In my first post on this blog, on day one, I wrote that I didn’t think I’d be turning up in the kitchen with many hangovers. Secretly, I guessed I probably would. That it took until day eleven is an extraordinary achievement. I should qualify this slightly - I wasn’t that hungover. But I was waking up every twenty minutes gasping for water and thinking of the paragraph in Lucky Jim. Also, in my wisdom, I had decided that instead of doing the order of work last night, I would do it over the morning bran flakes and have a couple of extra nightcaps.
So shortly after 8am I swap the stretch routine for order of work writing, my head pounding and my body craving a blue Powerade that isn’t there. What is worse is that today I have nowhere to hide. Nowhere. No respite whatsoever. I am straight into the hotel kitchen after school. I have to go to the doctor at some point, so I think about using that as an excuse and skipping off for a siesta in the afternoon. But demo is too interesting for that. And anyway, I am hard as nails. Bring it.
I can’t start my Cucumber and Yoghurt Raita because someone forgot to pick the cucumbers, so the Kelloggs powered order of work/house of cards needs re-stacking. I start on my Spiced Chicken with Almonds instead. I roast and grind some cumin and coriander and prep my veg. At 9.30 I phone the local doctors about my thumb. I am booked in for 11.30, so I need to speed up and taste at 11.15 instead of 11.45.
The cucumbers arrive and I quickly knock up what to me is a great raita. Clean, fresh and light, rounded off with a little crushed cumin seed. I really like it. It goes in the fridge. Meanwhile, I blanch almonds, crush garlic, slice ginger and whip them into a thick paste in the blender. I inhale its wonderful aroma. Hang on, there isn’t one. I add the spices I ground earlier. That’s better.
I use my boning knife for the first time to debone the chicken thighs. My filleting knife is too flexible for this job and I found my finger working along the blade to stabilise it yesterday. This is much better. The chicken goes in, my workstation is spotlessly clean, I have half an hour to spare and I am totally in control. A rare but wonderful sensation. I plate up nicely and taste.
The chicken dish was a little watery but I am finishing early and I would have reduced it with more time. When I tasted it before serving it wasn’t quite right. All those wonderful spices and flavours that had gone into it were a little quiet and suppressed. It needed salt. Seasoning is such a hard thing to gauge, but salt is a flavour enhancer. If you have put flavour in a dish but you cant taste it, you need salt. I add salt. It tastes great. I also added a little more cayenne than the recipe because it lacked balls. My teacher tastes the raita. One mouthful. She turns and walks away. She looks back quickly. “That’s beautiful.”
Do you know what the doctor said about my thumb? Of course you do, I told you yesterday what he’d say. I drive a couple of villages to the pharmacy and get some cream and am back in time to fulfil my “duties” over lunch. Though why anyone would want to be served his or her main course by a man with a thumbnail like mine is anyone’s guess.
In the afternoon demo we are, amongst other things, but most interestingly, filleting round fish. We have cod, haddock, whiting, hake and ling to look at. We are shown two fish dishes. An en papillote and a gratin. Now I have to stop here. I love cod. I mean love it. If you present me with a 6oz piece of cod fillet, the last thing in the world I would want to do is grate a pound of cheddar over it. Because then it would taste of cheese, not cod. Tomorrow I will have to. The rest of the demo passes without incident, and I rush back to the cottage and head straight over to the kitchen.
There is a function on tonight. 90 people are being catered for in a big outbuilding. There is no kitchen in the outbuilding (it is being built, next to my cottage), so a portable hob is set up and dishes are almost cooked up top in the main kitchen and finished down there. For the starters I assemble tomato salads and pour soup (much harder than it sounds). For mains I am on vegetable duty - boiling, heating, dressing and serving as the waiting staff pour back and forth. I help plate up desserts, and make hundreds of trips to the main kitchen and back.
On Tuesday when I offered my services I was told it would be a shitfight. Now no one wants to bring a fart to a shitfight, because you’re going to lose. I was lucky - it wasn’t a shitfight. It was hectic at times, and hot, and stressful. I rolled my sleeves up and worked harder than I have worked for years probably. I got in the way, and learnt how not to get in the way. I dribbled soup everywhere, and learnt how to pour soup properly. I saw things too, and acted upon them - keeping stuff hot, working out what to serve and when. It was an incredible experience. I offered my services again at the end of the night.
The end of the night is now. I went back to the cottage desperately in need of two things, both of them cold. I couldn’t decide which should take precedence, so I took my beer into the shower. I guess if there was one other lesson I learnt today, it is that cooking is just like everything else - no one wants to do it with a hangover, but you will have to sooner or later. And when you do, you might as well do it in style.
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