If I Never See Chicken Salad Sandwiches Again

So for the past 10 or so days I have been mired in a world of food, food, food and did I mention the food? Melbourne is in the grips of the Spring Racing Carnival, which means oodles and oodles of hampers, horses, hats, and of course, fashion faux pas. It's a colourful, lively time of year when Melburnians celebrate the fact that gambling, drinking, and acting silly are all national past times to be immensely proud of. Plus there are some weird little skinny guys who actually ride the horses. From am emzee point of view, it has meant that I am working an enormous amount of hours (to feed the revellers), but I'm also making a small fortune.

That being said, I've had one day off in 2 weeks (spent nursing sick DH and DS, mostly) and I've varied in work hours from as little as 9 to as many as 12 and back again, and some mornings I've been up at 1 AM (!!) packing chicken salad sandwiches into expensive shoe boxes and making sure not a single solitary mark is on the $150 box. Yes, $150 for some finger sandwiches in a mark-free, perfectly aligned sticker, fancy-shmancy this is the best sandwich ever hamper box. I shit you not. This is why I love my job. For the record, I did stuff other than chicken salad sandwiches, but ya know, the olfactory assault of chicken and mayo at 1 AM, well, it's something one doesn't forget too easily.

The madness ends on Saturday, after which I will return to normal blogging (instead of collapsing into a heap every day) and I can reclaim my life from the several thousand (literally) chicken salad sandwiches I have had some small part of making. If you think I'm exaggerating the amount of these things, let me assure you that the other day I was involved in the chopping up of 90 KILOS of poached chicken - and that was only for ONE customer, for ONE event. We are talking chicken which weighs as much as four anorexics after a binge, two average sized people, or just one hefty person.

So while I carry on with all the pomp and circumstance of one who is always the chef and never the jockey, amuse yourselves with this.

PS: For those following the "I lost a chunk of thumb in the meat slicer" story - all is well now. After 16 days of constant band-aid wearing and cream shmearing, it's healed nicely.