July 21st

Started at the Marina kitchen today. It's their poolside café, and it's small! Reminds me of my days as Kitchen Manager at Prestonwood CC. They do about 150 for lunch, and 70-80 for dinner. Helped prep a few things their then I went to main kitchen to prep because there is no room for an extra cook there. All good by me, sick of being in the way... Sliced and individually wrapped about 200 hamburger buns. All of their bread in the hotel is bought, but it's from a very expensive bakery I hear. It's really good product. Diced 10 lbs. of red onions for Guacamole. And made Gazpacho, AGAIN, lol!

They told me to go eat lunch about 330, "very important." So I went down to the employee dining room, food isn't that good, but at least it's free!

After lunch, I worked in Banquets with David, the chef that took me for tapas the first day here. Glad to be back here with him in the main kitchen. A lot going on, but he's a good guy. He explains everything, and really understands why I am here. Not just to do busy work, but to learn.

We had a wedding for 120 people tonight. We made lots of apps today. I'm really impressed by the quality of product they put out. This was somewhat of a small wedding for me, but damn. Prob 10-15 passed apps, then three plated courses, a pre-dessert, and dessert. Super hot plates, Ma would be impressed by that, even the servers wear white gloves to protect their hands. The plating of everything is just a little bit above what im used to. They even have a conveyor belt, that automatically stops if we get backed up, to plate the three course meal they had tonight!

Great day, learned a lot, can't wait to get home and tell everyone at work all the little things I've learned.

Also, met really cool chick today. She is a personal chef working at the hotel for a few days cooking for her client/VIP boss. We exchanged emails, and talked a lot about food and the personal chef world. I told her about my few trips I get to take and she told me about all her crazy adventures. Don't wanna say to much yet, being the Ritz-Carlton, but she's live in L.A. and in town for the week so hopefully we can hang out some more. Her client/boss is super VIP, I want her job:-> We were both excited to speak English with someone and not our broken Spanish!


Pics

Pizza oven in Marina kitchen

View of Port Olympico from just outside Marina kitchen

Appetizer of Jambon (that badass cured ham that is famous here in barcelona) cream, Parmesan, and truffle oil

Fresh lobsters at Marina kitchen

Conveyor belt... Awesome

The starch for the main course, 3 double fried potato cups, with potato purée, and fingerling potato chip. I've def worked on my piping skills

Fresh steamed mussels, with olive purée sphere, potato chip, and some crazy garnish. It looks like a spicy crispy thing, but it's super soft... Delish

Family meal tonight for me and personal chef chick, Daniella... Paella pasta with aioli, risotto rice with quail, and killer yellow gazpacho. One of the best meals yet, lol! Chef David made for us two

Another pic, right outside the Marina kitchen.

The next two are the dessert course. Strawberries on puff pastry with pastry cream, chocolate stick and mint with strawberry sauce. Good but I like Jilly Bates stuff better. The other is just the crazy big speed racks they have to pre-plate all the desserts

The view of the W hotel from the beach tonight, we all went for some drinks after work. Nice being right in the beach!

Pre-dessert of tapioca with something I couldn't understand, finished with mint sorbet. Good, but I thought Daniel's sorbets were better in Paris