8-23-04

I need to do this blog for myself, to rant and get the days waste and detritus out of my system so that I can sleep at night. I have been working as an agency chef for almost a year and I find it soul destroying to see my chosen profession being mishandled and dismantled by inept management and fat cat corporations that use and abuse employees, expect loyalty and dedication and in return give little except a minimum wage, long hours and no prospects for a better future. There are a huge number of immigrant and unskilled British employees in this business who are taken advantage of each day, due to their ignorance of the system, insecurity and just the need of a regular income. Granted, someone has to do these jobs but it wouldn’t hurt to let them keep their dignity, pay them fairly and provide them with some decent conditions at work.

Today was a day of confusion, not unlike days past.
The kitchen I was assigned was under equipped and dirty. The chefs budget for staffing is such that he cannot do the housekeeping as well as the cooking in the allotted time because he is a young guy with less experience than is needed to handle the job but he probably comes cheaper than an experienced well-qualified chef. I see this too often.

8-19-04

Back to the shack today, this time with Nicola, a cool guy from Belgium, for another 10 hours but he grants a 30 minute break—I decide I like Nicola, he is calm and together, not like the Kareem character from yesterday who is a totally anal fanatic, panic merchant, misogynist turkey.

8-18-04

I am in an up market country club three days this week. In a kitchen/shack with three sauté pans and two omelet pans, two chefs, one cloth and one pair of tongs. 185 a la carte covers between noon and 3pm. Start work at noon, first order comes in at 2 minutes after, written almost illegibly, seemingly by a drunk spider that crawled out of an ink pot but was in fact written by one of the many Polish servers, hard working and organized but with little command of the English language—the day was not looking good at that point. The guy I was working with, Kareem, was on a split shift, so I am working in a kitchen that I have never been in before on a menu I don’t know, totally alone from 3pm until 6pm. He assures me that I will do nothing during this time and leaves a mis en place list as long as my arm. Ten hours today with a grudging 15 minute break at 6pm—he doesn’t want to be left alone in case it gets busy. Ha!
The pot washer is Chinese as are all of them, between 3 and 6pm he lets me know he is hungry and he helps himself to a couple of dozen mozzarella sticks from the freezer. He likes them and teaches me some Chinese—he speaks no English at all. I look on the kitchen roster and see that he and his Chinese compatriots work seven days a week, ten hours every day for 4 pounds and 50 pence an hour. They live on the premises and the country club charges them 140 pounds a month each for their rooms. I did the math and I slip him another dozen cheese sticks with a couple bottles of Budweiser.

6-24-04

I am summoned to the University for a few weeks over the holidays to help the chef who runs the students training restaurant kitchen. The kitchen is open to the public but because the parking is six quid a time and is almost ¼ mile away, their ‘public’ means faculty that are on campus. With Christmas coming up they are getting busy with office parties and the students not surprisingly get a bit overwhelmed. For most of them it is their first time in a commercial kitchen and it is only for a few days a month. They also do a few days in their restaurant in the role of servers. The kitchen is large, spotlessly clean and with all of the gizmos and gadgets a chef could ever want. The ovens are all top of the line and light on the first attempt—and stay lit. The pilot lights work and there is no shortage of heavy copper pots and pans, all newly tinned and shined regularly. A chef’s wet dream. But not very realistic for the hospitality minds and stars of the future, they will leave this place of learning with no idea that 90% of kitchens are under staffed and under equipped with an oven or two malfunctioning at any given time. They will find out soon enough, they may even try to do something about it.
The faculty knows their stuff.

I am learning to embrace confusion and bad management as being the reason that agency chefs exist. It ensures my employment, at least for a while.

Anyone in this business has come across the managers who left school, went to University and then went into a hotel as an assistant manager thinking that he runs the show. Qualification rich but bereft of experience. They infest this place.

