Day Two means dressing up day. Out come the checked trousers and the white tunic. And the knives. The big fat shiny ones. I have to say it felt slightly peculiar strolling out to the car this morning looking like a contestant on ready steady cook, but there we have it. There’s a slight issue with the hat too, in that it makes me look like I serve doner kebabs for a living, so I am ditching it in favour of a buff, which is basically a bandana, only without skull and crossbones and anything else that might identify me as a member of a minority biker gang.
The day begins ominously - it turns out that the things that look like mosquitoes are indeed mosquitoes and have gone to work in their usual fashion. Just killed one of the little bastards now actually so will use the extra blood I have to fuel the rush of typing.
So, it is back to the demonstration room. Chicken and vegetable stocks are first, followed by how to lay a table, followed by a green salad. Making stock and green salad are on the list of daily “Duties” that the students share. These “Duties” will become a theme here I think. I lucked out today since I was scheduled to make…green salad - and someone else has done it for me. Nice.
After the demo, it is kitchen time. It was a strange, in fact daunting feeling, walking into the kitchen. Yesterday we were given the option of adding a gold star to our nametags if we were “beginners.” Now I don’t really know what that means - I’ve never worked in a proper kitchen before (though I pot washed and microwaved for a summer once). But I cook at home and I know a few things, most of it gleaned from books and TV and infused with my own arrogance and determination to do things differently anyway. However, I humble myself before the culinary altar and add a star, bottom left. Like a medal. Or a negative medal if you like - almost a scar where a medal should be but isn’t. Just a big gold star incongruously taking the place of no stars at all.
Twenty odd people in a kitchen and you work in pairs, except today we are working in sixes. The cliché couldn’t be more accurate if it tried. Between us we slice our own flesh, together with a few vegetables. We confuse carrots and potatoes. Get bollocked for “measuring” teaspoons without the use of a, er, teaspoon. Fall behind, get in front, sweat, chop, dice, sauté and boil. Someone overcooks some pasta (surely a lesson for day one) and I am subjected to sloppy penne a la mushroom avec beaucoup crème et beurre. Or something like that.
I should point out here that we cook what we are shown the day before and then we eat it for lunch. We’re eating later today as the schedule gets elbow dropped by the all the hectic shit we have to cram into the first couple of days. By 1pm I am chewing my arms off for a feed. Carrot and coriander/cumin/mint soups are okay but lack a killer punch. Pasta is not good but to be honest I am so fucking famished that I don’t care and would gladly eat another bucketful. Dessert is a macerated summer fruit salad with some pretty good ice cream and a mercifully bearable cup of coffee follows it all down.
So how was it? Well, it was painful at times, but it was a relief too. It turns out I already knew how to chop an onion, though not with a knife that fucking sharp. Cue blue plaster. But I have to say I felt pretty confident and actually, vindicated, because a lot of the instincts I have picked up along the way are probably right.
The problem I now face is the approach I have to incorporate. Truth is, I can’t measure teaspoons without a teaspoon. Well, I can but I can’t, and they’re right. It pains me to say it, but they are. There is a very strict and ordered way of doing things, and it is handed down like the sacrament. You just have to close your eyes and eat it and believe in it. By all means, get outside and spit it out or eat something better, or believe whatever you want, but while you’re under the roof you have to respect its God I suppose.
I will have to learn to suppress my natural urge to cast aside authority and do things my own way. The right way, that is, of course. But this isn’t a dick-swinging contest, and thankfully I have learnt a lot over the last couple of years about control, and self-discipline and peace and composure. There were a couple of moments today when I could see how the old me would have reacted. But not this one. Oh no.
All I have to do now is gently peel that star off my name badge and hope no-one notices as I sidle into the kitchen in the morning in my pristine whites and with an as yet unwritten (but unquestionably perfect) order of work creased neatly in my pocket. Meanwhile a couple of teaspoons will rattle idly around back at the cottage.
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