Chef’s Diaries 2: Lists
Mateo Austin is back by popular demand with another diary entry. This month he hits us with some hard statistics.
“It’s been about two months since my last article, here are some quick updates in numbers:
I’ve been working at a Michelin star restaurant for three months.
I have spent roughly 840 hours working in that time.
I’ve broken three pairs of glasses, lost my wallet and two sets of house keys.
I have played Tainted Love by Soft Cell 18 times during service.
I have been asked to stop playing Tainted Love 17 times.
I’ve prepped 40 Lemon Soles, 30 Dover Soles, 25 livers, 18 Ox Hearts, and likely well over 200 cheesecakes.
I have permanent neurological damage on 6 fingers from picking up scorching hot creme caramel moulds without tongs.
I have been called poundland Alex Turner twice, by two separate people, on two separate occasions
I can roll 150 balls of bread in under an hour
Despite the above exactly 0 soulmates have presented themselves to me
Chefs write lists. On an average day my section has 6 dishes on it, each involving between 3 and 7 components, usually that works out to 26 individual containers of prep, not counting the multiple backups stored in a walk in. Each of these components have somewhere between 5 and 12 ingredients, and several stages of cooking. My restaurant has 4 other sections, each with more dishes, more components, and more ingredients. When you factor in meat, fish, seasonings, vinegars and dry goods our stocks comprise several hundred containers. Keeping track of it all in your head is risky at best, foolhardy at worst, so we write lists. I like lists, lists are safe, lists are easy, lists allow you to string out a sentence when you’ve run out of ideas, lists.
Brilliat- Savarin once said “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are”, here’s a list of what I ate this week, and you can come to your own conclusions about who I am.
Monday:
Breakfast @7:00: Coffee, cigarettes x3 .
Lunch @18:00: Absentmindedly ate some croutons from a tray I’d made, strange pearl barley staff food
Dinner @1:00: Sour cream Pringles, Tangfastics, Braeburn apple.
Tuesday:
Breakfast: @7:00: Coffee, cigarettes x3 , maraschino cherry x4
Lunch @4pm: Strange Dorito flavoured chicken staff food, pretty nice actually.
Dinner @1am: Stiff nighttime breeze, Colgate Duraphat 5000ppm
Wednesday:
Breakfast: @11am: Coffee, cigarettes x4, Quiche Lorraine
Lunch @2:45pm: Cod roe emulsion, Swedish rye bread, confit yolk
Dinner @1am: vicariously eating through a strange vice video about east London Pie and Mash shops
Thursday:
Breakfast: @7:00: Coffee, cigarettes x3, longing glance at a closed café
Lunch @4pm: Stress with a side of my section isn’t ready.
Dinner @1am: Very dodgy kebab from a very sweaty man, bourbon, my roommates cookies.
Friday:
Breakfast: @11:00: Coffee, cigarettes x6 , the ire of my roommate at finding his cookies missing
Lunch @3pm: Tripe salad, fried green peppers, prawn toast.
Dinner @8pm: Faggotini, porcini, affogato
Saturday:
Breakfast: @9:00: Coffee, cigarettes x3
Lunch @4pm: Accidentally napped in middle of day, awoke dazed, late for work
Dinner @1am: Staff ordered in Morley’s, oui chef.
Sunday:
Breakfast: @9:00: Coffee, cigarettes x3
Lunch @4pm: Very nice salmon bagel from some kindly grannies on Columbia Road
Dinner @1am: Gurnard Sambal, Duck Offal Laab, Pickled Mackerel, Lardo Fried Rice.
I’m sure you’ve all concluded correctly that I’m an absolute specimen. “Food is an important part of a balanced diet” once quipped Fran Lebowitz. I’m heartened by the fact that I am hitting the five major food groups, naturally being; nicotines, fluorides, the immediately available, amino acids, fish, and the relentless passage of time. Not only is this diet high in moral fibre, it’s as effective as juice based, keto, paleo, and Paltrow diets in maximising a stylised and irritable lifestyle.”
Mateo will be back with another diary entry in the coming months.