Over the past 18 months I have come to realise that my love of Food and being a trained Chef have become two separate things. Now when I go to work especially being Freelance there is a door that has to be opened where upon walking throw it things are not always filled with wonderful ingredients to cook with, great kitchen equipment and fantastic like minded professional work colleagues !
Now if I want to use great well hung beef for Sunday lunch or quality chocolate to make a simple brownie with it more often than not has to be done at home. Sometimes as in the Lion, the witch and Argos flat pack wardrobe I am like Edmund who has the evil Snow Queen to greet me ! Although I have never been asked to use Otter for lunch...yet !!!????
I changed my Facebook Job title a while back to 'Mercenary Chef' which I thought was funny but in reality it is true. I turn up to some jobs not knowing what to expect. Parachuted in where everything seems kind of lovely and fluffy in the kitchen until you go into the horror that can be the....Kitchen walk in fridge..!!!! As in American Werewolf in London where the kids were told "not to stray onto the moors lads." At Mercenary Chef School you should be told to not go into the Walk in fridge on your first day especially if its a Monday until you have sent a few Commis Chefs in first to take a few bullets and smell out the 'Knackered food' first.
Some of the sights I have seen would make you never eat out again. One golden rule as a Chef is never to open a plastic tub from the Fish shelf quickly. Ease it open as if you were working for The Bomb Squad because if the fish is off the blast of rotten air that comes out of the tub will send you flying from the smell shock waves out of the kitchen and somewhere near table 14 in section C of the restaurant ! Trust me the smell stays with you for sometime !
I say Monday is often the worst day mainly because most Chefs are in a hurry to get away on their days off on a Sunday after Lunch service so everything is just pushed into the walk in fridge as the lure of much needed Alcohol is to be partaken to try and hide the Saturday night at the movies Horror show service from your memory for another week ! I must add not every kitchen is badly run like this but there are quite a few !
I think the funniest thing I saw in the walk in fridge once was what I thought was some Wild Mushrooms which had slipped out of a blue tray. Me being a conscientious worker I tried to pick them up for about ten minutes until I realised they were growing in the fridge !!!! don't ask !
The Label game is another bad Chef habit. More often than not Chefs just cook their food, transfer it to clean large mayonnaise buckets and dump them in the fridge and don't bother to label them. I went on a job to cover a Head Chef at a pub in near Sunderland one Sunday. The fryers were black with old burnt bits of Scampi crumbs and fish batter, their was a small bowl of cooked veg which had been covered in cling film still sitting in the microwave and it stank as I peeled the film back. I peered to check if there was anyone still in the pub restaurant even though it was 8.30 in the morning just to see if someone who had eaten the night before was still patiently waiting for their side order of veg !!! some people just don't like to complain. Anyway I went into the walk in fridge and saw these 3 tubs of murky looking liquid uncovered and unlabelled. It didn't look good, it smelt like old sweaty socks and I could not force myself to taste it but I did dip my finger in it and as my finger turned a yellow colour as I pulled it out I decided it need to go the Journey to bin land.
The pub obviously had a good reputation for food as we had 2 people for Sunday Lunch. Still it gave me time to read the Sunday Times all the way through including looking at the appointments section ! ha ha !
The next day I got a call from the agency that had sent me on the job the day before saying that the Head Chef had been on the phone and had I seen his Chicken Consomme which must have been in the tubs I poured down the gobbler !!!! (Gobbler is the name given to food waste disposer ! )
You would think I would have been mortified but I couldn't help but think that I had done the public a favour and should have been awarded the freedom of the County !
" Erh yes..." I replied to the question.
"I would tell him the truth." I added.
"Whats that Kev ?" the Agency asked.
" I thought it was a bucket of Shit !" I blurted out not quite believing what I had said.
There was an unnerving silence from the other end of the phone and then the sound of heavy duty laughter.
"Ok Kev, it probably was, ill be in touch !" The Agency replied.
I still got paid and still work for that Agency sometimes but funny enough I have not been asked back to the pub ! ha ha !
Not all jobs are bad though and as I have said before I have meet some people who have become very dear friends over the years. I actually in a weird way now enjoy the uncertainty of what might be the next mission. Who I might meet, what I might cook and how they cook !
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| This is the story that the Children at the Nursery are listening to this week I kid you not. Kind of reminds me of someone I used to work with ! ha ha ! |
For the past month I have been at a little Nursery near where I live. The hours are great. Even though its not at the cutting edge of Culinary work its still a most enjoyable job.The food and menu is not the most imaginative but just because the kitchen has a 100 kg of ready Cake mix in his dry store doesn't mean I have to use it and I don't... ! Just as if I was in a nice Restaurant I try to get the best out of the ingredients I get because that's what the worthwhile and good Chefs and Cooks I have been fortunate to work with over the years have drummed into me !
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| Not always the best equipment but this Jacket potato oven is far better than the Nurserys 1980's main Oven and I use it loads. The art of an Mercenary Chef is being adaptable ! ha ha ! |
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I have not ever had much food sent back from customers to my kitchen but Thomas aged 15 months sent his delicious Chicken Curry back the other day because he said it was not blended enough ! Mind you he wolfed it down and you should have seen the state of his nappy a few hours later according to the Nursery nurse. At least thats what I thought she said through her gas mask as she was stretchered to the awaiting Ambulance outside the Nursery after she had changed the nappy ! ha ha ! |
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| Its amazing at the end of the week at the Nursery what you actually do cook from Biscuits, Cakes, Quiche to a full on Roast Chicken dinner but my favourite is when....... its Angel Delight for tea ! |
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| Ummmmm....Angel DE-LIGHT ! |
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