“Dear Diary
I almost ate alive one of my cooks. Yeah the one that wanted to leave a couple of weeks ago. Today he decided that 5kgs of basmati with 2 carrots a bit of oil and some soy sauce was good enough to be camouflaged as fried rice. You would understand that rage that comes from witnessing a half-assed job being done and then having the whole staff meal of the restaurant ruined by his lack of, how do I say it elegantly, giving a fuck. His answer: “chef the chicken was frozen”. Fuck you.
How did I solved the issue you asked?
Oh well dear diary, first I wanted to give my old chap a lesson in cooking guerrilla, ‘cause we’ve all forgotten a time or two to defrost something on time. And then getting shit given at us.
Second, it needed to be something fast and tasty. Fast cause people were hungry, and tasty because there is only 1 way to cook.
47 minutes, 5 chickens, 1kg of potatoes, 1kg of carrots, 2kg of onions, a bunch of garlic, soy sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper and 1lt orange juice later, we were ready to eat.
I was swearing and sweating while abusing my cook and making the meal, which proves that you don’t need to be in the right mood to cook a good meal. But I was motivated to show him and my team that a good meal doesn’t require hours of prep, or expensive shit, just a lot of reading and daily practice. Those 2 will get you far in the chef-ing lines even if you are an average Joe. You get those two and add talent, and you get the MPWs, the Blumenthals, the Botturas, the Ramsays, the Redzepis, the José Andrés of the world.
After the level 8 reactor melt regarding the evening frivolities, I took him to the prep room. My boys know what I mean when I say “Everybody out”. I wanted to scare the fuck out of that child but also wanted him to understand why mediocrity is not a regarding way of life. If you are mediocre at something because of actual real limitations, I’m sorry mate, my bad. But if it was that you, a professional cook, didn’t care about the meal that the whole FOH and BOH were gonna have, then mate, it’s been a pleasure, you are free to find a place where that kind of behavior is tolerated.”
That happened around 4 weeks ago. If he performs well during December madness, I’m thinking about promoting him to Demi CDP by January.
