Jasiah Lopez

As a line cook for the valley club, I worked Garde Manager for three years working alongside with a partner for the station and together we ran Pantry for dinner service. Every day we go through our prep list and production cart to see what we needs to be done for the evening to give some examples that might include daily cutting and washing of lettuce, roasting beets, julienne Radish Miso crisp, Toasting Pistachios and Making the Strawberry pistachio vinaigrette. Pastry was also our responsibility frequently baking from scratch such as cookies, crème brûlée, chocolate, mousse, carrot cake, and apple pie just to name a few from over the years. Sushi was something the club decided to experiment in the 2024 season, and I had the pleasure of learning how to make sushi, rice, sliced fish, and roll sushi, one of the rolls included was a salmon roll with Blanche, asparagus, avocado, fried shallots, topped with topiko and dots of wasabi aioli. My other position at the club was working sauté at the west campus restaurant, which was more quick service atmosphere with items like mahi tacos, burgers, protein, bowls, and pasta dishes. Every day I go over the mise for the line to see what needs to be done throughout the morning, followed by checking product quality and making sure nothing has gone bad. Once service starts I do my best to communicate with the other line cooks and the expediter to ensure everything comes out as smoothly as possible. At the end of the night, we flip everything, scrub, wipe and sanitize our workstations, followed by sweeping and mopping the kitchen floors.

My time at the club I worked pantry which included salads, flatbread, and dessert. Every day I go through a daily prep list to see what needs to be done for the evening next I check for product quality and discard anything that is in poor condition. Once prep is complete right before service. I shuck and clean oysters anywhere between 50 and 100. Once our service is about to begin the chefs do their rounds to inspect prep for each of the stations and if anything is off or not quite standards, they will have their say and we will correct and move on from there. Once service begins we do our best to communicate tickets with each other making services smooth as possible at the end of the night. It was my responsibility to properly ice and store the fish and oysters for the night checking the quality along the way once that is finished at the end of the night, we flip everything, scrubbing, wiping, and sanitizing for the morning crew.