Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.07.2004, Blaðsíða 12

ENTER DA KITCHEN
by Padraig Mara
As school began I needed to find work that suited a student’s schedule. My girlfriend suggested I
might try restaurant work seeing as I had some talent and seemed to enjoy working with food. I saw it
as a soft option - you go in, make some dishes, and go home. No heavy lifting, no flying sparks. I quickly
found myself paying my dues as a chef ’s assistant.
COLUMN
I worked first at a dinner theatre
that during any given week would
serve up to 2,000 customers. The
kitchen staff consisted on week-
ends of myself, two sleep deprived,
overworked cooks, and 30 to 40
teenagers, chatting on cell phones
and snapping each other with rubber
gloves. Managing this circus was
the executive chef Oli, a lecherous
forgetful cat in his late 50s.
ME (middle of the dinner rush,
covered in food) - Oli, where is the
rest of the duck?
OLI (staring blankly into space)
- Ha? Duck? (His eye is caught
as a very pretty girl of obviously
high-school age walks past.) Too
young…too young…
Later I labored valiantly in the
tiny, sweltering kitchen of a fast food
joint with gourmet pretensions.
ME- So, this tortilla con carne, that’s
like a taco right?
PRETENTIOUS HEAD CHEF-
No, no. This is a crispy, hand-milled
corn tortilla filled with spiced beef,
cheese and vegetables.
ME- Yeah… So it’s a taco right?
Finally, I had assembled sand-
wiches for the elderly in a retirement
home.
ME (addressing a roomful of golden
oldies quietly gumming their open-
faced sandwiches) - So how are they?
Utter silence but for the sound of
chewing. One old gent begins to fall
out of his chair in impossibly slow
motion…
ME- Pretty damn good, eh?
These jobs were fine, but badly
paid. I had come to the conclusion
that I had proven myself a more than
capable cook’s assistant. In fact, I
had begun to view myself as a rising
star in the culinary field, worthy of
my own kitchen, despite my lack of
education, experience, know-how etc.
I saw an ad asking for a head chef in
a newly opened bistro downtown. I
answered it.
The restaurant’s aim was to
be a sort of international café. A
place where natives and transplants
could get together, drink coffee, eat
babaganoush, listen to Manu Chao
and appreciate the fuck out of each
other. Sounded okey dokey to me.
I sat down with the owner of the
establishment and the other chef.
I was charming and confident. I
played down my inexperience and
talked up my foreignness. I said I
could offer the restaurant a taste of
my homeland. A taste of New Jersey.
They bought it and I was hired.
The next day the other cook ran
down the menu with me, everything
according to the latest trends in faux-
ethnic cooking: hummus, coconut
milk soups, lots of sun dried toma-
toes, artichoke hearts and vinegar
glazes. Yup, I said, I could rock with
all this, no problem at all. I was given
a shiny white chef ’s jacket and left to
my own devices in what was now my
kitchen. I checked my reflection in
the mirror and turned up the kitchen
stereo.
The rest of that day went per-
fectly, not very many customers, just
enough to keep me busy and moving.
I doted over each plate. They were
works of art. I began to think seri-
ously of having my own cooking
show on Stöð 2. I’d call it “Eat This”.
I’d soon be wealthy and famous but
nowhere near as annoying as that
Jamie Oliver bastard.
The next day I popped the Dead
Boys in the stereo, donned my
whites and lit a cigarette. I sat down
on the steps behind my kitchen and
thought about my bright future as
a celebrity chef. On the stereo Stiv
was singing “I’ll be a pharaoh soon,
rule from some golden tomb” - that
sounded about right. The order ma-
chine just then clicked to life. Table
of four, each with two dishes, each
different. Well, fuck it, I thought. I
can handle that. I turned the stereo
up and got to work. As I worked the
grill I heard the machine print out
another order, a table of 8. “Then I’ll
be ten feet tall and you’ll be nothing
at all”, I sang along as I ran to the
walk-in fridge for more hummus.
Empty. Fuck. More tickets printed
out. Waiters came in to politely in-
quire about their tables. I smiled and
said it wouldn´t be a moment. They
looked at me with doubt as I resorted
to crushing chick peas with my fist
for falafel. More tickets printed. I
had all burners lit on the stove, the
deep fryer bubbling and the grill
smoking like a locomotive. Dam-
nit, if I was going to be a celebrity
chef I had to make it through this
evening’s dinner rush. Just as I was
about to send off five fish-of-the-day
plates, the gas ran out. I sprinted to
the back of the building wielding a
wrench to switch tanks as the stereo
screamed, “Dead boys, too sick to
wanna cry”. I ran back to find the
deep-fryer oil over flowing onto the
floor. I skated around the serving
table like it was the Icecapades. The
head waiter appeared, silently as
always, and asked me in a slick wait-
erly fashion if I had ever impersonat-
ed a chef before or was this some-
thing I was just trying out. I told him
in a very un-waiterlike fashion to get
the fuck out of my kitchen. More
tickets printed out of the machine. I
threw plates around in a blur. I was
burned and I was bleeding, I could
see my cooking show receding in the
distance. “Dead boys, dead boys...”
I was sweating and close to incoher-
ent as I rushed to send the last of the
orders. I dropped a vindaloo onto
a waitress’ shoes; I scalded myself
with a pot of egg-drop soup. I prayed
to God for deliverance or a quick
death as I fixed plates of gnocchi and
cream sauce. I felt heat on my back.
I looked over my shoulder to find
two pans of lamb kebab throwing
fire three feet in the air. Something
snapped in my head. I took off my
apron and walked toward the door.
Stiv sang “Down in flames, down
in flaaaames.” I took off my chef ’s
jacket as in a dream, ignoring the
ticket machine, the shouts of waiters.
I opened the heavy door leading
to the parking lot… the air was
cool and still, I could still hear the
stereo…” Down in flames, down in
flames”. I slammed the door with a
thud.
Hours later I had a chat with the
owner. Obviously the kitchen and
me were not to be. But how did I
feel about tending bar? I rubbed my
scorched and scarred hands. I said
good. I feel very good about tending
bar.
...Next edition, Worst Bartender
in Reykjavík.
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