Fracking and Olive, an urban dive

Hellooooooo everyone!!

And happy March to you all :)

Long time no blog!

How are you all doing? I'm just fantastic thank you! I'm sure you're all wondering what happened to my MacBook since the beginning of February. Long story short - it was a small problem with an easy fix that was free of charge! I can't tell you how happy I am that my lap top is in tip top shape and that my wallet was spared in the process.

But I digress. Enough about me and my blogging woes! I'm here to talk to you about my job at -Olive, an urban dive and everything that goes along with it (how the restaurant works, Olive attire, lunch shift inside info, my taking photographs for the restaurant, and the terror that is "fracking".)

Some of you may notice a bit of this content from previous posts I've written about Olive. This is because I strategically fused together new information about Olive (pictures of the specials, Fracking, etc.) with older CCH content about my job (work attire, pictures of the building etc.) I did my best to put this mess of my mind in order so I could produce a sound post that reflects my life at Olive just the way it is. Here's to hoping I did ok! :)

(I apologize if the editing/spacing/font is a bit off in todays post! Blogger isn't really agreeing with me today!)

What exactly is Olive all about? What kind of food do we serve at Olive? What makes Olive so awesome? Why am I telling complete strangers located all over the globe where I work and where to find me?

(Couldn't find a picture of the front of Olive in my computer so I borrowed one from : daytonarts)

I can answer the first three questions.....but the last one I'm not too sure about.....I just hope that none of you are insane stalkers or anything of that nature. But I digress.....

All jokes aside - Olive is a locally sourced Dayton, Ohio restaurant that brilliantly fuses Mediterranean, American, fine dining, and diner food all into one. We are open for Lunch on Monday through Friday 11a - 3p Brunch on Saturday from 10a-3p and Dinner on Thursday through Saturday from 5p-11p

Just about every single item in our kitchen is fresh within the last few days. Our chickens were killed yesterday, our eggs were laid yesterday, our herbs were picked organic today, the cow that produced our gallons of milk were milked this morning, the bread was baked at a local bakery a few hours ago, and so on and so fourth.

You WILL NOT find a can opener in our entire restaurant. We do not own cans. Our beans are dried, our tomatoes are fresh, our veggies are fresh, absolutely nothing is canned. This restaurant is legit. Every single item on our menu is made from complete scratch. Nothing is ready made. Yes, making everything from scratch does make prep a very very long and tedious process, but it's totally worth it when you're making the freshest food you've ever tasted. Lest us not forget that all of the leftover food/waste is either used for stock or it is composted and given to a near by garden!

I could go on and on and on for days about how amazing our food is, how fresh it is, how almost every single item in our cooler was purchased from local Dayton farmers, bakers, etc. but I think you should come into the restaurant and see for yourself. Im so proud of the food I'm making right now. This is the reason why I wanted to be a chef, so I could create dishes like the ones I'm making at Olive for people every day. We are the only restaurant in Dayton Ohio taking local/organic/fresh to this sort of extreme. We are (for lack of a better term) on some next level shit. You can thank the owner Kimberly for this next level status. She is a marketing guru and a woman who knows exactly what she wants. Kimberly has been kicking ass and taking names in this city for months and months.

The Olive look......

Our attire is typically a pair of black/blue jeans with our Olive short or long sleeve T.

You may take notice that our servers tend spice up their Olive look with bold flowers in their hair and colorful accessories. I myself would love to accessorize like my ladies and look more feminine in my work attire, but I know better than to be all willy nilly with my accessories in the kitchen. Wouldn't want anyone to find my bracelet in their salad now would we? Lol. I'll stick with my more gender neutral look for the sake of the public.... and the health department.... and I suppose my job lol. Not worth it. But once again I digress.....

The back of our t-shirt looks like a band T where you would see all of the cities, venues, and dates, but instead ours lists all of our local purveyors! Gotta love American Apparel.

The kitchen at Olive is tiny.............

When I say tiny I mean TINY. The entire kitchen is the size of the soup station I worked at when I was employed at Walt Disney World - no joke. The storage space is the size of a small closet.

We are spatially challenged to say the very least, but for some reason it works itself out in the end! We've managed to become quite acclimated to the very small space we must work in. It will always be a challenge/game of tetris/ semi annoyance trying to figure out what fits where in the kitchen and dining room, but we manage!

I'm sure you're dying to ask me "Who prepares and creates all of the lunch specials Jenna?"

Well hypothetical question asker - I'm glad you asked! Matt and Ben run the lunch shift on Monday, and my good friend Lee Anne and I run the lunch shift on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! (You might remember my making mention of our future blog in this post: CLICK HERE.) I have no idea what I'd do without Lee Anne by my side in the kitchen. I actually forget what it's like to work without her. We work as a unit, so being separated seems like a foreign idea at this point. Granted - we could do it without a problem, but what fun would it be if I didn't have someone to joke around with whilst making food all day? No fun at all!

How do our lunch specials typically work? Well…..Lee Anne and I take a good look at what food we have on hand to play with, take weather into consideration, cook time, use of product, whether or not the guys will need that food item in the evening, etc. We bounce a handful of ideas off of each other - and voila! The lunch specials are born! After the special is plated - I take a couple of photographs and send them to my twitter, facebook, instagram, and to my owner Kim to put on Olive’s facebook page!

Fun Fact: Wednesdays our special (and soup of the day) is vegan (most likely vegetarian) and gluten free! We usually try to find a way to make it so that the special can be tweaked a bit to change between the three variations. Whether you're a carnivore or a herbivore I urge you to come enjoy our special! We might surprise you :)

Speaking of Lee Anne - watch her rep Olive like no other....... Chef offers tasty meatless recipes for Lent season Lee Anne doing her thing on the news: Tasty lunchtime dish with Olive: wdtn.com

I've become the official unofficial photographer of the lunch shift at Olive.........

