BotH: chapter 3

Chapter 3
The Hotel Heiress
Sundance was my first encounter with any celebrities at the hotel. Other departments had already been working with them, so I was excited to finally get my chance to see one. I was a greeter at the main entrance for a Toyota-sponsored event in which I handed each guest a spiked hot chocolate as they came in. As I was standing there at the doors Paris Hilton walked out to wait for her ride into town. She wasn't party of the Toyota-sponsored event but she still managed to get her photo opp in front of their banners. Did you know she smokes? I didn't until then...Anyway, I saw her for two minutes and I thought that was pretty cool.
A couples of days later I was grabbing extra hours by helping out in private dining (room service) when Candace and I were asked to go do a clean up in a room that hadn't been serviced for a day so we both needed to go. When we got to the room no one was there and as we cleaned I noticed the room was full of soda bottles laying on the ground that were half full, food barely eaten off its plates with cigarettes put out on them, and mostly that it wreaked of smoke (and not just cigarette smoke). Some of the food had been there for days and the room was crowded with shopping bags and luggage so it was hard to navigate through everthing. This particular suite had the living room and bedroom separate and as Candace was in the bedroom I noticed all of the luggage had Paris Hilton written all over it, kind of like how Louis Vuitton does his luggage. I remember saying to Candace, "who would want Paris Hilton written all over their luggage?" Duh, right?! That was the look Candace gave me, too...my poor brain took nearly five minutes to realize whose room I was in! What struck me the most was how small of a room she had, especially considering the posse she had with her.
I hope they charged her for smoking in her room...

Best bakery-style cupcakes

So for quite a while I've been looking for a good frosting recipe. And not just any frosting, but the kind the grocery store bakeries make... I know that in the world of frosting this kind isn't highly esteemed, but I really like it sometimes...ok a lot. Anyway, over the past few holidays I have experimented with different recipes and techniques and for mother's day I nailed it!
This time for the cupcakes I used a boxed mix. It suited the situation this time...
Frosting Recipe
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup shortening
1 TBL corn syrup
1 tea vanilla
2+ cups powdered sugar (I used a third of a bag)
Beat (and I do mean beat) the butter and shortening using a paddle attachment (a whisk attachment will take forever) until the butter is no longer yellow, about one minute. Add in one cup powder sugar and mix to incorporate. Add the corn syrup and vanilla. Add another cup of the powdered sugar and once it incorporates beat it for two minutes. If you want a thicker frosting for piping and whatnot add more powdered sugar. If you just want it light and fluffy to spread on the cupcake then don't add more.
Tips: make the frosting in a cool kitchen. I did it about three hours after the cupcakes were made and it prevented the frosting from separating.

BotH: Chapter 2

I feel like I need to give enough background for you to understand the irony or humor in certain situations, so I apologize, but hopefully this will be one of the last "background" chapters.

Chapter 3
Do's and Don'ts

The first two days of my employment at The Resort was intensive brand training. Brand training consisted of the history of The Resort (it has a lot of locations around the world), the do's and don'ts of service, and the do's and don'ts of our resort in particular. The next two weeks were then broken down into training in our departments.

I was in awe the first few days. That is the best way to describe it. The Resort is huge, easily the biggest hotel I had ever been in, and it was fancy. When you walked around and toured the property that was the only word to come into mind- fancy. Walking around the back of the house (non-public/employee-only areas) was confusing at first, but it almost felt like you were working on a cruise ship. The main floor to the guest was actually the third floor for employees. It was like being in the belly of the beast.

With a resort this big and with a reputation to uphold (Candace, you may giggle here) there were a lot of rules. Employees couldn't clock in more than five minutes before/after a shift. This was sometimes problematic since most employees were shuttled to the resort from the other side of the mountain and the shuttle only came every thirty minutes. This was probably the most complained about situation for the first few months. Employees weren't allowed on the property when they weren't on their shift unless they had permission--really funny story about this one. Employees had to meet/exceed all of Forbes' 5-Star and AAA 5-Diamond requirements for service. Not as easy as you'd think. You could say "assist" but not "help." Appropriate ways of saying "yes" were, "absolutely," "certainly," "but of course," and "it would be my pleasure." Use the guest's name whenever possible. Never say "guys" as in, "how are you guys doing today" unless the entire group was male. Things like that. Very nit picky, very important to The Resort, and really hard to get used to.

Luckily for me AAA and Forbes didn't include or rate banquets in their criteria to obtain a 5 star/diamond status. Unluckily for me my Banquet Manager was...a piece of work, and she was probably more strict than any undercover AAA/Forbes employee. Even after being trained, we couldn't set the tables until she showed us how before each event. You couldn't go on your lunch break, even if it was scheduled, until she told you it was okay. Needed to go to the bathroom? Better ask Melissa. Couldn't find her? Then you my friend were SOL. Big time. A lot of these do's and don'ts were unnecessary, but some were obviously important even if it was hard to understand why at the time.

BotH: Chapter 1

Chapter 1
The People of The Resort

There are four types of people who stayed at The Resort. During orientation as we marveled how fancy our resort was, we were taught how to treat our guests and what working with the various types of guests would be like. The Resort did not categorize them in this way, that is purely me and how I found them to be.