6-19-04

Back to the lawyers offices today. The chefette is off so I search her desk for a menu. I find a menu that says ‘for Paul’. I check the refrigerators and freezers and can find no food items that correspond to the menu. Shit. I hate to call a chef on their days off but I see no alternative. I get an answer machine and leave a message. No reply for an hour so I call again. Apparently the ringer on the telephone has been disabled she has been calling me for 30 minutes. The menu is on the computer and after being walked through the various passwords and security settings (highly sensitive stuff these weekly menu’s you know,) I have a menu but still no ingredients to produce it. “Oh they are on their way, they must be late or maybe I forgot to do the ordering, just make whatever you like”. What a dipstick. Almost two hours late starting and the secretary wants to know what changes there are on the partners menu. I give her a new menu and she gives me the death star, I can tell she doesn’t like me, my winning smile and personality do not persuade her that I am just doing what is necessary and not just yanking her chain. She is all upset because she has to explain the menu verbally to the lawyers. I am upset because I have to start defrosting chicken breasts from the freezer at warp speed. Bollocks. I reaffirm my vows to quit this line of work and mentally compose my letter of resignation. This makes me feel better.

6-15-04

Today I am in a school cooking for 600 children and 150 teachers. The chef is well qualified and mature enough to not take any crap from his employees. This looks promising. I have to hand it to this guy; I couldn’t wring another meal from this kitchen if my life depended on it. He is a hard working tough SOB who has seen and done it all. One of his staff, Dave, has me cornered in a repetitive monotonous job that means we stand around a table and I listen to his problems and lies about old kitchens and war stories that he has survived and triumphed in. He has very long hair tied in a ponytail and lots of tattoos. He tells me he is diabetic, has two replacement knees and when, at his command, I tap them, they sure are false—solid and unyielding as bricks. He has a rare disorder of his bowels a bad back, his immune system has given up the ghost, acute asthma and has had three heart attacks—I diagnosed alcoholism and a 60 a day habit without his help. After lunch service I was to find him slumped in a corner holding his chest and gasping for breath. He wanted his inhaler that apparently was for his heart rather than for the asthma. The chef passed by tossed it to him and muttered under his breath that the sorry looking bastard had better not be late for work tomorrow, all without breaking step on the way to have his lunch. It’s a tough life in the kitchen.

6-12-04

I was in a firm of lawyers today in a great little kitchen. Spotlessly clean and very organized. Lunch for fourteen partners and a few sandwiches is the norm. Fourteen? This job I can do. The young lady running the show is straight out of school, Cordon Bleu no doubt and has never cooked for more than 4 people at a time. Consequently she is putting in 10 and 12-hour days to complete her job. Today was a staff lunch for 60 that has her rotating on the spot. I shall be back here in a month to do the next one—I hope she gets her act together or it’s going to be a long hard life for her. Buying two onions and a head of garlic each day is not the smart way to go, but she has the confidence of youth and a determination to carry her burdens alone so I expect little to have changed upon my return.

6-10-04

This place is BUSY, over a thousand lunches today; thank God I was here yesterday to make all of my preparation. During lunch, the busiest part of the day, I am summoned to the tossers office to sign the papers. “Cant it wait”? I ask. “No he wants to see you now”. I am already having second thoughts about this job. Anyone who waits until the middle of a busy service to see the chef deserves a swift death. That goes for managers, representatives from companies, suppliers, delivery drivers, supermodels and anyone else that is either shortsighted or egotistical enough to disrupt the service. It is considered akin to walking into an operating theatre and asking to talk to the surgeon about his overdraft whilst he and his team perform a heart transplant.
So I leave the kitchen to see the tosser who wants me to accept the job on the condition that I lie to the agency that introduced me and say that I answered an advert in the local paper. That way he doesn’t have to pay a fee to the agency and his years end bonus stands more of a chance of remaining intact. As I said I was already having some serious second thoughts about working here so I declined. He wants me to reconsider where my loyalty lies and to have a rethink to see if it is misplaced. I think for ten seconds and walk out to go back to my busy service. In my mind he has just been relegated from tosser to asshole and despite my liking and respect of my Zimbabwean brothers and sisters I resolve to exit the building post haste and try not to return.
There has been a garbage can overflowing in the staff toilets now for the past three weeks so I take a picture of it in anticipation of writing this story. What a shit hole.

