If you want to ‘get’ wine, wash the dishes.
Not metaphorically. Actually 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 had other ideas. I was stuck in the kitchen. Washing dishes.
So I took a very lateral promotion to cleaning the public areas. Vacuuming football field sized halls until the carpet pattern sent me cross-eyed. Cleaning vomit out of 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 a trainee waiter.
Have you ever gotten 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? Most people hear what the job actually involves and take a polite step backwards. The hours are antisocial, the pay isn’t great, and the guests can be hard work. And yet somehow you find yourself signing up again. At the end of the night you get to sit down and share a drink together. And a better meal than I could have cooked for myself at the time. Not every kitchen would turn out to be so generous with the staff, I’d later find out.
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. 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 