Vegetarian from Hell Pt4

"BFH" was fast becoming a lost cause but we still had many other guests to look after and they were having a wonderful time and looking forward to Christmas Day Lunch and the rest of the festivities including the Grand Buffet. Christmas day for the guests is just one long procession of eating and drinking interrupted every so often with events, party games, carol singers and organised walks etc. All the staff are so busy that time passes by without really noticing it and all meals are served, cleared away and readied for the next session with out breaking step. The feed back from the guests is excellent and despite some teething troubles with "BFH at most meals it looks like we were on coarse for another successful Christmas package.

During and just before the Christmas festivities started the kitchen has been preparing for the Grand Buffet. Whole sucklings pigs, Sirloins & ribs of beef, turkey, Chicken, whole gammon for honey baked ham, partridge's, loins of venison, saddles of lamb, whole salmons and salmon fillets for home made gravadlax, lobster, crayfish, langoustines, prawns, crabs, and pheasants (ripple effect) were all cooked, roasted , baked and prepared for the Buffet. Many of the items would be decorated and coated with a beef or fish based aspic jelly to enhance the center pieces. As you may of noticed the buffet was not very vegetarian and vegan friendly but we had made arrangements to cover for this and the restaurant staff would serve them at their tables with their alternative food selections.

Also on the buffet would be hot and cold starters, soups, hot dishes and a sweet table to die for and a wide selection of cheeses. The buffet table would also be filled with a huge variety of salads and accompaniment's and that task fell to me. If you include the different bowls of lettuces I prepared 30 bowls of salads and only one of them contained any meat in it. Well we had to get rid of the turkey somehow. It was a turkey, ham, peppers, walnuts and saffron rice dish bound with mayonnaise.

The buffet tables were set out and once again a separate buffet table was organised as far away possible from where the meat and fish mirrors were to be displayed. There was also another area set aside for the sweet dishes, cheeses and fresh fruits. As the time for the buffet to be served approached the final checks on the buffet layout and positioning were carried out and the last items added to the tables were the salads. I personally arranged them amongst the center pieces and check everything was OK. I then arranged the salads for the vegetarians table and double checked that the one salad with meat in had not got mixed in with them and that the display was just as good as the rest. Job done and headed back to the kitchen.

Behind the scenes it was organised chaos in the final minutes before service as chefs and restaurant staff donned clean aprons, jackets, hats, etc while out front in the lounge/bar restaurant area the guest mingled in their fancy dress costumes chatting and sipping drinks. Last minute corrections and the Boss dressed in his best penguin suit declared the buffet was open. With so much food on offer and a bewildering amount of choice the inevitable queue started to form and being typically British most people accepted it as normal and took the opportunity to engage in conversation with their fellow dinners as they waited. After all there was no rush and there was plenty for all.

What could go wrong?

The ripple affect, 'If only', the wise old saying "You are only a strong as your weakest link" and 'Sods Law' can go wrong!

Vegetarian from Hell Pt3

The first meal for our vegetarian friend and we fell at the first hurdle. We sent in some normal milk and this seem to placate her for the time being. I just knew we were going to have fun and games with this lady. The afternoon tea drew to a close and she departed with her husband in tow but not before she requested a change of table as she was not happy with were they were seated in the restaurant and as as she left the pointed in the general direction of where she would like to be placed.

The restaurant manager was last seen frantically trying to rearrange the seating plan and getting nowhere fast as the existing seating plan was a bit of a tight fit to start with. Eventually after much huffing and puffing, plenty of head scratching and about an hours work the offending table was shoe horned in to a suitable place but not before some other tables had to be moved. The table was laid ready for dinner and the restaurant manager began to relax a little. If only he a had know what lay ahead. The innocent request to move the table and place it where it was put was like dropping a stone into the middle of a pond. It makes a small splash to start with but the ripple affects are felt all round the edge of the pond and it was no different here.

