Family Recipe on a Line Cook Schedule

mom's albondigas on my day off. line cook brain wants mise en place. she cooks by smell. argued lovingly. ate until silent. family recipes are the menu i can't replicate on a ticket. service ended and the line cook scraped the plancha while music from the dish pit played too loud. my feet buzzed with the vibration of twelve hours standing. tips were decent. body expensive. i ate staff meal sitting on a milk crate and felt rich for five minutes. prep list was longer than the bench and we made it fit because restaurants are spatial puzzles. my knife needed sharpening and i promised tomorrow for the fourth tomorrow in a row. the walk-in door seal squeaked like a complaint. family meal smelled better than half the tickets and that is not an insult. it is tradition.

My mother's albondigas on my day off. Line cook brain wants mise en place. She cooks by smell.

We argued lovingly. Ate until silent.

Family recipes are the menu I cannot replicate on a ticket. The restaurant gets my speed. Home gets my doubt.

I stole one trick for the special. She will notice. She always notices.

I do not need a moral. I need an honest next step. Sometimes that is rest. Sometimes it is showing up again before you feel ready.

The story continues in the body after the words stop. Shoulders lower, or they do not. Tomorrow arrives with its own list. I am still here, which is not nothing.

I do not need a moral. I need an honest next step. Sometimes that is rest. Sometimes it is showing up again before you feel ready.

The story continues in the body after the words stop. Shoulders lower, or they do not. Tomorrow arrives with its own list. I am still here, which is not nothing.

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