It was unbelievably hot. My jacket was sodden with perspiration. I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve.
‘Two hake, one fillet steak medium rare, peppercorn sauce … no starter …’
Francis’s large, red, sweaty face beamed at me from underneath his bandanna that he’d taken to wearing in the kitchen, and he turned away to get the vegetable accompaniments ready.
And not just heat to contend with, but noise too. The roar of the extractor fans, which in this small space were like a jet taking off, the hiss and bubble of the deep-fat fryer, the clang of the pans on the stove, the crash of fridges as we frantically opened and closed them, the crackle of the cheque machine as new orders came into the kitchen …
I added the cheque to the row of five that were already lined up in chronological order above the pass. An easy order to do.
I quickly finished plating the dish that I had just cooked, glanced at the clock, pulled a frying pan off the stove and balanced it on the side.
‘Service …’ Jess, my waitress, appeared, and I pointed at the pass. She was back from uni for the summer, thank God. Jess might be only twenty-two but she was by far the most mature person I knew, myself included. ‘Two lamb, one smoked aubergine feuilleté. Thank you, Jess.’
‘Thank you, Chef.’
She disappeared with the food, efficient as always. I turned to Francis as I took the cheque down and spiked it, and looked at the next three, to see they were all in hand. I opened my little locker fridge and took out two pieces of hake and a steak fillet and put the piece of meat on the bars of the chargrill.
‘Francis, get the red pepper relish out.’ I liked the red pepper relish, simple to make (cheap to make come to that), versatile, a real winner.
‘We haven’t got any, Chef!’ came the shouted reply.
For a second, the world stood still as I digested the news, then I was back in action, mechanically turning the various pieces of meat on the chargrill, checking that the three small frying pans I had on the go with yet more meat inside were all to hand, making sure that the piece of turbot protected by tinfoil under the lights on the pass wasn’t going over, getting too cooked. I was cooking fifteen meals simultaneously, and now this.
I turned to Francis who quailed under my gaze. I was very cross indeed. At five o’clock he had assured me that all the mise en place was done; well, that manifestly wasn’t the case. You didn’t run out of things in restaurants; it was unacceptable.
As was sending the hake out naked, minus its dressing as clearly stated on the menu, into the world.
I was tempted to bellow, ‘What do you mean, we haven’t got any …’ adding a string of profanities, but what would have been the use?
The hallmark of a good chef is being able to deal with crises and I am a good chef.
‘Go out to the walk-in, get me a red pepper, an onion, a fennel bulb – and hurry up …’ I snapped, suppressing the urge to scream at him.
Francis stood there rooted to the spot.
I lost my ability to suppress my urges. Time to scream.
‘Please, HURRY UP!’
He didn’t leap into action; he ambled. There are times when I would dearly like to kill Francis.
Jess came into the kitchen and saw my expression, sensed the mood in the air.
‘You OK, Ben?’ she asked.
‘I’m savouring the moment, Jess,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘I’m very much savouring the moment in a mindful way.’
Earlier that day I had been reading an article on mindfulness. Whoever had written it had probably never worked in a commercial kitchen, but I was determined to take their comments on board, regardless.
I crashed a pan on the stove to vent some mindfulness on metal rather than Francis.
Francis returned and handed me the vegetables.
He looked stricken, his plump, red face a mask of contrition. Contrition was no good to me. I gritted my teeth and tried to enjoy the now.
Now was far from enjoyable.
So, while I cooked fifteen meals, (Francis doing the vegetables, silently, miserably, like a kicked dog) I frantically made a red pepper relish, buying time from the table by sending them some pâté and home-made parmesan and rosemary focaccia bread (chef’s compliments).
The relish is supposed to gently cook for about three-quarters of an hour – I had it ready in ten minutes, softening the vegetables in the microwave before frying them, frantically cutting corners. More by luck than judgement, it ended up just fine, but by the end of the night I was a sweaty, angry twitchy mass of nerves covered in sodden chef’s whites.
We sent the last cheque out and silence descended on the kitchen. I started turning the gas rings off on the cooker, shutting down the kitchen, tight-lipped with irritation.
‘I’m sorry, Chef, I was as much use as a chocolate teaspoon …’ Francis looked like he might cry, his lip trembling. He had taken his bandanna off and his very blond hair was plastered to his head like he had been swimming.
Francis was huge, his chef’s whites padded out with muscle.
‘That’s OK, Francis,’ I said, patting him on the back (it was like stroking a horse), ‘but please don’t do it again.’
We cleaned the kitchen down, I sent Francis home, and Jessica and I sat in the small empty restaurant and had a beer. It was becoming a bit of a tradition really, and I had come to enjoy Jess’s company since arriving in Hampden Green.
‘You look terrible,’ she remarked.
I looked at Jess. She didn’t look terrible; she looked refreshed. I wondered how she continued to look full of energy after a long day and night waitressing. Perhaps she had this mindfulness thing down? Jess gave me a look of worried concern and pushed a hand through her dark hair that she fought a constant battle against frizz with. One of the few problems I don’t have is frizzy hair – mainly because I haven’t got any.
Silver linings.
‘I was thinking exactly the same thing this morning, while I was shaving,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I should start wearing foundation.’
‘Well, you’ll need more than that,’ she said as she drank some beer, and looked at me with real concern. ‘How many hours have you worked this week?’
I did some mental arithmetic – fifteen hours a day for eight days – but I was too tired to do the sums. ‘A lot.’
‘Ben,’ she said, looking me in the eye, ‘you simply can’t go on like this – you need to hire another chef.’
I took a mouthful of beer. ‘I can’t afford to hire one – if I could, I would.’
Jessica looked unconvinced. ‘You can’t afford not to hire one. Working a hundred and twenty hours in a row—’ Jess, unlike me, was
