each moment slipping away...

"There's talk of me being a drug addict or an alcoholic or serious miscreant of some sort," I said to Andy.

"It's not true you know. None of it is true."

"I'm not interested in that. But your writing," he said, "Is there a serious point to make in any or all of it?" 

"Of course there's a serious point to make," I smiled. "My whole life I never knew..."

What do you do when you find out your wife doesn't have cancer?
That's what happened to me today.

Celebrate? But celebrate by doing what?

More to the point, what do you do when you find out that your wife does have cancer?

Celebrate, surely? Celebrate life. Celebrate every minute you have left together.

But then think, why do we distract ourselves so?

Why do we fill our lives with distractions from the most intense and all-consuming truth that we exist for but a moment in time - fast-burning candles, bubbles forming and popping in the stream, fireworks, come and gone in a nano-second.

"Today, I was distracted, by the kitchen," I said to Andy.

"But tonight, I shall tolerate no distractions. 

"My whole life I never knew. But tonight I shall know everything. How distracted I have been, how apathetic, ungrateful and uninsightful.

"Then I shall dwell no longer on my failings, but on my loved ones."

But my whole life, I shall know tonight, not least by a reasonable concept of time and mortality. Not least by the pursuit of happiness but by the consideration of my those closest and most loved by me.

...each moment slipping away, and not a rulebook or a deity to tell us what to do with it... 

...each moment to enjoy, slipping away, best enjoy each while we can...

8 tips to efficiency. Next Week : An Interview With Joe

"Be careful what you say, he might write a blog about you," has been said more than once in my presence.
No I won't.
It would be a cheap, nasty, not to say effortless trick, to play character assassination in such an industry. No, I'm pretty sure the psuedo-psycho-analytical kitchen-related philosophy is the more trying but rewarding path.
And so, on this serious note, and with the thought in mind that there are "new-starts" in the kitchen who might wish to immerse themselves in the culinary arts but have a lack of practical or technical experience, I should like to take the liberty of listing a few tips to get you on the way.


1 - Learn how to use a knife properly.

I have cut myself on bins, ovens, shelves, boxes, racking, doors, plastic tubs, dishwashers, blue-roll dispensers, shelves, pots, food, frying pans, graters, hoovers, brushes, dustpans, sinks, taps, earthenware, glass and clingfilm boxes. I have never cut myself with a knife.
1 - Learn how to use a knife properly.


2 - Buy a second-hand copy of Practical Cookery by Kinton, Ceserani and Foskett - undoubtedly the best basic reference tool for any aspiring chef.

3 - Wash your hands and wipe your boards.

There is a lovely Scottish mother on the web commenting on her child's toilet ettiquette Lovely Scottish Mum describing what it is if you don't wash your hands as a chef or flush the toilet as a child)
Wash your hands, wipe your boards, don't get pepper or dill stains on your sandwich bread, it's fucking disgusting.

4 - Tune into your Wangfuk.
 This is the south-east Asian monks' term for your energy which is specifically stored for your animal instinct - for example, the energy one would use to have sexual relations in a graveyard after drinking cheap cider and blackcurrent until 3.30 am after a day of M-cat
and liberty caps.
Bonin' in the Boneyard - trimming meat in the abattoir?
4 - Tune into your Wangfuk.

5 - Do all the jobs you least want to do.
We only avoid dishes, either because we don't know them well, or don't execute them adequately enough. If you continue to do all the dishes you don't want to do, they become the ones you know and execute better than any other.
5 - Do all the jobs you least want to do.

6 - Pray.

Under the guidance of your Lord or "Higher Power" you shall realise that you are not walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but merely a kitchen, on your way to the toilet. No-one forces you to be in the kitchen, we have a welfare-state which will adequately provide for the overly-lazy, so if you choose to be there, take some pride in what you do, feel the freedom of that choice.
6 - Pray - thanking your Lord that you both physically and mentally able enough to survive such an environment and be involved in the process of feeding your fellow man.

7 - Shut your fucking puss and do what your told.

The kitchen does not work as a democracy, it can only work as a dictatorship.
If someone is superior to you, in any sense, shut the fuck up and do what you are told. Then, if it all goes tits up, blame them.
Personally, I have always been of the opinion that I am firstly and only answerable to my head chef. I take orders from no-one else, only advice.
Chef is my boss, anyone else, I am only doing favours for. (please refer to Chef and I)
7 - Shut the fuck up and do what your told.

8 - If you can slip anything under the radar that is better than the spec dish, but costs no more and does not affect the bulk protein, do it - it's under the radar, isn't it.