The music has now changed to a mixture of The Doors and The Beatles with a smattering of The Rolling Stones and Elvis Costello. At least the guy has some taste, too bad it doesn’t extend to his palate.

6-10-04

This month I am back at the contract caterers but am no longer cooking for seventy, I have been ‘promoted’ and am now in their main cafeteria cooking for 500 who are a captive audience in this well-known and popular attraction. They now have a chef, a French gentleman with the patience of a saint—this virtue alone will probably come in more handy than all of his cooking skills, management skills and qualifications combined in this job, the manager is bad-mannered and talks to him in such a way that, if I were the chef, he wouldn’t have a head by now. I am pleased I didn’t accept his lousy job offer.
He has moved Pido out of here and into the small cafeteria where I was on my last visit. This should please Pido because it is way easier than what he was doing before, but he is a proud man and it has hurt his feelings because he felt he was doing a good job and he has been moved out to make way for the Frenchman’s new menu that he is not considered capable of producing. What a zoo. The new menu didn’t work so my Zimbabwean brothers old menu has been reinstated temporarily until yet another new menu can be cobbled together. The chef offered the sous chefs job to me today. I will think it over because the chef seems to be a reasonable fellow and I wouldn’t have to deal with the tosser of a manager.
We discussed wages, hours, conditions and the deal has been done and hands have been shaken. I am to be the sous chef. Still less money than I presently earn but fairly consistent hours and some fringe benefits that I find attractive.
I shall return tomorrow to sign the contract, seal the deal and cook for “up to 750 because it is going to be fine weather”. Shit.

6-10-04

It’s a pub today to help the chef whilst his ‘sous’ gets over a drug induced psychotic episode that has taken him on a long walk towards the sea to escape the pink elephant that has been after him these past five years. It must have been some truly bad shit he was using. The kitchen is a room about the size of my bathroom, (as mentioned before my bathroom is smaller than most bathrooms). Out of this hellhole these guys churn out a larger than average menu to what must be a less than discerning clientele. The board menu runs the gamut from nachos to fillet steak with all of the trimmings, there is a Chinese stir-fry, pasta dishes, seafood specialties, grills, traditional English “fayre”, Indian curry, Indonesian, TexMex and so many other items, too many to be listed here. The walk in fridge is a lifesaver although it is situated a short hike down the yard in a shack that looks like my dads tool shed. It rained today and the chef told me, “it is the walks in the rain that remind me I am still alive”. Amen to that brother.

6-4-04

A ‘special needs’ school was my assignment today. Kids between the ages of 8 and 11, all boys. The kitchen door is locked—from the outside—I can’t get out and they cannot get in. I hope there is no emergency exit needed. The windows are bolted shut and the fire exit is chained. Halfway through the morning one of the kids escapes into the grounds, four of the teachers make a halfhearted attempt to catch him but he eludes them without breaking a sweat—I mentally cheer him on—they could use the exercise. He wanderers over to the swings and with his foot writes ‘Bitch’ in 3 ft. high letters in the mulch. Then over to the playing field and with his heel scrapes ‘Fuck’ in the grass as if trying to get the attention of overhead airplanes. Poor little guy is really pissed about something and I resolve to talk to him at lunchtime. It turned out that he was from the north of England but he and mum had to move south to hide from dad who had tried to strangle her on Christmas day. Eight year olds should not have these problems. The deputy headmaster had three helpings of lunch and two puddings then no doubt headed for a well-deserved siesta. My tax pounds at work.

6-3-04

To an all girls Catholic school to help with a BBQ for 750—anyone want to hazard a guess as to who was out in the first hot day of the year turning hotdogs, burgers chicken, mystery meat kebabs and the odd vegetarian? Shit! I have sunburn on the back of my neck that will stop me wearing my necktie for days. Leftovers could be taken home, I snagged about 4 pounds of tiny Jersey Royal potatoes—the chef wanted to know why I had no sausages and burgers. I was going to tell her that I didn’t want to end up with a buffalo butt like hers but decided instead to be diplomatic and explained that they were the only decent food in the house. She wasn’t impressed by my subtlety and tact.

