Who is cooking now?

One of the challenges associated with living on an island is that you have limited access to an extended workforce. For most positions it isn’t a problem as you can rotate the schedule of your staff to take care of the time off for each employee. However, there are certain positions for which you do not hire multiples and for those vacation time is a bit more challenging.

We have a cook and a helper in the kitchen. We are fortunate in that they can turn out some incredible food. Our cook is kind enough to teach many of the different things she makes to her helper so that the helper can take on additional responsibility and fill in for the cook at certain meals. The helper lacks the experience of the cook which is why he is currently the helper and not the cook. He is hoping to return to school someday so cooking is not what he wants to be doing for a living. The cook on the other hand loves to cook and you can tell. Her food is amazing.

Well, it is her turn to go on vacation. She doesn’t take vacation on a regular basis like all of our other employees and she is absolutely entitled to it. I on the other hand cannot find anyone to work with the helper in the kitchen for the time she will be away. So it appears that the food the kitchen turns out for a few weeks will be a bit different than the food prepared in our kitchen most of the time. It will still be delicious, but it will be more like going to a party at a friend’s house rather than dinner at a restaurant. Why is that you ask? I will be back in the kitchen for a period of time. I can design menus for our cook to prepare, but I do not have the same skills that she has to turn out the same meals she cooks. I will miss her immensely, but I would prefer to miss her for a brief period of time rather than let her burn out and miss her all of the time.