Harmony Chapter 23: The Cooks

Filed: Harmony @ 6:28am on July 1, 2014 No comments yet! :(   Word Count: 1,116
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This entry is part 23 of 27 in the series Harmony

In a good mood from my meeting with Mark, I ran to the port to grab three electronic tablets and a back pack from the supplies to carry them.

As I was slowly walking back in town,  I realized that wearing the back pack was the most clothed I had been since I had arrived on his planet. It felt odd, but my skin seemed to no longer be accustomed to such contact.

Was beginning to really enjoy being naked?

I quickly found Rita, meditating near the town square. Ok, she wasn’t actually meditating, but she wasn’t doing much.

“Hi Harmony. You are not leaving town this morning?”

“No, but I have a full day planned and I was wondering if you wanted to see me in action, I thought this might convince you that my new share, even if unconventional, would be very useful.”

“I caught Marc and Stephen going to a mine this morning. They told me it was your idea. You shouldn’t tell people which share to follow”

“Oh, but I didn’t Rita. I just explained that we no longer needed solar panels and Mark suggested the mine.”

“I suppose this will do then. But respect wishes for those who love their share.”.

I reassured her and she agreed to follow me, not saying a word about the back pack. We walked to the cafeteria were I asked Rita to point me to the head chef. She had no idea what that was, but after a little explanation, she pointed me to Laura, the food coordinator.

The first thing that struck me was that all of the female cooks were just as naked as I has been. In a Earth restaurant, an inspector would have shut this place down, but I guess this went on par with local rules. I just hoped that the girls didn’t burn themselves too often, or at least, that they knew how to operate the burned skin repair stations!

Laura was the most serious girl I had met since… well, my birth, really! She was down to business, ordering around all of the workers so that the schedule would be filled perfectly.

She quickly told me she had no time to waste for the next few hours until she would have perhaps 5 to 10 minutes for me while she would eat her lunch.

I was told where to sit, and almost ordered Rita to stay by my side as I noted on my electronic tablet all of my observations about the cooking schedule.

During the off time, Rita explained that Laura is the only non-elder woman who isn’t married. She lives in the kitchen, and pretty much works non-stop. It’s always the case for this share because there is simply too much to do for a single girl.

“Shouldn’t it be delegated? She could get 2 or 3 assistants and give them control of a specific portion of the kitchen. For example, I count 23 people working under Laura, 2 men and 21 women. That’s too high of a ratio! If she had say, 2 assistants, they could each manage say 8 people, leaving Laura with the remaining 7 to coordinate, plus her 2 assistants.”

Rita agreed it was a good idea and I promised I would propose girls from other shares which I would realize were redundant, but secretly, I had already spotted my two from the group. Juliet was probably the most dynamic of the cooks and she visibly had a great overview around her. Consequently, Laura almost never had to guide her. The other was Kylie, the breadmaker. Making bread, visibly is hard work, but Kylie currently does all of the kneading my hand and I could see from my tablet a great industrial bread kneader in inventory…

I took note of every task performed in the kitchen, getting the names of the cooks from Rita and quickly arrived at multiple conclusions, one of which was that Rick, one of the 2 men, was idle more of the time and basically useless during the day.

It’s a good, because he’s also clueless and visibly dimwitted. Laura only used him as her pair of muscles to move heavy pots or carry things around.

I managed to find a 40 minutes window during which Rick wouldn’t have to work and stole him so we could borrow his truck (which he uses to pick up ingredients from the other shares).

I left Rita in the kitchen, and with Rick’s help, I loaded from the space port a few supplies I would have never been able to carry, especially since, unlike Rick, I had no idea how to operate a forklift.

We ended up doing two round trips. I drove his truck back on the first return trip because Rick decided to drive one of the forklift to the dining hall to help with the unloading.

I thanked Rick and sat back next to Rita preparing mentally to confront Laura as soon as she would stop for lunch…

Fortunately, I didn’t need to wait for long. I explained to Laura my new share, and told her of the idea of getting two assistants. I told her that Kylie would get industrial bread kneader and a dedicated bread oven made just for cooking bread which would free up oven time.

Laura was skeptical, but liked the idea.

I also explained their biggest bottleneck was that 3 of their ovens were broken and apparently repairable. I explained that I had 3 new ones ready to be installed as soon as the kitchen would close for the evening.

I even announced that I had 2 new refrigerators to replace the broken ones, and that sealed the deal. Laura hugged me, thanked me.

But I wasn’t done… I had a multiple of small industrial appliances, including electronic balances, juice extractors, safety fryers, food processors, a few rotisseries and brand new knives, forks and other utensils.

Laura’s eyes lit up and run outside to see her Christmas gifts. Many of those tools were sitting in the corner of the kitchen, broken after years of abuse and bad maintenance.

Some of the tools were new and unknown, but many had been used until only a few years ago. Others were still in use, but I had noticed that they didn’t have enough copies, like their stick mixers: They fought for control of the only remaining 2 copies, and I had brought 6 more.

The icing on the cake however, was the tablet I gave Laura. It contained million of recipes and would help her vary our menu and better manage her ingredient inventory and cook schedule.

Now, Laura is very cute and the only single girl in town. She’d need a little training, but luckily, that’s also part of my own share, and I certainly won’t mind spending a few evenings teaching her one on one…

 

Series Navigation«Harmony Chapter 22: First ChangesHarmony Chapter 24: Playing with the cook»

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