2. Yes, Chef!

2. Yes, chef!

It was the look of genuine disgust that made the kitchen slow down.

“What is this?”

When Chef used that tone of voice, everyone stopped doing whatever they were supposed to be doing and made sure the knives were nowhere near the scene of the culinary crime. We remembered all too well what happened to poor Helena.

“Pastry for tonight's dessert, Chef.” said Ellie, this morning's criminal.

“Pastry,” he repeated in an incredulous tone of voice, “you call this pastry?”

Ellie had the good grace to look sheepish. To be fair, it did not look like it was supposed to. It was lumpy and wet, not at all the glossy and smooth paste it was meant to be.

Luckily for all of us, the management had last year forced Chef into anger management classes three times a week. He was better than he had been.

“This was supposed to be choux pastry, Eleanor, not batter resembling tapioca pudding.”
“Yes, sir.”

“Chef, Eleanor, 'yes, Chef'”, he reprimanded automatically, picking up the wooden spoon she had been using and flicking his wrist, “you need a reluctant dropping consistency, 5 to 7 seconds, not,” another look of disgust as the batter trickled off the spoon, “this, whatever this may be.”

“I'm sorry, Chef.”

“Sorry isn't good enough,” he waved a hand towards her work station and pounded his fist onto the counter, “This thing has to be thrown away, and you will start again. And do it right this time.”

Ellie looked close to tears as he walked back to the entrées that Michael was handling, “Yes, Chef.”

“Cleo!” he called over his shoulder.

Cue me, “Yes, Chef!”

“Help her, if she can be helped. You're the pastry chef we hired, can't have you making fondant roses all day. Salvage whatever you can of the choux, then get back to your own work.”

“Yes, Chef!”

There wasn't any point in saying that he was the one who had ordered me to make 300 pearly white and 300 deep crimson fondant roses to serve with tonight's gateau.

Ellie was choking back sobs by the time I reached her. Poor thing, she had only been with us a few months and I suspected that her talents were being suppressed by this nervous girl that appeared when Chef was around.

You have to understand that Chef takes some getting used to. When “Hell's Kitchen” is on television, the rest of the staff and I like to get together and watch it. Gordon Ramsey is not a patch on Chef. While Chef doesn't insult your family, your history, your personality, he does verbally take your cooking skills to pieces, and there is the occasional violent outburst, but only if someone has done something so monumentally stupid that it is also something they would get fired over.
I went to three different cookery schools – I am used to this. A lot of the people who enter this kitchen haven't developed quite as thick a skin.

I found it mostly amusing – if you let the pressure get to you, your performance will suffer. Hadn't any of these people done exams in their lives? Working with Chef was a constant exam. But at the end of it, you came out stronger, more alive. And a better cook, too.

“I can't do it, Cleo, there's no way I'll ever be a real chef if I can't even make choux, what was I thinking?”

I had met Ellie at the very last cookery school I'd been to. She started from the very beginning as I began supervising sessions, waiting for my contract with The Dutchess to be finalised. Four years and some experience later, she had asked to join me here.
She was lovely and a very talented cook, but she needed to learnt to deal with pressure.
She discarded the batter and handed the pan to Rob, our dishwasher. He was 18, had just finished school and had taken a year out to “clear his head”, but I knew he wanted to get close to us here, maybe thinking about taking up a catering course. I'd seen my share of Robs over the years.

“And I knew I was getting it wrong, I was going to throw it away, but then Chef walked over and I panicked and...”

“Ellie,” I interrupted, an attempt at breaking the stream of nonsense and tears, “I have told you. At the first sign of failure, you fix, at the second, you discard – no exceptions.”

Ellie's hands were shaking as she waved them about, “I know, I do know. I just... I don't know.”
I gave her a quick hug, then got her to measure out ingredients once more. If just one batch went wrong, Chef would send her home and have me man the dessert station on my own all night. And while I am good, even I can't do the work of three people by myself.

This is the part of cooking that I like the most, the slowly turning individual ingredients into art, and choux is my favourite type of pastry to make. The method is simple, but the result is always impressive. I made the first batch of pastry, slowing down my steps to guide her through it once again.
She stared at my hands as though they held all the answers to making Chef happy.
She made the rest, while I went back to my roses. Only 30 crimson ones to go. Roses are fiddly, but not complicated, at least once you know what you're doing. It's painting that really gets to me, especially when Chef orders them to all look individual, which means veining and marbling. The customers won't notice unless at least two people at a table order them and a single person wants all the roses. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it makes their meal all the more special. They smile at the waitress and say something nice about it, which then comes back to us. To me.
Phil popped his head round the door, “Chef! You're needed outside – fishmonger's trying to get a good deal on bad sole.”

Chef didn't even look up from the pesto Michael was making – rocket and coriander, delicious on tuna steak, served with rosemary salt potatoes. Truly divine, and therefore a staple on our menu, “Be right there. Cleo! Are you done with the roses?”

I put the last one down, “Yes, Chef!”

“Come with me.”

We headed outside, where Ed, our usual fishmonger, was waiting, arms folded together and face stony.

“Look 'ere, Chef, this ain't right. You know me, you know I deliver. Just take a look at this sole. Perfect!”

Chef glanced at the fish in question, then stood up straight and stared at Ed.

