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After 3 weeks of not working, I’m back at it and in a whole different way! Officially a Warner Brothers employee

This week was packed full. Mostly of me running around a giant kitchen having no idea what I was doing, but you know, classic newbie. I’ve decided that this blog post is going to be in the form of a list to prevent me from rambling on so much. I’m calling it “15 things I have learned in 15 days” to continue on from my intro about moving to L.A.

1. Warner Brothers is HUGE. Yes, the lot itself is big and it’s amazing how much they pack in there and how much history is there, but man, the amount of money that goes in (Friends alone makes them $1 billion a year!!), the size of the staff (10,000 employees just in the U.S.), and then how much food is produced there it insane! I knew the kitchen would be big, but this is unlike anything I have ever experienced. The dish pit and walk-in refrigerator individually are the size of most kitchens I’ve worked in, there are at least 7 truckloads of food that come in each day, and yet the place remains sparkling clean (I would know, we got a health inspection on my 4th day!). So that’s a brief intro to my job. Pretty intimidating to be new there. “Jenica, could you cook a pot of pasta?” me: “Uhh, where are the pots? the stoves? the pasta?” It’ll be a learning process for sure.
2. Traffic in L.A. truly does suck. And the parking is rough. But the benefit of me leaving my house at 6 AM ( I know, I don’t want to talk about it) and coming home at 4 is that I miss most of it! When I have had to sit in it though, I’ve spent most of the time catching up on the phone with people. If anything this has forced some much needed quality time with people in my life! Also, I tend to find a parking spot right next to a boba place so it ends up just fine.
3. Scooters are a lifesaver. Shout-out to whoever thought of this whole scooter-rental phenomenon, you have saved me from being late to work already. There are hundreds of them around my neighborhood and I have used them a few times now to race to my car parked a half a mile away in the mornings.
4. L.A. is a food-lover’s paradise, and Koreatown specifically is packed full of great eateries, but the sheer amount of them can be overwhelming causing someone like me to spend 2 hours on yelp trying to find the best Korean fried chicken near me. If anyone has specific food rec’s near me, please send them my way!
5. I am a rookie when it comes to batch-prepping food. Most of the last couple of years I spent running the line and not a lot of chopping and slicing was involved, so this week when they threw me on catering prep, I was hurting. Blistered hand, sore back, it’s like I’ve never worked in a kitchen before! As much as I wanted to groan over having to chop cases upon cases of vegetables though, it’s been necessary practice that will get me back the skills needed for this job. Today (Monday) I already feel way more confident than last week.
6. You don’t realize how great the little things are in life until they’re gone. In my case this week, it was hot water in the shower. On Wednesday they came in to fix my shower (it had only been running hot since i moved in), and they ended up just switching the problem around. I have never been able to take cold showers so I literally drew myself baths (like actually filled up pots of hot water) and did it old school until it got fixed today. So. glad. it’s. fixed.
7. The Huntington Dog Beach is a dog’s heaven. So worth the drive! I thought Lucca was going to have a heart attack from how excited he was. Hundreds of dogs, perfect huge beach, all around 10/10.
8. French toast is fun to make…until you have to make one thousand of them. So here I was, day 1 on the job, and the chef comes up to me and tells me about an event he was doing on Sunday, the L.A. Food and Wine Festival. The theme was brunch, so he decided to do french toast (for those of you who speak food, a brioche french toast stick with berry gel, lemon creme fraiche, mixed berries, and micro chamomile). On Wednesday we did a trial run with it out in the courtyard (just 200 pieces) and it was pretty stressful but fun. Then on Friday I helped cook the 1500 pieces of toast on the flattop and now I’m fine never making it again. Sorry, future husband.
9. I really could have benefited from paying attention to Spanish class in high school. 3 years of it and I know absolutely nothing! Here I am now working with a staff of which about 90% speak Spanish along with half of the building I live in. Oh well, maybe I’ll pick it up somehow.
10. Skyping your dog when you leave the house works for about 2 days. Then if they’re smart (Lucca is), they’ll figure out it’s not actually you and go back to whining at the door. If anyone has tips on dealing with dog’s separation anxiety, send them my way!
11. This isn’t really new to me, but this week validated it. If you can only have one item for cooking, it should be a cast-iron pan. I brought a few different pans, but for almost every meal I have cooked here I have used my Staub pan. It is amazing and, most importantly right now, fits in my oven! I recently discovered that my oven seems to be just slightly larger than an easy-bake, so the Staub is now my go-to for everything. I just sounded like a commercial, but trust me, Staub is best.
12. Other kitchen essentials for being broke in L.A. include Trader Joe’s potstickers, a Nespresso machine, the 18 pack of eggs, and sriracha.
13. Running is a lot easier here than it is in Colorado. I thought I was suddenly in impeccable shape the other day, when I remembered the altitude change. Then 30 seconds later I was drenched in sweat and reminded of just how out of shape it am.
14. Somehow after 5 years of working in the food industry and even studying cuisine in the world’s tomato-mecca, I just learned today that there is a difference between cherry and grape tomatoes. I am officially sorry to everyone for how blonde I can be sometimes. These things just happen.
15. I am so happy to be here. This may be an enormous adjustment for me, but not a lot of people get the opportunity to take a leap like this and I am so thankful for it!