The Week in pictures ! Happy days.

Last week was a great week. I started it working with a great friend and ended it working with a great friend. At the beginning of the week I spent time working at a lovely staff restaurant down near Newcastle's quayside. My day consists of making soup and providing 3 main courses for the staff to choose from not too difficult but I seem to manage to make it so !

Add to the fact that my day starts at 8.00am and finishes at 3pm then you can imagine as a cook what a great job this is. I must have worked here off and on for about 6 years and it is during this time that I have formed a friendship with June who works as a kitchen assistant but in truth in a service kitchen she would be a Sous Chef ! She is a fabulous Pastry cook. You name it June can do it and I have learned loads from her but the best thing about June is she always gives me a smile and a cuddle when I see her well until I have worked my ticket so much that I am in the dog house ! Thank you June and Tina for a great week and thank you Phil for having some time off so I could be there ! ha ha !

I even made the companies weekly bullentin newspaper ! James Martin who ? ha ha !

Now thats a sound system ! O and June makes a great Rhubarb pie !

I brought these a few years ago for Junes birthday ( I know last of the big spenders ! ha ha !) and she still has them.

I forgot to take a picture of what I cooked but this is the salad selection the staff can have.

June's healthy puds !

The view from the staff restaurant !

Art ! or Fart ?

I even enjoyed taking the bins down in the lift !

The view from the Alfresco dinning area.

I ended the week doing a Job for a local Sailing Club which was very simple cooking but getting 45 meals out quickly without the aid of a hot counter was always going to be a challenge. Times that 45 by 3 as we had three courses to get out and you can image it can be a little stressful.
I was doing this job as a favour really for a very good mate of mine called John. He was really my first proper head chef and it was working with him that made the professional kitchen for me seem accessible where in the early days of my cooking career all I seemed to get was "he will not last a week !" and it was very much a closed shop kind of attitude. He encouraged me and had a very good way of teaching you recipes. I still use John's recipes for making Rice pudding and Bread and butter pudding.
John still is of all the Chefs I have now worked with the best service chef. He used to fly around the pass during service cooking steaks and Venison and at the same time dropping a battered Cod into the fry I was truly in awe of the man. So it was because of this ability and the fact he got me into this mess in the first place I asked him if he would help me with service. He was quite excited about it as he even put it on his Facebook page ! John no longer works as a Chef and is believe it or not a Undertaker so the fact he had not worked in the kitchen for a long time probably contributed to his excitement !!
Anyway we had a great afternoon retelling stories from our days working together and the food went out and it was a lot of fun. So thank you John for your help pal their are few beers coming your way soon !

The mighty Tyne Saturday morning 9.00am on my way to pick up the fish for the dinner. Awesome.

The dinner had Salmon on so I went to pick up 28 Loch Duart portions from Taylor's Seafood down North Shields fish key. I love the Fish shops down their. Thank you Joanne from Taylor's Seafood Suppliers for your brilliant customer service once again xx !

I have not taken many food pictures this week mainly because the locations and people that I have been to and worked with have been so much fun ! However here is a pic I call 'Blender in the soup" ha ha !

This is the view from the Sailing clubs dinning room. What a great view and a location for a romantic dinner for two. Any takers ? ha ha !

Someone put the cream in the freezer and this is what it looked like when it was defrosted !

This is how the conversation went when I discovered someone had put the cream in the Freezer.

John "Whats up Super Kev ?"
Me " Someone has put the cream in the freezer."
John " O "
Me " bit of a problem as I have two cream based sauces to do !"
John " Dont worry Supper K we will get some Bisto and the blender into it and it will be fine "
Me " Ha ha ha ha"

Me endorsing the James Martin knife collection.

You can always tell what kind of kitchen you are working in when you looking for an oven cloth and all you can find are these girly mits ! ha ha !