-------

Well, now to get to the point, philosophically of course.

Sigmund Freud was a crank, but he did some important work.
He developed what became known as "The Talking Cure" although the phrase preceded him.
In what would be known as the Modernist period in literature, with James Joyce, TS Eliot and Virginia Woolf coming to the fore at the turn of the nineteenth century with an unprecedented honesty about their feelings, thoughts and mental behaviour, psychoanalysis began to develop and the reality that certain ailments, or problematic behaviours could be changed - cured - just by talking about them.

The problem with Freud though, is the same as the problem with prayer, in that neither, neither really scratch that itch. That relentless, taunting spine-monkey, that scratch, that scratch, that itch, that itch.
But talking, just talking, can actually cure you - just like the kitchen can - it can distract you from all those fears and itchy itches.

Bonin' in the Boneyard.

That bass scratches that itch.

But who is Chef? Who is Joe?
What of the food? What of the fishing? What of the dogs?

Well, fortunately, Joe has agreed to be interviewed by myself for the next post (though he doesn't know it yet).

Next post - "An Interview with Joe" where I shall respectfully bombard him with interesting questions about himself, food, philosophy and existence.

If you would like to hear what Joe has to say, please show your support on the dedicated page - "An interview with Joe" - it might be on Facebook, or Twitter or Snapchat or some other shit like that.
I'd like to know, anyhoo... who likes bonin' in the boneyard? Me? Joe? Jams? Find out in next week's issue of "The ninth and most important tip to kitchen efficiency..."

A Catalogue of Frustration

Am I a complainer? I'd like to think not.
Am I a gossiper. I'd hate to think so.
I'd like to think that while I exude a general air of malaise and maintain a slightly depressive and cynical countenance, I still bear the air of rebellion which ignites the concept of personal freedom in those around me.

After having virtually nothing to eat for 12 hours I mentioned to Staples that I hadn't had a burger for a long time. Around an hour later he gave me half of a kid's cheeseburger he'd made for himself. Oh boy, did it taste good - who is Staples, this exgoth, this straightman, this, this... I don't know yet, but boy was that half a burger good.
How nice it is to share.
How nice to share.

My dad went into hospital last night. He's 83, maybe 82.
He's worked all his life and brought up a family, married 52 years.
He's been through hard times and been through easier times.
He's been honest and forthcoming, frank and open with his ideas and thoughts.
Very talkative, lost people along the way.
A living advocate of the simple life, the countryside and a better view.
A great man, who has never, in his life,  raised his voice or his hand to me and loves the sun to beat down on Scotland.

I would like to direct anyone who might read this to "The Lonely Road and Other Occupations - poetry and prose concerning literary rejection" 

Why?

Well, because these two subjects and my life are inextricably linked - my frustration as an unrecognised and largely unpublished writer, my frustration as a moderate, forgetful chef, my frustration as a generally incompetent homo sapien. I said to Andy today, when he mentioned my writing, that it has merely become a Catalogue of Frustrations with little or nothing published, even less read.

So what are these frustrations?

Well, in fact, there is only one - as a writer, as a chef, in life - and that is, that there is simply never enough time.

The catalogue of one frustration: Never... Enough... Time...

Yup, it's nice to share.

900 - Der Ausländische Platte.

900 - Der Ausländische Platte.

 Sterben langsam in einem Garten voller Rosen.

Sie werden keinen Kredit erhalten.

I will talk about Nietzsche and the rest of the nutters at the end of this piece, but for now, lets establish the identity of Der Ausländische Platte.

Well, frankly, what identifies The Foreign Plate are her differences.

Andy said to me as we passed, each carrying three four-litre tubs of prep out of the walk-in, that my genius, in relation to writing, was far more likely to be recognized after my death.
I thought this might be quite a high price to pay.
But I like Andy more than he knows. I feel he is like a lifelong friend rather than a colleague. He is definitely my type of guy, which is why I advised him not to lose his ponytail.

Of course, everyone is different - but some people certainly seem a little more different than others. This doesn't make them any less of a person, in fact it only serves to make them more interesting to the inquisitive mind.

Es ist eine platte, in der Küche, die ich verstecken immer in den haufen - der ausländische platte.

I don’t wish her to be thrown out you see, this intriguing foreign plate with a past.

So from time to time, when she shows her face, a little more weatherbeaten than the rest of the stack, a different size with a different lip and I put her out to pasture in the restaurant. I’m sure that no-one likes to be presented their food on her, this worn old plate, different to everyone else’s. I’m sure they all give her a derisive, nose-stretching glare, but they eat their dinner off her all the same, quietly so as not to cause a scene, and send her back into the kitchen where I’ll quickly hide her again, to be ready for her next outing.

