amelio's

tonight was apparently slow. i just started as a kitchen helper at this pizza restaurant not knowing what a kitchen helper was, i figured i would be comfortably ensconced in the dishroom surrounded by suds. instead, i am a skilled worker already, expertly manipulating and flouring and dancing with the dough. i am an artist. this was really hard at first especially because my initial teacher was amit (amin? amyth?), an indian or pakistani man with breathtaking expertise. it made me think of the grand sensei in kill bill, such coldness to incompetence. he only let me watch, whenever i tried to do something myself he intervened with the urgency of a man who cannot bear to see something done improperly. he is quite short and doesn't speak english very well and yet it is evident he is the sage of the restaurant, everyone else has come to understand and respect his brief, muddled and very wise utterances. working with amin i rapidly lost hope for my prospects as a pizza master. the situation was exacerbated by a shelf at eyebrow level. i banged my head near constantly into it, and whenever i looked directly forward i stared into a rather uninspiring piece of wood. it made me feel even dumber than my inability to handle the dough.

amelio's was hilarious in that a disproportionate number of people working there looked like mail order brides. so many of them were blonde and russian and spoke limited english. this other trainee, a woman named mitka epitomized this. she worked in earnest in spite of having evident difficulty at differentiating between some of the vegetable toppings (she was the topping girl, a lesser task, i like to believe than my own. i was building the foundation of the pizza experience). i got the impression she was learning the word zucchini on the fly.

another guy came to my aide of amin left me, a pudgy, friendly and average guy named josh. he was a little reminiscent of israel from that rideshare. he had been working there for about a year and a half and made me very happy when he told me that amin definitely was the pizza master of the establishment. i find it really funny that this little indian/pakistani man had somehow become the preeminent force in churning out delicious italian food, we do live in a big beautiful world. more later.