We built a freezer!
We've been working all summer on getting a walk-in freezer to go outside, because our indoor freezer is constantly packed to the gills. Every time we want to put something in the little freezer (which is much bigger than a home freezer, but still seems little to us), we have to take something else out, and with our ice cream sandwiches holding strong, we badly need more room. However, a walk-in freezer is a big investment, and it's taken us a long time to investigate our options, decide what we want, get bids, and save up the money. During this process, my boyfriend found an internet site selling "do-it-yourself" freezers that don't require a refrigeration technician to install. That would save us $1,000 on installation costs, and the freezers were cheap, so after exacting a promise from my boyfriend to help us with the installation, eventually we decided to go down that route.
The freezer arrived in pieces in the middle of a private event we were hosting last week. Between serving the main course and the dessert, Jill and I ran out and unloaded the pieces off the truck. They were not light, and of course we were wearing nice clothes and everything. Here's a picture of Jill with the pieces:
Then my boyfriend came and did the installation, including pouring a new concrete pad to put the thing on. This is us in the early stages of putting the pieces together (our existing walk-in refrigerator is in the background):
Just like when you buy furniture that requires assembly, the instructions that came with this thing were obviously translated from another language, and also intended for refrigeration technicians who had done this kind of thing before (despite the fact that it was a DIY freezer). In the above picture, my boyfriend is holding a piece of metal that did not appear anywhere in the installation diagrams, which we couldn't figure out where to put. Here is another picture when we were almost done with the installation:
As you can see here, he's is still holding the same piece of metal, which we never figured out where to put. (You can't see it, but I am wearing the "Burritos for Obama" t-shirt that I got for free when I was walking around downtown during the convention.) At this point, only one other piece remained uninstalled: the 250-pound compressor that sits on the roof of the walk-in (covered with the green tarp in the above picture). Hmmm, how to get that up there. I called the company that sold us the freezer and asked them how they recommended getting the compressor on the roof, and the guy kind of laughed and said he had no idea.
This stumped us for a while. We went to an equipment rental store and tried to rent some kind of winch, but nothing was the right size. The equipment rental guys were all intrigued by the problem, and eventually they got us in touch with a crane company, and believe it or not, we rented a crane (with operator). It was not a big crane, and we only had it for an hour, but it was pretty cool. So now we have a nice spacious freezer, which is working great.
This morning I went to a restaurant equipment store to buy some shelving for the freezer. While the sales guy was entering my company information into the computer, he asked me what we do at Generous Servings. I said I teach cooking classes, and he said, "There is certainly a need for that! I'm not trying to be sexist or anything, but there are a lot of women out there who have no clue how to cook." Uh, what part of that statement is not sexist? I said, "There are a lot of men out there who have no clue how to cook either," and he said, "Well, sure, but the expectations are a lot lower. We can live on beer and potato chips, but women have to feed a family! I mean, most men are out making money, while women have kids to cook for." He bumbled on about how he and his brothers had to learn to cook out of self-preservation because their mom couldn't cook, and I just couldn't think of anything productive to say. Dude, you're talking to a 30-year-old woman who owns her own business and is wearing a sweatshirt that says, "What part of quantum theory don't you understand?", and you are a 45-year-old loser salesman at a restaurant equipment store. Not to be sexist or anything.
The freezer arrived in pieces in the middle of a private event we were hosting last week. Between serving the main course and the dessert, Jill and I ran out and unloaded the pieces off the truck. They were not light, and of course we were wearing nice clothes and everything. Here's a picture of Jill with the pieces:
Then my boyfriend came and did the installation, including pouring a new concrete pad to put the thing on. This is us in the early stages of putting the pieces together (our existing walk-in refrigerator is in the background):
Just like when you buy furniture that requires assembly, the instructions that came with this thing were obviously translated from another language, and also intended for refrigeration technicians who had done this kind of thing before (despite the fact that it was a DIY freezer). In the above picture, my boyfriend is holding a piece of metal that did not appear anywhere in the installation diagrams, which we couldn't figure out where to put. Here is another picture when we were almost done with the installation:
As you can see here, he's is still holding the same piece of metal, which we never figured out where to put. (You can't see it, but I am wearing the "Burritos for Obama" t-shirt that I got for free when I was walking around downtown during the convention.) At this point, only one other piece remained uninstalled: the 250-pound compressor that sits on the roof of the walk-in (covered with the green tarp in the above picture). Hmmm, how to get that up there. I called the company that sold us the freezer and asked them how they recommended getting the compressor on the roof, and the guy kind of laughed and said he had no idea.
This stumped us for a while. We went to an equipment rental store and tried to rent some kind of winch, but nothing was the right size. The equipment rental guys were all intrigued by the problem, and eventually they got us in touch with a crane company, and believe it or not, we rented a crane (with operator). It was not a big crane, and we only had it for an hour, but it was pretty cool. So now we have a nice spacious freezer, which is working great.
This morning I went to a restaurant equipment store to buy some shelving for the freezer. While the sales guy was entering my company information into the computer, he asked me what we do at Generous Servings. I said I teach cooking classes, and he said, "There is certainly a need for that! I'm not trying to be sexist or anything, but there are a lot of women out there who have no clue how to cook." Uh, what part of that statement is not sexist? I said, "There are a lot of men out there who have no clue how to cook either," and he said, "Well, sure, but the expectations are a lot lower. We can live on beer and potato chips, but women have to feed a family! I mean, most men are out making money, while women have kids to cook for." He bumbled on about how he and his brothers had to learn to cook out of self-preservation because their mom couldn't cook, and I just couldn't think of anything productive to say. Dude, you're talking to a 30-year-old woman who owns her own business and is wearing a sweatshirt that says, "What part of quantum theory don't you understand?", and you are a 45-year-old loser salesman at a restaurant equipment store. Not to be sexist or anything.
posted by The Cooking Doctor at
5:29 AM
2 Comments:
This was really funny--I don't know what was funnier, the crane or the shelving incident. I'm glad the freezer works.
Oh...you go girl!
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