I am too old to be angry now. Too old to be frustrated. Too tired to be a sex god. Too intelligent to be a zealot. Too tired to be any good at anything except self-indulgence. My only interest is in revealing Der Ausländische Platte. 

Nehmen Sie mich zurück in die alte Heimat, wo ich bin gut darin, auf meinen eigenen.

Back to Scotland with Allan and John and the rest of them.

Two things bother the foreign plate.
Only two.

The first is Annahmen Unbegründet – the tendency for people to make unreasonably unfounded assumptions about other people based on a lack of, or unreliable, information.

The second is Die Nicht Hilfreich Kommentar – or “The Unhelpful Comment” which speaks for itself and the most fucking annoying thing in the world.

Unfortunately, der ausländische platte can’t exist much longer due to it being old and stressed in the middle. It may make one or two more journeys, but will eventually crack from the centre outwards and will be of no use for anything other than to feed the bin.

Der ausländische platte wird blut zu ziehen, wenn es auf dem boden zertrümmert.

900 - sich hüten, der ausländische Platte kommt durch…

Of course the foreign plate may be me, it may not be.

But the subtext to it all, most certainly, is that University College London banned the Nietzsche Club in reaction to a poster it put up advertising discussion of Alain de Benoist and Julius Evola, alongside Heidegger and Nietzsche - New APPS - Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

However, we all like to discuss nutters don't we?

The operative words in case you didn’t notice were “banned” and “discussion”.

But to get back to cleaning down, what is great about cooking, is the fact that you are paid some money and that you meet some interesting people.

What is great about writing, is that you can say whatever the fuck you want, no-one can censor you – no-one can shut you up – no-one can tell you what to say or do…

I had a bad day on Friday.

But a good day today.
On Friday I experienced Die Nicht Hilfreich Kommentar - The Unhelpful Comment - and felt disgusted, as it was born of Annahmen Unbegründet.

I may discuss a nutter on here soon, or a pratt, or a fuckwit, watch this space, shhhhhhhhh... sie können nicht einmal wissen, er ist ein Spinner...but remember no-one can tell you what to say...

The Language of the Kitchen

I came into work in a pretty negative frame of mind after three days off.
I'm always early.
It's good to be early.
In the morning, I have my OCD processes which help me survive as a chef: routines, priorities, lists... 

I set about them, my lists, burners on, grill on, oven on, poaching pan, blanching pan, soup, boards, knives, spoons, leaves, rocket, salad, more spoons, bread, condiments, dressings, boards, bowls, crisps, saladette prep, lids off tubs in service fridges, dressings, check prep in walk-in, check prep in salad fridge, check cellar for breads, oils, paprika, balsamic and so on...

If you can do this in the ten minutes before service, then you are a better man than me.

If you walked into the kitchen in the morning and didn't already have an idea of where to start, you're in trouble.
Mind you, if you walked into the kitchen in the evening, perhaps when it is going at full tilt and you're not used to it - likely you'll get a shock.
The fans are noisy and the heat can be oppressive. Lots of noise, pans and plates, those fans and the dishwasher and several men, different shapes and sizes, in striped aprons, swearing.
I love swearing.
"Fuck this," and "fuck that off," is the language I love to participate in.
The language of the kitchen:
"We can say what we want, we're in here" - Danny.

But I digress.
I come in, in a defeatist mood, beaten before I start, not my usual self.
But who's in?
Andy, Staples, Danny Cheers.
What a fucking pleasure then.
Three experienced, highly competent young chefs (young compared to myself).
Three chefs which will leave me alone to get on with it.
Three chefs who will instruct me if I'm getting it wrong and support me if I'm getting it right.
Andy "are-you-going-to-clean-down-then" Davies,
Mike "shout-fuckoff-as-loud-as-I-can-every-time-I-sneeze" Staples,
And Danny "I'm-never-going-to-shut-the-fuck-up" Cheers.

I guess very few of them cottoned on to the TS Eliot influences in the last post and presume fewer have time to translate German. So I shall oblige.

900 - Der Ausländische Platte.

 Sterben langsam in einem Garten voller Rosen.

Sie werden keinen Kredit erhalten.

900 - The Foreign Plate.

 Die slowly in a garden full of roses.

You will receive no credit.

Es ist eine platte, in der Küche, die ich verstecken immer in den haufen - der ausländische platte.

There is a plate in the kitchen that I always hide in the pile - the foreign plate.

