The Departure Part 1

Jason's is leaving Lacroix.

Jason is the head chef at Lacroix at the Rittenhouse Hotel, the restaurant where I work. He has been for a while. He was a sous chef when I started there, (four years ago last week), and as people dropped out--as chefs left to move on to their own things--he remained and moved up. You must understand that since I come in for only 8 hours once a week, change is magnified for me. He has been the only constant at Lacroix. All else is variable. I can't believe he's going.

I remember the first day I started at Lacroix. I had no idea what I was doing. I was shy, helpless. He shook my hand, "You're coming in because want to be a chef? That's awesome." Two weeks later, I saw the other side of the coin. I had been leaving my cutting board out and not cleaning it up when I left the kitchen, simply because I was 13 and completely naive of how the restaurant functioned. He came up to me, "How bout you clean up your cutting board this week. I've been doing it for you every week"--that's the censored version.

Haha! What a slap in the face. I remember another time. I had to mix proportions of 2 expensive chemicals for some gel. I measured the 47 grams of agar and 36 grams of some other chemical, then gave it to him. A bomb exploded in the kitchen.  I had missed the decimal points in between the 4 and  7 and  the 3 and  6.

Another time, a girl I was really into showed up at the restaurant for lunch with her mom. He sent them out a few extra dishes on the house, and when she came back into the kitchen, he told her that I had cooked everything, though of course I hadn't.

He's volatile like that. He's made me cry, laugh and everything in between. But this hardly relates to why I'll miss him...

To Be Continued later this week