6-1-04

Off to a hotel today to cook some larger numbers of banqueting food. Whoever designed this place should be shot. The kitchen is at one end of the building—a 60’s style concrete jungle—and the banqueting suites are at the other end. The connecting corridor runs past half of the rooms, down three steps into the lobby, across the lobby, up three steps, past the other half of the rooms, up three more steps through some double doors, past a few more rooms and into the ‘staging kitchen’. This suite can hold 360 people sitting down. The ‘staging’ kitchen is way smaller than my smaller than average bathroom and in it is a dishwasher, a sink, some shelving, a 12 foot wooden table and the only way into the suite for the service staff. The food is prepared in the kitchen; it is loaded into a huge hotbox and wheeled to the first set of three steps before you get to the lobby. There it is unloaded onto a cart at the bottom of the three steps and wheeled through the lobby to the next set of steps where you then reload it onto another cart at the top of the steps, only to repeat the operation again later—this, with a large banquet takes three people the best part of 20 minutes including time to go and get the empty hotbox schlep it down the stairs and up at the other end. It is also the easy part of the whole plating operation. Once you have the food in the ‘staging kitchen’ you have to get it onto the plates—The 12 footer is OK, the shelving is stacked with the personal belongings of the part time waiting staff, the fact that the only sink for miles around is in the corner of this closet is to say the least, a problem—water jugs being filled and thirsty servers replenishing glasses and retrieving lipstick, lighters, cell phones and all other manner of stuff. ‘Marlboro country’ is outside one of the doors for those that need a nicotine fix the other door goes into the banqueting suite. The only place to stand is between the two doors, shoulder to shoulder with whoever the other wretched bastard is that is working with you, (There is only space for two), and yes, you guessed it, both of the doors open inwards into the closet, so every 10-15 seconds you get nudged in the hip or ass by a door handle as someone else has to come through for whatever reason. You have to stand upright so that the waitresses can squeeze past behind you—now I like to be close to women, but this is ridiculous. The waitresses are way past their ‘use by’ date so there really is no incentive to return to this hellhole.

5-31-04

What a shit-hole, two women running a kitchen for some council employees crummy cafeteria lunch joint. The only book in the kitchen is Nigela’s, ‘How to be a domestic goddess’. These two skanky bitches should read it and put its contents to good use. No dishwasher or pot man, the fridge is crammed with leftovers, uncovered, un-dated and unattended. I called the agency to leave early and did so. The head witch tried to pick an argument so that she would have some ammunition to use against me. The best she could do was to accuse me of wearing my chefs uniform outside of the kitchen—there was no way I was changing in their urine flooded toilets again. This is a local council run establishment, where is the health department?

5-26-04

Today’s assignment was for one of the country’s largest contract caterers. I was the first person to arrive, which put frighteners on me because I was a few minutes late. The staff of 15 or so were a delight. Zimbabweans all of them with big smiles and a joy for life that you will rarely find in a minimum wage employee in Britain. I quickly made a friend of Pido who is a fine man who quickly showed me where everything was and where I could find the coffee machine. No pot washers in this kitchen yesterday so the pots were stacked to the ceiling to be washed before any cooking could commence. I was only producing lunch for 70 or so in a cafeteria setting so my day was not too pressing—two choices and a vegetarian dish for the main course and custard to go with a pre-packaged dessert. Pido would make the soup and I would split by 2:30pm. An English guy, Adam, played T rex at many decibels over the safety threshold and a couple of other young guys wandered in later with monster hangovers and no appetite for work. What a waste.
After a brief meeting with the manager I was told I would be coming back there each day for a week or two until they found a permanent chef. Joy. He also offered me the position of ‘Executive chef”. He must be kidding—I already get paid more than what he wants to offer me and I don’t have any headaches or weekends to work. I have a feeling that I shall be back here and I am sure there will be more on this one later.