I mentioned before that in a hotel there are no secrets and if there is they are soon discovered and it is the same with the guests as well as the staff. The news of the lady's outburst during the afternoon tea was soon being talked about among the other guests. Meanwhile work in the kitchen starts to gather pace as we all go about our tasks. Dinner was being served at 8 o'clock and all the guests would be sitting down together. The menu consisted of a selection of starters, soup course, fish course, sorbet, main course, sweet and cheeses, coffees and petite fours. We also gave the restaurant manager a list of alternatives for all the courses to cover any dietary needs and any other guests that could not eat what was on offer.

With all the bases covered and dinner fast approaching the guests started to assemble in the bar / lounge area. Dinner was announced and the guests headed for their tables only for some of them to find that they had been moved since afternoon tea and some others to find out that the lady that most people were talking about was now sitting next to them. The ripples from the table being moved were starting to felt and we found out later that this upset several of the other guests. Service started and the orders were taken for the starters and main courses and any alternatives.

You could of put money on it happening and so it did. The lady vegetarian was not happy with the starter choices and alternatives and enquired about other alternatives. She was happy regards the soup and fish course but wanted something different for the main course. "All part of life's tapestry" said the Boss when he entered the kitchen and found out. Nothing was going to faze him and he had a smile a foot wide and was looking forward to a busy but successful service to get the Christmas package well and truly underway.

The kitchen staff were also looking to get the best start possible but did not necessarily share the same thoughts as the boss regarding the "Bitch from Hell" as she was now being referred to. Most of the staff called her something else as well but that is definitely not printable. Service progressed and despite the odd clanger and "BFH" as I will now refer to her as it was a good service and all the guest were happy, the Boss was happy, the Head Chef was happy, everybody was happy all except the poor sad bloke that was married to "BFH". One of the girls tasked with serving them tried to cheer him up with general chatter but bright and bubbly as she was she soon realised that she had more chance platting fog.

Service finished and we in the kitchen cleaned up and headed for some after service refreshments. A little while latter when most of the restaurant staff had joined us for refreshments the conversation soon turned to the hot topic of the hotel. "BFH" had had a bit of contratont with her hubby and had stormed off in a huff. After waiting a few minutes he followed her upstairs probably contemplating an ear bashing. This public falling out soon started doing the rounds and one of the barmen heard a guest saying that "It is not right that BFH should get special treatment all the time, have we not paid the same as them, are we not special as well" and he was not a happy bunny as he was on one of the tables that had to be moved to accommodate her.

Ripples were being felt more and more.

Stocks and sauces

Having been a Chef and worked in the catering industry for 25 years I sometimes find that when I am doing other things I start thinking about cooking and food. I suppose it is only natural that I think about food and cooking and today it was no exception.
For some reason stocks came in to my head. I was preparing a chunky vegetable soup at the time but the stocks I was think about had nothing to do with cooking.



The stocks I was thinking about was the stocks from medieval times where wrong doers used to get put in and people would throw rotting fruit and vegetables at them and be publicly humiliated. Can't for the life of me think why but I did start think to myself who I would like to see thrown in the stocks and then throw fruit and tomatoes at them. On my long list the first people to be put in the stocks would be Politicians and I would be tempted not to take the fruit and tomatoes out of the tin when I threw the contents at them. An old stand up comedians joke I know but worthy of politicians.

The next on my list would be all those CEO's, Chairman's, and big wig's of all those banking and financial institutions that have gone belly up because of their greed and stupidity. Closely followed by all the bosses that use the 'Credit Crunch' and 'Downturn in the Economy' as an excuse to lay off hundreds/thousands of hard working people instead of getting rid of the inept management who are costing their companies millions. Especially if it is just to make a fat payment to the shareholders and they just happen have a couple of millions shares that were given to them for free.



