Читать книгу Sex, Lies & Crazy People - John Hickman - Страница 17

From a small selection of fringe-dwellers motivated mainly by money and a desire to remain as inconspicuous as possible in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Dad employed a gourmand with a frying pan. Enter Chef Peter a fellow primate from somewhere too far north to comprehend as civilisation.

A tall man with a prominent paunch, stooped shoulders, open face with bright brown eyes and overly bushy eyebrows danced without effort when he spoke. His mouth was

hidden in part by a large, expressively bristled moustache, and when you did glimpse his teeth they were crooked, out of proportion for his mouth and stained yellow from smoking. But he was a trained professional, quick on his feet, who’d become a coordinated line cook. For him kitchen life was about consistency and unvarying repetition.

“Aye, the same splatter of technicolour bird shit on every plate. But I’m keen to expand my horizons,” Chef Peter said in his broad northern brogue.

Dad was all over his ledgers like ants at a picnic but that wasn’t creating business.

“Monday afternoons to Friday mornings we’re busy with travelling trade

representatives in single room occupancy,” he explained. “Mister single occupant Monday to Friday totals four bed spaces a week. A double room accommodates two people. That’s a

capacity for fourteen bed spaces a week. There’s a bloody big difference between the

economics of four bed spaces compared with fourteen.”

“So we need more weekend trade and more doubles,” I announced as if I’d discovered the secret to eternal life.

Dad sighed. “You know, as a budding hotelier wanting to be paid you should be

thinking more in bed spaces than room occupancy,” his voice became more aggressive. “That has an enormous impact on catering when you do actually fucking perform in that

area!”

I was downcast. My voice supplicant and miserable. “I’m doing my best.”

He calmed down. “Facts are we need to fill bed spaces as opposed to only letting rooms, Son. And we need more restaurant trade.”

I nodded.

Our kitchen became a hive of well-organised activity. At its hub a chef who could spin a grapefruit like a potter stripping out flesh. Proportions of everything were exaggerated. Monstrous sized pots were brought into commission that had not seen the light of day since Queen Victoria was a child. In them he simmered ingredients for his Jus, a secret I soon learned sets restaurants aside from homemade food.

I told Pandy, “Chef Peter’s about to put new flavours in our mouths. Now, I should only have to wait on table and be his prep monkey.”

“Aye, it’ll be grand if y’learn silver service. Next door do nowt of that.”

Tearing the arse out of his Yorkshire vowels he sounded like one of the Tetley Tea folk.

“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll practise on Pandy.”

She enjoyed the game and Chef Peter was impressed with my efforts. “You’ve pulled summat of a rabbit from your hat. Aye, congratulations. Well done.”

“A rabbit from his arse, more like,” Dad grumbled, “put a tick in your credit column, and bloody move on, for Christ’s sake.”

I assisted Chef Peter every chance I could but that was no guarantee I would ever

master the fine art of being a chef.

“Aye, if mains be fish, then God help us, because nowt else can,” Chef Peter wailed, “tis a time when not cooking fish through is a soddin’ soddin’ sin, but none want summat too well done.”

“Why Chef?” I asked.

“Be like eating a wee wet diaper. Aye, and if veggies be consigned to soddin’

bain-marie too early they’ll be cooked to buggery and soggy for sure. Too late and they’ll be too raw to serve. Brussels sprouts will be like Brass Monkey’s testicles.”

After service I lit a cigarette and turned to Gramps. “Now we have a proper chef, I fail to see why I need to learn to cook at all.”

“If you don’t master the bloody kitchen you’ll be going against your dad, and that’ll be like having the Angel of Death breathing down on you, on a daily basis.”

“Only daily?”

“Quality over quantity.”