My country for a hand wash station
BACK OF HOUSE
Pulling my winter jacket over my chef whites, I walked to the car to survey my mise en place.
Chicken roulades heated, wrapped and in the Canbro? Check. Six litres charred scallion pesto, seasoned? Check. Chef’s knife, spoons, cutting board, bus bins? Check. Side towels, gloves, garbage bags, cocktail napkins, surface sanitizer, probe thermometer? Check. Hand wash station? Hand wash station?? … Ugh!
I was already running behind that morning of a Jordan Village icewine street festival and the immediate reveal while loading my well-travelled hatch-back that I was without a hand wash station had me in an abrupt panic. Every off-site food event requires there to be a hand wash station at each booth. Niagara Region health inspectors pride themselves on checking every food vendor’s booth with rigour; a trait which bodes well for the Niagara community’s health, but just then had me feeling decidedly sick.
For most of us who get the sporadic off-site call, usually in support of the greater community’s events, a hand wash station has long since been procured, and part of the restaurant’s essential equipment. And they needn’t be fancy or expensive. The regulation from the board of health simply states that the apparatus for hand washing allow for free-flowing water and a bus bin to catch the runoff. For many of us, a 20-litre camping water jug with a free-flow spigot is the ticket. The problem remained that I didn’t have one. We were a new restaurant and this was the first time the crisis loomed.
Turning left out of the restaurant’s driveway, I headed into the metropolis of greater downtown Grismby — surely Canadian Tire will save me again, I prayed, watching the clock tick away. “Sorry sir,” a little chirp detected in the store attendant’s sincerity, “we don’t sell many camping water jugs in January.” Thanks.
Barrelling down Highway 8, I stopped at every Hail Mary, last ditch possibility I could think of. I tried to re-configure the demand to make my search more fruitful. I even sprinted into Greenhawk with the masterly thought that a store selling equine apparatus would, doubtless, have what I needed. My flawed thinking was redressed later that day when my wife, who knows these things, pointed out through laughter that horses don’t drink from free-flowing spigots.
My spirits were low and I was clearly skint on time, if I was to make the event at all. Pulling up to the ever-confusing doors of Vineland Hardware I walked in, shoulders slack and not hopeful. I wandered through the aisles, almost in a daze, distracted, considering a new set of measuring spoons in vibrant orange, a pastry scale with Canadian geese flying on the pad. And then I saw it, in all its metallic green and yellow brilliance. A vessel that could take a bunch of water. And a spigot.
When I squealed up to my booth, unloaded my food and supplies and pulled on my apron in the nick of time, I was relieved. I felt like I had lived through an ordeal. My time to be inspected arrived and I was too deflated to conjure the requisite apprehension. Looking thoughtfully at my new John Deere hand washing unit, designed originally for mulled cider I am certain, the inspector seemed to blush. Checking all the boxes as ‘pass,’ he leaned in close and asked if he could buy it.
Just the other day as I began a bit of spring clean of my barn, I caught a glimpse of the same tin vessel with a spigot that assuaged my hand washing worries years before. Time to wipe this baby out, I thought, offsite season will be upon us soon. — Ross Midgley moved from P.E.I. to Niagara in 1999. Since then he has held the lead position in several of the region’s top kitchens. He is passionate about his family, all things Niagara and good rock ’n’ roll. He can be reached at chefrmidgley1968@gmail.com.