08/07/2025
Recently I have acquired a new skill. We have summer special at work, a juicy, beautiful watermelon salad, with slices of orange on top. They have to be “supremed,” which means to remove the membranes from the segments of a citrus. It is a task that is frustrating, time consuming, and sticky. But it ultimately makes the dish better, and honestly it has become a bit of meditation for me. I will be sad when we discontinue the special, prepping it really is my favorite task at work. I’ve been documenting my progress since I started because this seems like a task you can tangibly, visibly see your improvement in. Let’s find out.
Okay! Bit of a rough start! In order to do this you have to first cut all of the rind off, and then all of the pith, and then you can actually get started cutting out the fruit. You delicately slice between each membrane holding the “carpals,” or juice follicles. Unfortunately, the membrane is what holds it together, so naturally things start to fall apart. That’s okay, an orange is a delicate thing and I just learned how to do this. The shape of the slices are wonky, and you can also tell from the massive pile of carnage how much of this orange I kind of massacred. Oops.
I got brave and decided to try 2. My first attempt was better, as you can see that I slowly lost more and more carpals just mushing away under my knife. This is fine. Because look at how good I did the first one! That counts for something! You can also see that I fully lost a slice on the second one, that was disappointing, but it had this little mini orange stuck to the top of it, but still under the rind so I couldn’t tell until I peeled it. Not much I could do with the tiny orange.
Earlier in the day, I went to the middle of nowhere and stood in a phone booth hearing the groan of a tree about to snap. I did not see it fall.
Featuring my paring knife. This is the good one with a sharp tip -- we literally only have 2 paring knives at work and the other has a dull tip and it’s annoying. Especially when I’m prepping shrimp, I have to butterfly it, and you have to be really delicate with the shrimp -- well okay maybe they aren’t as fragile as I think they are, but my knife skills really could use some work in all areas and I have exploded a lot of shrimp. I apply too much pressure when handling a knife. Especially to something delicate like a shrimp or an orange. Sorry.
But, anyways, these ones are not so great. I’m pretty sure this was a rush job and I got interrupted a few times and it’s really annoying to have to put on and take off sticky gloves a hundred times while in the middle of this. These were rough because I was trying a new method of gently squeezing them out after cutting through the membranes. I was onto something, but pursuing it in the wrong way.
Like I said, this is a meditative process, and I get a lot of thinking done while doing it. Usually a task like this involves so much focus, I clench my teeth and lock my knees, but it’s nice that supreming is all in the mind. That day I was thinking about the nature of my situation and how frustrating it was that there were no right answers, as well as a ticking clock. The only right thing to do is finish cutting this orange.
Upgrade!!! Three!!! Aaaaand you can see my confidence weakening with each one. But! Sometimes it’s just the orange that is the problem!!! The last one also had a mini orange that wasn’t so mini, and it made the whole orange oblong and I tried to honor the shapes of those slices to the best of my ability. I ate the stupid little dinky ones, though, I didn’t want to serve those. But honestly let’s talk about that first one -- whew! Slices 2 & 3 oh mama you bet I was excited. I need you to know something, as I document this, and fuck up many times, I sometimes think “Well let me just put this slice, the one with pith still on it, with the bad side down, so you can’t see it in the picture.” But that would be LYING! to myself and my progress. So I promise you the backs of these slices are all membrane-less. And any slices that I cannot get the membrane off, I destroy. This is a truly honest endeavour for me, focusing on patience and progress.
In between these two entries, I went to the middle of 2 different nowheres. I crawled up a sand dune in a place with no service and lots of wind, and I sat and let sand hit me rapidly, scoring my skin. It was much higher up and much further away from any person than I thought I would be, I forgot places like these existed. I thought about a lot of things, but I thought about oranges the most. The next day I went to a more classic nowhere. I saw a lot of people passing but I didn’t mind. I walked for 6 miles and sat on the rocks under the highway and listened to cars pass for a while. I thought about my mistakes, like how I left my sketchbook in the car. Rats. And other mistakes, too, obviously. I thought about oranges again and how I really wanted to get back to work to supreme them. Once again, this is a lesson in patience and progress, but getting good at something just takes too damn long. At least the stuff that’s really worth getting good at.
Next day, right back to it, two tiny oranges that perplexed and befuddled me. But, consistency in shape and size, and cleaner edges. Nice. No slices left abandoned, either, a clean cut.
Alright this is when it really gets good. LOOK AT THOSE! BREAKTHOUGH! Big, beautiful slices too, all separately from that stupid membrane completely. Not a slice lost! Yes! This is definitely the day I figured it out. I cracked my method for scooping them out and finally being able to separate slices from the core without destroying them. And to do THREE somewhat perfectly felt like a milestone. I was so excited that the next night I painted myself getting mauled by a mountain lion.
So do you know that thing they say, about progress not being linear? Yeah. Don’t even talk to me about Slice C4. I know that one is 2 pieces mushed together. This was a rough one. Yeah this was really tough to take a picture of. Not my best work with a knife. Not my best work in general. Sorry, again. August is hard. I went outside a lot in between these two entries. I walked the Big Circle three times on separate occasions and got many stares for carrying my umbrella on a hot day. Right now, truly, my favorite hobby is walking around listening to music. I don’t get to turn my brain off very often but it’s the closest I can get. Walking around is the thinking man’s supreme. Ok let’s be honest it’s the orangeless man’s supreme. I don’t buy oranges to eat myself because I don’t really like them all that much. Also I just take the peel off as I go and bite into it like an apple and people don’t seem to really appreciate that.
This was the last one I have done as of today. Like I said, I’m terribly sad to think this special is coming to an end at the end of the summer, so I think I may have about 2-3 more shifts where I get to do this :( So I will relish those last few times, if I get them. But I hope I get to learn and hone another skill at work soon! I really have been practicing my knife skills very earnestly, and it’s helping a lot. I still grip the handle a little too tightly, and press down a little too hard, but I do that in a lot of other arenas of my life, so it’s more than just working on my knife skills.
Tomorrow I will walk around before work, unfortunately in the middle of somewhere instead of nowhere. I hope I get to cut open an orange.