First you have Regular People. They are everyday people who save money to go and enjoy themselves for a weekend. Sometimes they are uber cheap because they can barely afford to stay there, but they are usually nice people. Most Regular People tip well because they know how hard it is to make money and they realize that we, like them, are also just Regular People. In the first few months I was there I saw Regular People mainly at events like weddings and some conferences, but I didn't work with them regularly until I had been there about eight months and switched departments.

Then there are the people who Think They're Rich (TTR). The TTR were mostly local patrons, mainly real estate agents, brokers, attorneys, socialites, etc that yes, they were rich, but in the scheme of "richness" around the world they weren't that rich. I'd say they were under $500,000 a year (not that that is something to scoff at...). I worked in the banquet department when I first started so I was around The TTR a lot. Rarely were they friendly or conversational and most of the time they treated the staff (and their friends for that matter) like their crap didn't stink. They were not the most fun people to be around...and they didn't tip well. The fun ones were the socialites who showed up to every party to hang out with The TTR and booze it up, usually making fools of themselves. There was a blonde who came to so many parties and you could hear the whispers among the guests wondering why she was there or see the looks of so-and-so has had to much to drink again. As entertaining as she was, this business man, Mr. Rude, was probably one of my most memorable experiences while working with The TTR and I'll get back to him later.

Then there are The Rich. These people are rich. Richey Rich rich. Some of them were so rich that you couldn't find them on the internet, and not because there was nothing to read about them, but because they had the internet cleaned of their presence. A certain man traveled with a security team every time he was at The Resort and rarely talked to us directly...but we'll talk about him more later. The Rich were also usually famous--but not celebrity famous-- famous in their own spheres of influence: CEO's, President's & VP's, Owners, etc. These people were the Bill Gates of their companies, just not as well known publicly.

Lastly there are The Celebrities. Since we were in Park City there was a pretty large celebrity circle that would come to ski or attend Hollywood-Type events (like Sundance). We had special training on how to interact with The Celebrities, mainly remembering to use their pseudonyms instead of their real names, even if it was ridiculously obvious who they were.

The employees that I worked with had varying degrees of experience in either food service or resorts, sometimes both and unfortunately sometimes neither. A lot of them were from all over the world and some of them had the most fascinating stories to tell. I want to go ahead and introduce you to the people you will hear about the most, there is kind of a lot.

Butlers: Nigel, Mike, and Ernest
Banquet team: Ben,Candace, Remy, Me, my mom, Tia, Susie, Christie, Rob, and Lee.
Banquet Bartenders: Chris and Ryan
Private Dining: Carlos, Alex, Josef, and  Steve
Registration and Reservations: Alicia, Ron, and Lucy
Chefs: Phil, Tony, Orrin, Billy, Jake, Eric, and Chelsea
Various management people: Melissa, Mr. Great, Amanda, Carrie, and Lori

Back of the House: Introduction

It has taken me a really long time to put pen to paper with regards to Back of the House. I have always envisioned it in my mind as an episode of The Office, but after a while I realized that as funny as that may be, it wasn't really what working there was like most of the time. I realized that my thoughts-turned-stories were more of a drama with bits of comedy sprinkled in...a dramedy???

Since some of my friends still work at The Resort, I will use fictitious names throughout. And no, it wasn't really called "The Resort." As I get all of my names sorted and thoughts organized I hope that it will be an enjoyable thing to read about the experiences I/we had there. The only person's identity who I won't change is my mom's because it is integral to know that a mother/daughter pair worked together. Plus, she helps fill in the gaps with some of the stories. All of these experiences either happened to me, I watched them happen, or they were relayed to me from someone directly involved. The hearsay is quite entertaining as well and I'll let you know what it is when I come across it. Also, I'm calling each section "chapters" but in reality they're more like mini-chapters. Or sections. Or...I don't know...a short story.

With all of that being said, I hope you enjoy chapter1 of Back of the House.

Pork Carnitas

From nowhere I had this huge craving for pork carnitas. I searched all over to find the kind that I was looking for and I finally found it on Our Best Bites (big surprise). I made some changes since I didn't have 4 lbs of pork, but for the most part I stuck to their recipe. I omitted the bay leaf (don't have any...) and added 1/2 a seeded/veined jalapeno. This was some righteous pork and even the hubs liked it!

For the pico-type topping:

1/2 roma tomato, diced

1/4 diced onion

1/2 jalapeno, diced

1 TBS lime juice

Pinch of salt and pepper

Mix and garnish :)

For the cabbage slaw:

1/4 cabbage, thinly sliced

1 TBS lime juice

1 TBS orange juice

1/2 tea red wine vinegar

Pinch of sugar, salt,and pepper

Mix everything together and let it sit for 10 minutes to soften up, then serve over carnitas.

Changes to the blog

I've been thinking for a while about how to effectively run two blogs and I've decided to make some changes to our personal and business blogs. I will continue to post product reviews/recommendations, but they will be moved to the Little Cabbage blog. So will toddler-approved recipes. I will keep our personal blog more personal, i.e. about our family, adventures, and I will start Back of the House here (promise). I will also keep our recipes and selling secrets on our personal blog...i think. Lots of changes coming so please bear with me :)