Nehmen Sie mich zurück in die alte Heimat, wo ich bin gut darin, auf meinen eigenen.

Take me back to the old country, where I am good on my own.

Der ausländische platte wird blut zu ziehen, wenn es auf dem boden zertrümmert.

900 - sich hüten, der ausländische Platte kommt durch…

The foreign plate will draw blood when smashed on the floor.

900 - beware, the foreign plate comes through...

sie können nicht einmal wissen, er ist ein Spinner...

you may not even know he's a nutter...

...and so what a pleasure, just getting on with the job... being a fucking brilliant writer but working as a chef... just getting on with the job... with the salt of the fucking earth for inspiration... Christ it makes me laugh... Christus sie bringen mich zum lachen Danny...

"He's just a little dickhead from Dundee" and Plato on the lawn

"Well, sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water.
And I look across the water and I think of all the things what you're doing and in my head I paint a picture.
...Why don't you come on over Hiiilll..."

Of course singing in the kitchen is to be encouraged at all times except the very busiest - as is making cheap and tawdry comments and double entendres to colleagues of the opposite sex, like "Nice jugs" when they are carrying milk jugs, or "Nice balls" when they are serving melon balls.
However, I personally feel that whoever employs the front of house staff for The Boathouse is discriminating against ugly people. Of course, no-one wants to be served their lobster by Hagrid, but a hair-lip or a wonky eye wouldn't go amiss now and again.
Front-of-house.
What can I say about front of house?
They, too, have a difficult job, but in an entirely different way. Believe me, I do sympathise. But at the same time, if I don't get me my beer quicker at night some shit is going to go down and no-one is going to want to be around when there is shit going to go down and it is me that is making that shit go down. Things might turn really ugly...

"Who's just a little dickhead from Dundee?"
"Heh heh, he's just a little dickhead from Dundee, heh heh."
Who said that?
Someone said that, but I can't recall who.
Not front-of-house, that's for sure, they don't know me that well.
Is there much more to know? Other than he's just a little dickhead from Dundee?
In a way, no - in a way, yes.
There's the celebrity trilogy of poems of course. These have never made me famous, but I believe they exist alongside the best of my work and have deep philosphocal undertones while revealing celebrities I might fancy if I weren't otherwise completely taken with my long-suffering wife who is, of course, and will forever be, the only woman for me.

Celebrity love poem trilogy

And then there is just Plato on the lawn.
Just... Plato on the lawn, in his toga, having a picnic with Scotch eggs and brown sauce.
And pre-diluted diluting juice and a curly-wurly.
That is the more that there is to me - Plato and his picnic.

I suppose that one way you could describe posting a series of writings of Blogger would be blogging. However, I don't like to think of myself as a blogger - rather as an artist, a writer, who is forced to use a free application as a vehicle to inadequately advertise their work while making it immediately available and accessible to friends and family.
When I worked for a newspaper, I enjoyed seeing my work in print.

What I would consider to be my personal artistic writing would look far better in print than on screen and I'm pretty sure that one day, at least two major players in the publishing world will be in a war over who has the rights to publish every single fucking word they can find that I have ever put on paper or hard drive.

But when I started writing this collection of thoughts, I decided from the offset to give myself some boundaries - not only to create some sort of discernible identity for the pieces as a collective, but also in an attempt to maintain a stream of focus for the reader as well as some insight into what it is really like to work in a kitchen.
I am struggling with these boundaries.
Why have boundaries?

Why?

Why? Why do we work in The Boathouse kitchen?
Danny knows.
Mike knows.
Jams knows.
Tim knows.

I like to think I have a little finesse as a chef in the middle of service - Graham taught me that - and if I could put out exactly the food I wanted to put out, I'm pretty sure that 9 times out of 10 it would look and taste pretty fucking good - you know, if I were allowed to ignore the specs and so on. (The specs -the fucking specbook - my mortal enemy, no flexibility)
Yet I have no misconceptions about being in the best-of-chefs category and have neither the knowledge or experience of many of my superiors.

So what then? What makes the Boathouse such an irresistible drug?

I shall tell you what.
I shall tell you what we know.

We exist where others cannot.
Nous existons là où d'autres ne peuvent pas exister.
We exist where others cannot exist.

MISE EN PLACE - literal translation: PUTTING IN PLACE.

When you want to hide, you can't. When you want it to stop, it doesn't. When you don't know what to do next, you have to decide. When you want to die, you can't.
When you want to walk out - you don't.
When you want to walk out - you don't.
Nous existons là où d'autres ne peuvent pas exister - we exist where others cannot exist.

