Punter Fun
Not actually worked in a kitchen myself but my wife used to be a chef in a well known restuarant. When she left she was called on from time to time to take over the odd "Cook out" which involves the chef taking over a punters kitchen and creating a gastronimic feast using the equipment in the average kitchen (snack'n'sandwich toaster, microwave, EZ-Cook deep fat fryer). The very last one of those she did (before marrying me and concentrating on having my dinner on the table at 7pm sharp) involved cooking an 8 course meal at a terraced house in Bedfordshire where this couple had won the meal as a raffle prize. They had invited their friends round and as the prize did not include the waiting staff that job was down to me.

The day starts well with my other half being shown the kitchen she'll have to work in and basically doing a reverse "Changing Rooms" and demanding that all the furniture that wasn't directly involved in food preperation had to go, as did anything that could get in the way or annoy her....so no pirelli calander, no cute little tea cosy, no welsh dresser, No children, no pets, no irish....the usual sort of thing. That was of course down to me as the staff.

Next job was to be her Kitchen Porter while she prepped. I wander to be her sous chef or something but apparently I was a useless f*ck in the kitchen and if I wanted to be called a chef I could f*cking work my way up through years of grime and sh*t just as she did rather than just call myself one for a laugh. Apparently I was lucky to get the job of KP rather than "T*sser getting in my way" Several hours on I started to wonder whether marrying her was a good idea. The words you hear Gordon use were nothing compared to the swearing and general abuse handed out to me as her KP.....anyway, moving onto the fun bit. Having been KP I then had to be somallier, waiter, maitre thingy, hat check girl, all rolled into one. After taking it seriously for nearly ten minutes I thought that it would be jolly to embellish the descriptions of the dishes being served.

From a basic gravadlax and salsa to start we had instead lean cut Tibetan Fresh Water Bell Fish with mixed icelandic wild pickles served with an accompanying wine pressed from only the third grape from the westernmost tip of each vine (first two get too much sun you see, takes away some of the sweetness to create a slightly drier finish) right through to the Impala Milk cheese which is made from the milk, oddly enough, of the Thompson Gazelle rather than Impala's. Impala's being difficult to catch carrying a stool and a bucket. At first I thought I'd be sussed but no...... they thoroughly enjoyed it and the charity who ran the raffle got back rave reviews about the quality and diversity of the food.........makes you wonder whether thats what they do anyway and in fact all the fish on the menu at Ramsay's is cod but just folded differently.
( Spackweasel - because weasels get Downs Syndrome too, Fri 21 Jul 2006, 17:04, Reply)