Relationships: As a Non-Working Restaurant Widow

8.14.2012

Relationships: As a Non-Working Restaurant Widow

I’m lucky that I have the opportunity to write for pay but it’s still not enough to live on. There are not a lot of PR/social media jobs in Minneapolis so I’m having a tough time with the job search. Basically, I’m home all the time. Like, all the time to the point that I am going insane.

Yeah, it’s awesome to sleep in and have time to do things I normally don’t have time for but I find myself talking to Bacon a lot lately as if he was cognizant of every word coming out of my mouth because he is the only living thing to talk to.

“Bacon, go eat your yum-yums.”

Yum-yums? Yeah, I know. I feed Bacon his meals, take him out, surf the web relentlessly for jobs, make myself something lame to eat during meal times…and that’s pretty much what I do with my day. I’m still incredibly bored from not getting my ass kicked by work that I’m looking forward to almost being married to my next job.

As usual, Chef is pretty much married to his job (he just put out a pretty successful wild boar dish and panzanella salad recently). He will totally hate me for saying this next part: during his job search, we learned that it seems like the Minneapolis restaurants were very set on executive chefs with Minneapolis experience…because? I haven’t heard a legitimate reason from anyone on why that is the case. Maybe because it’s because he’s only 26? Especially young for an executive chef? Who knows. He took a job at a great restaurant as the sous.

The great thing about the Minneapolis restaurant scene is that Chef has to take two days off (not necessarily consecutively) as opposed to, I don’t know, his zero days off as executive chef in New York. That’s just the way it is here. People in the Minneapolis restaurant scene actually get days off (weird), they don’t have to worry about what the food sites and blogs say/make-up/embellish (also weird), many restaurants close really early (weird and inconvenient) and also, the restaurants here don’t really use restaurant publicists (very weird, which puts me in an awkward job searching position). Maybe its the family-focused way of life that makes it the way that it is what it is. Or maybe it is because everyone is just really, really nice and are aware of this thing called balance.

Chef is still working something like 12+ hours per day, which to be honest, is still a lot but it’s something I’ve kind of adjusted to after being with him for so long — you’re never, ever fully adjusted. Because I know how much he works and how out of touch he can be during work, this brings us to the “Thought I Lost My Finger Incident” last week; Right after the blade of the immersion blender hit my finger, I wrapped it in a kitchen towel and boy was it a gusher. It was really scary to be alone, especially to see that. My first thought was “I hope I didn’t lose my finger” and my first action was to call my dad. I know I should be calling Chef but in the back of my mind, I was picturing myself laying on our beautiful ivory rug in a pile of blood (dramatic, I know) because I knew I couldn’t reach him right away. This next part makes him seem like a jerk: while at the hospital, I did call him several times but he didn’t answer. It was completely my fault for not keeping him up to date but I figured the text would make him want to rush to the hospital.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from him. Although, there were a few missed calls from him while they were x-raying and stitching me up but due to our miscommunication Chef had no idea how bad my injury was so he probably didn’t feel the need to rush over (he also thought the cut was from one of our dull Wüsthof knives, not an immersion blender). It’s just a finger though. It wasn’t as if I went into a coma or something, but just being in a hospital is scary enough that I’m lucky that my dad was there with me.

Things I’ve learned this week:

Make an emergency plan with your restaurant industry significant other so you know how to reach them. I have the restaurant phone number saved on my phone now.
Communicate with your significant other (which my dad bitched about enough in the ER). Restaurant widowism is such a huge part of me that I’ve spent so many years pretending that he is in a different state or out of the country when he is working so I don’t bother him and go insane wondering what he is doing. The pretending has become such a huge part of my reality that I’ve talked myself into believing that he can never be around when I really need him.
Bacon does not know what yum-yum is.

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