Moose of all Trades 4

“If you don’t get full marks at school, you end will up working at a falafel stand.” That was my father’s favourite motivational speech. Twelve years after finishing high school – with more than acceptable results – my worst nightmare has finally come true. And honestly, aside from insignificant financial repercussions, such a career may not be that bad once you take a closer look at it.

 

Seconds after I presented my oral job application to Murad – manager of a small booth in a popular mall – I found myself standing behind the counter wearing a nylon apron. And, ever eager to impress, I grabbed the cutter blade and proceeded to make incisions in a stack of bread. “Hand over the cutter,” my new boss immediately interjected. “You pushed out the blade too much and you will hurt yourself… I will cut the bread and stuff it with hummous and falafel and you do the rest.”

 

After roughly 30 seconds. I’ve been downgraded to the unceremonious task of adding pickles and tomatoes. Dsoogi, my Egyptian coworker, tries to make me feel better by explaining career growth in the felafel industry. “I started at the sink. It took me about three months to move from dishwashing and floor mopping to simple food-processing kitchen duties. Once I proved that I knew the exact portions of hummous and foul that goes into each container, I was promoted to the counter.” 

 

So, dishing foul didn’t seem so bad, but it proved harder than it looks. In the wake of the innocent mistake of spilling some on the floor, and with impatient customers forming a queue, Murad and Dsoogi’s new team member was evidently hurting the efficiency of the operation. “Most of our customers are in a hurry. They don’t recognise that this is a small stand run by two people,” offered Murad. Dsoogi agreed: “the worst are those who want hot falafel, but don’t want to wait!” Cue another demotion: goodbye main counter, hello cutting board. 

 

According to Dsoogi cutting tomatoes, pickles and cabbage is the worst part of the job Thankfully, less than half an hour later, Murad asked me if I would like to try the fryer. “How is he going to teach you when he does not even know how to do it himself?” wondered a clearly bitter Dsoogi, proving who really runs the show. 

 

As I watched my little babies dance around the fryer, I could not help but ask the inevitable question: how often do you change the oil? First Dsoogi smiled and said: “Often. Like once every three weeks…” before Murad, trying to laugh it off, swore it is every other day. Fishing my Falafels out of the sea of oil, I felt the satisfaction of a world-class chef taking a last look at his freshly prepared Chateaubriand. 

 

Before hanging up my apron, Dsoogi insisted on teaching me how to decorate a plate of hummous, because “this is what is going to get you ahead in this business”. Ignoring Murad’s pleas to wear the gloves, I held the flower-patterned Hummous plate, licked my thumb and passed it around the edge of the plate before I shook the hummous residues on my thumb back on the plate. I am now officially a falafel shop veteran.