I may not walk out, but I may walk behind the bar at the end of my shift to get the beer which I have been looking forward to for 12-and-a-half-hours of relentless, burning-hot work next to 6 burners, an industrial oven and a red hot grill.

Get me my beer at night, when I ask for it, whether you're busy or not - drop everything and get the drinks.

Yup, I'm just a little dickhead from Dundee Danny, but I'd better be getting my beer a little quicker in the future or I'll be causing some bother and then going to the Asda for it.

Baz is Back and Sleepo is Scratching

When you meet someone mean and I mean really, really mean. Someone who would cut you for fun, someone who could turn in an instant, well, you soon appreciate all the people you meet who are pretty much on your side - all those people who aren't out to cut you, or rob you, or spit on your kids.

One of the boundaries I gave myself on starting off with these pieces was that they should not descend into some sort of infantile and angry character-assassanation-collections. I am both angry and infantile as a person but for a change I thought I would share the love - concentrate on the unique and interesting points that people may have rather than their faults. And it is perhaps on this note that before I should apologize to Dave for any confusion over the mention of beers in the last post. I'm afraid he might have taken a metaphor to heart when all I should like to indicate is nothing but respect, both for doing a job I am unable to do and for the fact that I still have some respect left for a few of my experienced elders.
Boom with the fist Dave, I know you don't want to cut me.

However, tonight that's by the by and so lets cut to the chase and say Baz came back into the kitchen this evening and I could almost immediately feel the space become more sensual.
Danny was happy because he had someone to torment in his immediate vicinity and Barry was happy because he hadn't yet been worn down by the relentless stream of orders.
I was busy but I'm pretty sure someone touched someone else's bum.

Barry is a handsome and enigmatic man - he had his hair in that "just woken up" style and if one was a of homosexual tendencies, one might find him quite attractive.
One could easily describe him as a young priest in chef's whites.

Before his baby shift started at 6 o'cclock, though, I found Sleepo crawling about and scratching with a butter knife at the back of the walk-in.
I had known Sleepo from the Boathouse when I had worked there years before, just as I had known Jo and Jams and Fayfay.
For the whole time we have been acquainted, Sleepo and I have never shown any great interest in each other, other than Steve likes anchovies, relatively spicy food, chicken and Caesar salad. We have never been phoney with the serious-talk small-talk and I don't believe we will get that way in the future either.

"Nyee, nyyeee," Sleepo said as he scratched away at the back right-hand corner of the walk-in, under the racking with this cream-handled butter knife, on his hands and knees.
"What are you doing Sleepo?"
(Reader be aware that if there is any fault in either of our voices it is that mine might be slow, deep and sounds like I have learning difficulties, while Sleepo's might be perceived as slightly nasally and irritating.)
"There's a world beyond here," Mr Kleinhorn said, "we just have to break through to it."

He was scratching frantically and a fractal appeared in the back of the walk-in wall, shining a brilliant light through.
"You see, there is a whole world of little people through there - two tribes to be exact."
"Are you on the mushrooms Sleepo?" I asked.
"Nye, nyyee, no, no he said, not tonight, there are two tribes you see: The Arbeiter and The Belles Personnes. The Arbeiter tell The Belles Personnes what to do, and they give them food for doing it. They're all about a tenth of the side of us, but they don't live as long.
"The Arbeiters have one representative in the Grand Hall of The Belles Personnes who has to answer to the council of The Belle Personnes and explain why jobs allocated have been done too slowly or inadequately.
"The Arbeiters spokesman generally explains, 'But we have not enough time or resources.'
"But The Belles Personnes always answer, 'Well it is still not good enough, you shall receive no faith, favour or bonus from us.'
Sleepo knew all about the two tribes, the Arbeiters and The Belles Personnes - he had seen before how The Belles had exploited the Arbeits, their use of deception and self-doubt as tools of power and control.

"Let's gas them out Sleepo," I said, "if I throw chilli flakes on a red hot pan I can make tear gas."
"Nye, nyyee, no, no," said Sleepo, "lets just kill them all, set them on fire, nye, nyyee wong chong - set them on fire - napalm, nyyee."
"What the fuck are you on about Sleepo?" I said.
"What the fuck are you all about? Napalm them? Napalm indeed."

Barry is back and I feel a sexual tension in the kitchen.
Maybe it is all back on.

"Nye, nyyee," said Sleepo, eye to the hole.
"The Belles Personnes were wiping out the Arbeiters, but now the Arbeiters are fighting back and they're kicking some fucking ass too - come and look through the hole, come and look..."