“That is not perfect, Ed. You usually deliver, but what am I supposed to do when you give me three-day-old fish, eh? Look at those eyes, at those dull scales and tell me that's fresh fish.”

The fishmonger shifted uneasily but said nothing.

“Ed, you and I both know that Sahid down the road from you is just as good as you and cheaper too. Perhaps it's time for my kitchen to move on?”

I love watching Chef deal with people who originally thought they could get away with it. I like watching their faces change.

“...when do you need the sole by?”
Chef grinned, “Good man, Ed. Dover for the price of lemon?”

“Oh, alright.” he grumbled, signalling his men to take the boxes away.
“Excellent. I need them by 3, no later, and tuna steaks as always. All of them bright, or Sahid shall be replacing you! Goodbye Ed.”

I took this as our signal to leave. He led the way back inside, rubbing his hands together.
He generally makes me come outside with him when he's dealing with people. The staff think it's because he's known me the longest, but I think it's because he enjoys performing in front of an audience.
“He's a good man, but he thinks he can get away with more than he actually can. Have to keep an eye on that one.”
“Yes, Chef.”

“How's Eleanor's choux coming along?”

“It's coming out beautifully, Chef. I think we'll be getting compliments on the crispness.”
“Good, good. And the gateau?”

“In the fridge as we speak, finished it this morning.”

“Excellent. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make sure the par-boiling is being done properly. Belinda is usually flawless, but you never know.”
I went back to my station. I had finished most of what I had to do this morning, so I just cleared up, waiting for 3 o'clock to come around so I could start on the fruit.
You want to be careful with fruit. Unless you have a trick that works 100 percent of the time, you just have to wait until the last possible moment to cut it. Especially apples. Damned things always go brown on me, no matter what I try. Lemon juice only works if you need the lemon, but otherwise it's just another flavour that you don't necessarily want to add to the mix.

The gateau looked very good, if I do say so myself. The row of desserts in the freezer always look tempting, but I've learnt to ignore the little shock of sugar craving that hits when you open the fridge. The lemon tartlets were looking especially appetising. They needed a strawberry garnish, though, which meant that either I got Chef to pull out the little contraption to put three cuts in each of them, or I sliced them myself, one by one.
Considering the fact that Chef was currently telling Belinda about arguing with Ed about prices, I decided to slice them myself. Ellie saw this and came over to help.

“Thank you for helping me, earlier. I'm a little bit stressed at the moment.”

“Hmm,” I replied, “I noticed.”

“I just can't seem to work properly when Chef's around, he makes me so nervous and all my little mistakes seem enormous even though I know they're not,” you can see why I had stopped her from babbling on earlier, “and I don't know how you stand it, Cleo, I really don't.”

I shrugged, “Practise, I suppose. I've known him for a while now.”

“Maybe,” she said, slicing through her strawberry deftly, proving once again how well she could handle knives when Chef wasn't looking over her shoulder, “but sometimes I think he just likes you more than he likes us.”

“Or maybe,” said Phil, stealing one of the whole berries, “she just doesn't make as many mistakes as the rest of us.”

“True. You're like a cooking machine. All about the method. Can't rush, do it right.”

“Well,” slice, slice, slice, into the left bowl, take from the right, slice, slice, slice, into the left bowl, “if you rush any work it will be sloppy. And sloppy work in this kitchen means subpar food, which I cannot serve to anyone, let alone a paying customer. My conscience won't let me.”

“That makes sense,” said Chef, standing next to Phil, unnoticed until that moment, “Excellent work, Eleanor, Cleo.”

Ellie's hands were shaking again, her eyes wide. Chef walked away, and she dropped her knife.

“I believe that was a compliment, Ellie. See, he does like you!”

Of course, I was enjoying this. This could be the thing that got her to stop being so nervous around him. And a confident Ellie could do great things, I knew.

Service ran perfectly. We even got a few people requesting that Chef come out so they could compliment him, which is always fun.

My staff – which it is, as much as it is Chef's – takes a collective breath of relief, and works slightly harder, to impress him when he comes back.
He came back with a list of compliments for me, for my desserts. He even asked me to come out to the floor with him and hear for myself, because a woman who had just been proposed to (“Congratulations, your future husband picked an excellent place to pop the question, I take it you enjoyed dessert?”) decided she needed to tell me how beautifully crafted my roses were (“Amazing, simply amazing. And the gateau was simply heavenly. So good, so good. Do you make wedding cakes?”)

I hate doing rounds. That's the main reason I don't leave The Dutchess. I get offers, but they're either after me as a pastry chef and only that, or as Head Chef, the shot-caller. But I like where I am.
Chef knows this, but he also knows when people will complain if I don't come out.
He stopped me just inside the kitchen doors, an arm settled companionably around my shoulder.

“Good girl,” he smiled at me, “see, that wasn't so bad, was it?”

“I'm glad she liked my flowers, but what can I say. I'm good at what I do.”

Another smile, “Oh, Cleo. So arrogant, but so good with sweets. What would I do without you?”

I smiled back, “You'd have to hire someone less competent. Chef.”

He laughed, and Rob stared unabashedly at him over the mound of suds.
“Get back to work, you minx!” He looked round to see the staff staring at his unexpected good humour, all of them holding utensils, Ellie shaking again and Rob was mouthing 'he likes you!', “What are you all staring at? Back to work!”

Rob and I shared a grin as the words rose from the staff as one.

“Yes, Chef!”