakfast had him tweaking his original cream sauce idea for the pasta, so he used all the bacon for that.
She rolled out the dough quickly, then made up a brown sugar, walnut, and raisin mixture, placing a thick, heavy bead of it down the center. She then braided over the top slices that she had cut, closing it up on either end, leaving her with a great big soft buttery braid. She put it on the baking sheet, let it rise for twenty minutes, and, when that was done, popped it into one of the ovens that was about the right temperature.
“Why is it you never seem to worry about temperatures?” Sandy asked thoughtfully. “Everybody is really specific about being so long at a certain temperature.”
“There’s optimum, yes,” she said, not really paying attention. “The trouble is, not every oven is the same. You have to understand what your oven can do, and then you have to figure out what your leeway is on each item.”
She waited twenty minutes. When she pulled it out, everybody walked over to take a look. It had risen and flaked, so now the walnut brown sugar center was gooey, inside this very buttery dough. Everybody just looked at her, and she laughed. “It’s for lunch.”
“I thought you’d make something for dinner,” he said.
“I was, and then I decided to do this.” She cut it into thin strips and carefully laid it on two separate plates so that it could be taken out for dessert at lunchtime. She left several slices in the pan and said, “But now it’s coffee time.” Everybody immediately grabbed one.
Gerard pushed his over toward her. “Don’t you want a bite?”