If you want to ‘get’ wine, wash the dishes.
Washing dishes in a restaurant is hard yakka. But it’s a foot in the door. What you really want though, is a job on the floor as a waiter (the cooks and the chefs out there won’t agree, but that’s a story for another time). The Convention Centre I kicked off my working life at refused to promote me out of the kitchen to the glamorous looking world of banquet service.
So I took a strategic (if lateral) promotion to cleaning the public areas. After a stint sending myself cross-eyed watching the carpet pattern while vacuuming football field sized halls, and cleaning vomit up in toilets after high school formals, I knew I had to look elsewhere for more.
I shyly muddled through an interview process and scored a job at a pretty fancy local restaurant as trainee waiter.
But have you ever got what you think you wanted and then been absolutely terrified?
When you’re sitting down as the guest in any sort of restaurant or cafe, the whole thing looks a lot easier.
I thought I knew at least a bit about food (and by that time had a few drinks under my belt) – but this is all a lot harder than it looks. I could pronounce some of the stuff on the menu, but I was dead scared of having to do the specials in front of a customer because – I Just.Can’t.Remember.My.Lines.
Everyone else seems so skillful and effortless. Sophisticated and cool. I’m feeling like I’ve got two left feet. What if they ask a question and I don’t know the answer? I’ll look like an idiot.
The chefs and all the kitchen talk is confusing, and I’m not sure if they like me. Am I doing a good job? This is intense. I’m finding it hard. And I’m exhausted. But it’s also strangely…satisfying. Maybe even fun? I know it might sound like a tractor beam to a slow moving car crash – but you get to sit down and share a drink together at the end of the night. And a better meal than I could have cooked for myself at the time (I later learned that not all staff meals were going to be as good as what I got here).
But the pages in this wine list. Shit. How am I ever going to learn all that? The others seem to be able to rattle off chatty talking points about the flavours of grapes and some of the places they come from with the customers. It’s pretty magical to eavesdrop on these conversations. And whilst I’m curious, I’m also a bit terrified. There’s never been much drink at our house. Well, Dad occasionally drank beer, but Mum doesn’t touch the stuff.
I have no idea how I’m going to get a handle on this wine thing. Where do you even start?
Bottle Forest 