I definitely would not remove the tomatoes and fruit from the tins and instead of using a A2 and a half I would be using an A10.
(An A10 approx 2.95 kg) is a bloody big tin) I then started to think about one or two people that I have had the displeasure to work with and came up with a man that would defiantly go in the stocks and If I had my way he would stay in them and rot.

It's a long story and I might post it later but he was an evil man in my book. To save his own job he aligned himself with upper management, took over the existing managers job (demoted) and started to try and force people out of work and avoid paying redundancy monies to staff that had in some cases been working for the company for over 25 years. He used every nasty trick in the book and did it with a smile on his face. He was that bad he once refused a man a day off work to go to his brothers funeral.

The man requesting time off from work went through all the appropriate channels as laid down by management. He put it in writing and asked if he could use a days holiday entitlement to attend the funeral. He was refused and so he offered to take a day off without pay and work an extra day to cover his shift and still he was refused.

The smile was knocked off his face when the man requesting the time off told him "Go and have a sexual relationship with yourself and I am taking the time off regardless of what you might do". Silly nasty fool of a man was so over confidant that he forgot to have another manager present as a witness and there was nothing he could do.

It made me laugh and as the saying goes "what comes around goes around" as a couple of years later he was getting booted out of his job. But this leads me to ask the question who would you like to see in 'The stocks'?

Happy New Year 'Tout Le Monde'

Happy New Year everybody. I trust you all had a good time seeing in the New Year last night and are not suffering to much from the after affects. If you are feeling a little delicate then perhaps trying a 'Kill or Cure' routine to aid recovery might be on the cards.

Most people have some sort of routine they go through to help them recover from a hang over and it's fair to say that they don't all ways work. I have tried a few over the years and the best one that works for me is to drink as much cold water as I can just before I go to bed. I believe this helps flush the excess alcohol out quicker and helps prevent the brain cells/head from dehydrating.

Many years ago when I was very young and partying regularly I found that several paracetamol and a can of beer/lager the morning after a party has been known to help me on occasion. The danger off course with this method is if the 3/4 full beer can you found on the kitchen table has been used as by someone as an ashtray and you have to drink the contents through clenched teeth. Yuck I hear you saying but it certainly was a 'kill or cure' method. Like I said I was young and foolish and at the time 'I drank life by the gallon'. We worked long and hard in the kitchens and we played just as hard.

I remember once I drew the breakfast shift on New Years Day and although that was not unusual but what made it different was at the time I was living 35 miles away from work. I had to start work at 7 a.m. after an hours drive. There was no way that I was having anything to drink on New Years Eve and for once I had a fairly early night. I awoke at 5.30 a.m. and after a coffee I headed for the car. It was snowing when I set off but not bad enough to prevent me travelling. I drove for just over an hour and passed through a fairly big town and travelled on the motorway for a little while and I never saw one police car. Typical.... If I had been daft enough to have a drink the night before I bet money on the fact I would get pulled over.

As I neared my place of work the snow and conditions got a lot worse and as I approached a bend on a bridge the car wheels lost traction and I headed for the bridge wall. My luck was in and I slid sideways in to the wall so slowly that when I hit the wall I was hardly doing any speed. A quick inspection on side of the car revealed nothing more than a few scratches. I arrived at work in one piece and got on with preparing breakfast.

Very shortly the first of the restaurant staff started turning up for work and they looked as if they had been dragged through a bush backwards and their faces were a deathly shade of white. Oh to be sober as a judge when all around you are suffering from a hangover. I suddenly developed a case of the 'dropsies' and all manor of kitchen items seem to be crashing on the floor even ones that I had not used. Add to that the aromatic waft of cooking bacon and spicy Cumberland sausages and some of the staff disappeared for some reason and only returned after having a 'quick chat on the porcelain telephone to Ralph, Burt and Hughie.

That was a one off and on many occasions after an excessive New Years Eve party I have been know to be as 'rough as a bears behind' but the show must go on as they say and you can always sleep it of later.

Happy New Year.....hic