On The Road Again: One Sesaon in the Life of a Wok Chef....

Howdy folks, well it must be around 3-4 months since the last update but im sure you all know what im like with this by now.....so heres a run-down of what a first winter season has been filling my life with.

So as you know i scored a job as a wok chef at the noodle bar at the ski resort known as 'Cardrona'. With a shift rotation of 4 days on 2 days off you'd think alot of snowboarding was to be had for me over the last 3 months, unfortunatly not as much as what I would have liked (mainly due to weather, and little bit of lack of effort) but still a fair amount and I think a wee bit of improvement has been made on the board. So an average day up the hill would be, wake up at around 6:30ish get ready and then get aride with a fellow cardronian to town, to get a ride up the mountain with the staff vans. This was usually an uneventful/good time to catch some z's ride, however sometimes the road conditions were terrible but Cardrona is the mountain that only closes when only certain death is iminant. One particular ride coming down the mountain involved super icy,white out conditions and with a particularly reckless driver we spun out and was left in the van with its back side looking down the rocky drop of one of the corners! Brilliant.

Anyways, so assuming you have made it up the hill alive you then start your working day. For me this was working out what prep was to be done and prepping it. Chopping veg, making sauces, blanching noodles and meat (which was skanky as hell). Whilst at the same time taking full advantage of the barista girls and consuming a fair amount of coffee, also learning to barrista myself, which is something ive been wanting to know for some time. (making coffee right is alot harder than it looks).

And so then we would open. We started off super quiet not having many customers in these times we would go on ride breaks, trade food with other departments and various other not work type of things. But when it got busy it went manic, a shed load of wokking was to be done, luckily for cardrona they employed a samurai jedi wok master!! So that was an average working day for myself, the rest of the season was taken up by many a party, and of course climbing.

I got a little tired of snowboarding and focused alot on climbing but at that time of year both sports are tempermental mainly due to the weather. However I have found I am definatly more of a summer rock person than a winter snow person, dont get me wrong snowboarding is a super enjoyable sport and im guessing another winter season somewhere will happen, but over not to much contemplating I have come to the conclusion that Climbing is a much more superior sport.

And so heres the end of the season, with a large final party at the Crib and a few more nights out on the town its all over in Wanaka. It will be very sad to leave, espsecially seeing good friends go. But thats the way it goes, am very much looking forward to the summer months to come. I was planning on a few walks in the bush but thats been temporarily cancelled due to the track conditions so looks like theres only one thing to do....... that'l be more climbing (shame).

Untill the next time my friends, hope all is well, much love tom x

the noodle bar crew...