The Basil Mystery

It was a normal slow night at the Grape Garden Restaurant.  After a couple hours business started to pick up enough that the servers had to replace the salad bin with a new full one.  Tarah and Blanca volunteered to do the task, and after more than a quick trip down and up the stairs, were back with the new bin that they had to pack themselves, for the cooks did not have any already filled up.

The upstairs servers went about their business, making salads for their tables.  Slowly huge basil leaves, not ever found in the usual house salad mix, started to fall into the salad bowls.  Dumbfounded, the servers would pull them out, wondering how in the hell they got there!

Walking out of the alley, and then back in, I noticed basil leaves sticking out of the storage closet.  There were only a few leaves at my first encounter.  More and more basil leaves started to appear in the salad mix, and laughing, I would walk away, and walking back into the alley, would notice more basil leaves sticking out of the storage closet!  The basil leaves were growing along the cracks of the closet door.  How was this possible?  First basil leaves in the salad mix, now coming from the closet?? Was that closet so muggy and damp, and god knows what else, that mysterious plants started to grow from it?  Was something coming from the attic above the storage closet?  Were they growing in the walk-in fridge too? 

Finally, came the end of the salad bin, and the end of the basil leaves.  Was it just this one salad bin that had been infected???

Riham and the "growing" basil leaves

Answers:
I first came to learn that the mysterious basil plant that had been growing from the storage closet was not in fact a basil plant growing from the storage closet.  Upon picking out each individual basil leaf from the salad mix, to his amusement, server Riham, was placing the basil leaves in the cracks of the door.  Mystery number one solved.

So how did the basil leaves get in the salad bin to begin with?
Everyone questioning this to each other, we had decided perhaps the prep cook accidentally grabbed a bag of basil along with regular salad mix bags, and packed them all in together.  As we were all pondering this, I noticed Tarah, grabbing a cone cup, trying not to laugh at our ponderings.  That is when it all pieced together for me….

Tarah and Blanca had volunteered to get the salad bin refill when we had run low upstairs, correct?  And it had taken them longer than the usual trip down and up the stairs to get the bin, and they had said they had to fill it themselves, did they not? 
Upon realizing this I quickly blurted out, “You put the basil in the salad mix didn’t you!”  Without admitting it, Tarah started to giggle.  And I pointed out the fact that she was laughing at our pondering.  I finally got her to admit it.  Next, was to ask her if she was retarded or did it on purpose.

My first guess was she accidentally grabbed a wrong bag when she was throwing them in one at a time into the bin.  But lone behold she had meant to toss in a bag that was not the salad mix. For shits n’ giggles.  She pointed out that she thought it was spinach, not basil though. 

So mystery two was now solved.  Servers enjoyed the amusement of having to search through every bowl of salad to pull out the huge basil leaves before handing them to their tables, and thus instead of disposing of them, sticking them in the cracks of the storage closet, leaving the alley to smell quite strongly of basil. 

So what became of the basil leaves at the end of the night?  Surely they could not be left in the crack of the door.  So dispose of the remnants of the night’s fun??? On the contrary.  Riham, who seemed to be the most fascinated with the basil leaves, came up quick with a plot… Gathering all the leaves in his hands, and running down the stairs, through the downstairs kitchen alley, and to the office, he collectively knocked on the door.  Upon the opening of the door, Riham threw the basil leaves at manager Linden Stevenson’s face, making sure every leaf got on him, and then made his quick get away, fleeing back up the stairs and into the alley.  Linden Stevenson’s did not follow.  But was said to have been laughing at the incident, rather than being upset by it. 

Just another night at the Grape Garden Restaurant.

Ice-Pong

Play beer pong? Play basketball? Well we have a new sport that is just for you.

ICE PONG.

One slow day at the Grape Garden Restaurant in…..well we will keep that location private, for sake of the evil district manager finding this and firing us all….a few hooligans started to throw ice in a glass.  It’s harder than it sounds….

How to play the game:

Version of Ice-Pong #1:

Ice-Pong Version 1

1) You set a glass atop a counter, or in this case, the soup bowl heater.
2)  Scoop up a plastic kids cup full of ice (as to not have to keep reaching in the ice bin and contaminating the ice. Health rule number 1: ice is food. Duh.)
3) Find your worthy competetors
4) Stand a good distance away from the glass
5) Start shooting.

You will find that it is harder to get the ice cubes in the glass than you think.  You have to have the rigth aerodynamics.  The right aim. The right angle.  The right toss.  The right amount of force.  And each ice cube is different, so each time your shot is changing. 

Who wins?  You can do whoever makes the most ice cubes in a certain amount of time wins.  But be weary it takes awhile for a good amount of ice cubes to make it into the glass between everyone.  You can keep playing until the glass is full too.  And if you want to be brutal, loser has to drink the glass at the end, because if you manage to fill up the glass, which takes awhile, the ice will have at least somewhat melted by then. 

 

Version of Ice-Pong #2:

Ice Pong Version 2 setup example

1) Set up two jack stands, beer pong regulation distance away from each other.
2) Place big trays on top of the jack stands.
3) Set up glasses, however many you want to play with, on top of the trays, like you are setting up a beer pong table- pyramid style.
4) Fill the glasses a quarter or so full with your choice of beverage.  At Grape Garden, obviously there is no drinking on the job, so we used coke.
5) Get your plastic [kid’s] cup of ice, and set it to the side or hold it in your hand.
6) Start shooting as if this was beer pong.

If the shooter makes it in the glass, you have to drink that glass.  Obviously first person to make all the glasses, wins.

You can set up your own version of this game at home if you do not work at an Grape Garden, or a restaurant, or actually, any other Grape Garden other than the one where this originated from; because I doubt any other Grape Garden’s managers would be as linient.

But Ice-Pong….. it will catch on.  Practice your ice-pong skills today.  It gets more epic than you would imagine. (ie: shot from the stairs half way down the alley. sa-woosh!)