Which might not seem like a very big deal to any of you but it's HUGE TO ME. Before I ever considered going to culinary school I wanted to be a photographer - primarily a food photographer. The art that is food photography fascinates me to no end. Despite the fact that I'm not the most professional of photographers around (meaning I take all of these pictures on my fancy schmancy iPhone lol)- I strive day after day to try and do my best to capture beautiful photos of our food. I'm thankful that my boss Kimberly is even allowing me to do it in the first place! I must admit I am quite proud of myself.....looking back through all of these pictures makes ME very hungry. I suppose that just proves I'm doing my job right ;)

Lee Anne and I are doing an amazing job so far if I do say so myself! And not to beep my own horn (beep beep) I think my pictures look extremely tasty! The proof is in the pudding people....or in this case the pesto.

If you visit Olives Facebook page HERE every Tuesday through Saturday you will find pictures I've taken similar to the ones above of our wonderful lunch specials! Or you can also follow me on......

Facebook

Twitter: @Jennuhbee

Instagram

Pinterest

I must admit that in (what I personally believe to be) a male driven field/profession/industry……

It is quite refreshing knowing that I’m one of two female chefs running the kitchen, five days a week, during the busy lunch shift! Don’t get me wrong – I love my male coworkers ever so. I can't even begin to talk to you about our dinner service (perhaps one day) because the guys run it like champs every thurs-fri night after I'm long gone and most likely asleep at home. All of that being said -there is just something so fantastic about girl power in a kitchen that I can’t help but embrace! I've worked at one two many places where men would single me out for being one of the only females in the kitchen. It's nice to have a little more balance here at Olive.

Like I've said about a million times since I started this post (my bad) Lee Anne and I run the line by ourselves during lunch every Tuesday through Saturday so be sure to stop by and say hello to the two of us! We'd be more than happy to stop and chat with all of you about what we do! We love our job just about as much as we love food (which is pretty hard to come by in this industry). Makes for a good work combination if you ask me. Do what you love and do it well.

Time to briefly talk about our "Frack your Friday" specials and what exactly "Fracking" is....

You must be thinking "What exactly is Fracking Jenna?" Well I suggest you sit down and have a listen.....

Now you must be asking "What does Olive do to help the fight against Fracking?" Well to quote our restaurants website.....

"Starting in February, Olive will host 'Frack your Diet, Fridays'. the special will be all about comfort food, and 5% of our lunch sales will go to fighting unsafe fracking practices in ohio. governor kasich has opened up our state parks for fracking and has accepted huge contributions from the industries that will benefit most from pounding 5-8 million gallons of water and 500,000 gallons of chemicals into each well to harvest the gas. meanwhile Ohio has accepted millions of gallons of Marcellus Shale waste (from Pennsylvania!) for disposal deep in our underground, putting it on pace to bank nearly $1 million in fees this year from out-of-state drillers (which is sooo not enough money to be worth it!)... because their own states won't let them bury any more of the poisonous stuff. ohio needs money, but not like this. help us, help the people with a voice to protect our water, our land, and the health of our people and livestock. Frack your Diet Fridays, it's the tasty way to fight environmental crime."

tidbits - Olive, an urban dive

I urge you to come and "Frack your Friday" with us at Olive - We will be whipping up a hodgepodge of comfort food that'll surely stick to your bones every week.....

Fun fact.........

A fellow named Anthony was actually the person who introduced me to Olive, and pretty much talked his way into getting me the job in the first place! Who is Anthony? Anthony is a very dear friend, CCH reader, culinary school classmate, and currently the executive chef at De'Lish Cafe Bar!

I've kept in touch with Anthony ever since graduation! In the beginning of last June I wrote about how I was moving back to Ohio and asked readers who live in Dayton to let me know if any places were hiring. Anthony got a hold of me immediately and told me all about Olive and after a few phone calls, and a lot of pep talk on his end, I was sold. If you haven't been to De'Lish I suggest you go! Tell Anthony I sent you :)

I suggest you take a look see at these links.....

10? with De’Lish Cafe’s Chef Anthony Head | Things to do in Dayton | MostMetro.com

Soul Food from De'Lish Cafe

And there you have it boys at girls! Thats Olive, an Urban Dive.......

I'm not going to lie - I was somewhat nervous when I began writing this post, because I want nothing more than to do this restaurant justice by writing an awesome blog post. I hope this post not only described the logistics of this establishment in a eloquent manner, but also the passion that the owner and my fellow employees have as well.

I tried my best to describe Olive in a way that my co workers would be proud of. I would hate to think that I missed out on a key note, or mixed up any of my facts anywhere within this post! If you ever get the chance/find yourself in a situation where you can actually have a conversation about this restaurant with one of my coworkers (or myself of course) I suggest you do. We would love to talk to you!

If you live in the area please stop by and try out one of our many delicious dishes. If you don't care for food, then at least stop by for a good time. If you don't care for fun, then stop by to look at how beautiful the restaurant is. If you don't care for looks, then by golly just stop by to support a local business that is not only representing the community in such a lovely way, but is also doing wonderful things for the community every single day (like how I rhymed that? lol).

Kimberly and the Olive family are extremely passionate about food, about our local community, and about the health of one another. We are doing our best to create the best dining experience in Dayton Ohio and I think we're doing a very good job of that thus far.

For more information/daily updates (and pretty much everything Olive) check Olive out on Facebook:Olive, an urban dive