A Knife in the Face
Urgh, whatever it was that made me do it: first shift, wrong apron, grimace and a sweat on. Manager smiling easily. “You might get a bit hot in that.” Big jumper on, see. Little did I know.
it began as any romance
90% gas
10% fresh
peas
Podding peas, chopping chard, washing pots. If you can work a knife and fast, kitchens can be decent places to work. The head chef took me off pot wash and onto prep; some assembly of cold dishes; puddings. We did this salad-type thing of flat peaches, walnuts, honey and thyme. I remember the peaches being hard as apples.
*
Nothing says cool like a shot of Fernet Branca at 8am. That is a proper emperor’s new drink. ‘Botanical’ – shut up. All the hipsters in their alcoholism-disguised-as-fun, long coats, languid eyes; picturing everything, seeing nothing.
although the knife was blunt
it went straight through the internal
freezer wall. about my Crocs all the
fancy ice cream. I am still denying
everything
The head chef was a good man. He hadn’t had a day off in months, so my crude presence paired with vague competence meant a realistic prospect of rest for him. Before I knew what was being asked of me, I was due to run the kitchen for a busy lunch service. I didn’t know how to say no, or, are you sure, or, I’m not sure, or, I’m scared, or, where is the On button. It went abysmally.
*
The poshos followed the hipsters. People planned trips to London around eating our food, so a failed lunch was a failed weekend. This is when the fuck it life began.
that much man hanker
for witness. its inches
long, my knife. my father dined
& went from the restaurant
once, never came back
Fuck it. It’s a great phrase, you should say it more. I quit my other jobs, way more interesting jobs. Threw them away by text. Fuck it. Broke the freezer. Fuck it. Couldn’t mop properly. Fuck it. Embarrassed colleagues, family members, friends, with wrong, burnt, or cold food. Six ten an hour. No sick pay, no leave, the proprietor AWOL or out of his tree. Fuck it fuck it fuck it.
I was a lemon and
I was a lemon being
squeezed
The anxiety, the stress: it’s physical, freshly. Looking at the clock, like, there’s no way, no way in hell I’m going to get all this done before service, is a tightening chest, a seizing of flesh, a cramping belly, shaky hands, a shallowing of breath. It follows you home. It’s there in spare time but you’re just sitting in the flat you share with your mum, making tea and panicking.
machinery like the anxious mystery of
cooking is how I woke on days off a
kick start at two minutes to go
to six armless of me one eye
a whole community
of bee men to feed
choux buns
to
All in a dream. I baked this chocolate pudding. More than once, diners asked to meet whoever had made it and made me stop what I was doing so they could hug me. Food can do that to people, make them giddy; with enough wine and the right company, good food can make people lose their shit. I still love that about it. Also, the camaraderie.
To be a chef slicing through the pud
is to shite yourself in your whites wearing you
baggy like desire my kiss a whistling jaunty
it tastes of tired oil & twenty something spirit
with bleach rushing the escape
creation of menu a joint pretence
at the bain marie of dreams
separated from fats liquids returning to steam
offering small plates to get chic chops
of infrequent perfection in whoever
is culpable that day a sleek reckoning wrist
spins when I whisk our heads
in the strip lit mystical friendship
of kitchens
The pudding was sensitive. If the oven was slightly off-temperature, if the dish it was cooked in wasn’t sealed properly, if I melted the chocolate too fast, it failed, became grainy and dense. When a dish came out wrong, it’d still be getting served, though; there wasn’t time for anything else. Fuck it.
the business of covering up terribly
cut rare roast topside with dressed
rocket clumped in horseradish
sauce is performing street magic
at a penn & teller wedding to the poshos
One day, the head chef – the good man – left suddenly. The proprietor had, without telling anyone, hired an old friend to ‘work alongside’ him, which was code for ‘be in charge of’. Kitchen staff quit in solidarity. Not Ricardo and me though. When the new guy asked if I was staying on, I shrugged: ‘This is my job’. A declaration of dedication; no, I didn’t have an option. I was overly immersed in the restaurant’s ecosystem. My entire identity, my life, was inseparable from it, the prospect of leaving psychologically impossible.
The new guy was a maniac. His defensiveness warped into aggression; his fear, paranoia. An IRL kitchen nightmare.
does the door to the kitchen
hang a neon morpho shimmer
a lava lamp portal the creation
of a lever Chef Nat pulled fulfilling
dream to wield stiff peak power
I asked myself during stock takes
& giving Ricardo the wicked beast
at his extra banned granola
I pretended I was fine like always and kept going. The menu changed and I was a complete novice again, with that early feeling of having no idea what I was doing. I kept making mistakes. Chef Nat came up behind me one day and said, ‘You’ve done like four things in four hours. You’re going to have to get a bit quicker, yeah?’ He did have a sense of humour. It was a weapon.
ten euros said Chef Nat
& me & Ricardo all busted up
laughing our Crocs off &
maybe that was all it took
for me to stay & get a knife
in my face days later
The knife in the face: that is true. After I ruined some grilled pumpkin, he waved eight inches of sharp steel all at me, said, ‘Is that how your mum taught you how to cook?’ Really. I like to tell people that I took my apron off, lay my own knife down and walked out, but the truth is, I took my apron off, lay my knife down, and went to the staff toilets to cry. One of the front of house staff came to check on me. Fine, I said. I’m fine. I came back downstairs, put my apron on, picked my knife up and carried on with the shift. ‘It’s good you stayed’, said Chef Nat. He’d have been utterly fucked if I hadn’t.
*
One morning, I was cycling to work, Camberwell to Vauxhall. I got about three-quarters of the way and realised I couldn’t work another minute in that kitchen. But I couldn’t communicate either. I couldn’t tell my mum. I couldn’t tell my colleagues. I could barely say it to myself. I took my phone out – an old Sony Ericsson flip phone – broke it in half and threw it down a drain. I cycled right past the restaurant heading southwest and got to Stockwell. Through Stockwell to Brixton. Streatham. I went through Norbury, reached East Croydon. Rushed down the hill into Purley. Coulsdon. By that stage, I think I knew where I was going. Six and a half hours after my shift was due to begin, I was in Brighton.
I tried to call my mum once from a payphone but didn’t get through. The Great Eastern served me whiskey until closing. I missed the last train home and walked around to keep warm. When I couldn’t walk any more, I put my rucksack under my head and slept in the doorway to a church.
*
The day before, my mum had got a call from Ricardo saying I hadn’t turned up to work that morning. She had seen me leave, so thought I must have had an accident. She’d been calling all the hospitals.
*
Although I managed to stay away from that kitchen, I returned to chef work and carried on for years. I’m not sure I learnt anything about limits and boundaries and saying no. I work in education now. Come round for dinner, though. It’ll be tasty.
one time I found unlabelled
a bucket of white shavings
in the walk-in fridge. I stuck
my head right inside the bucket
& took a deep sniff. tiles smacked
the side of my skull. to breathe
the air of Vauxhall I crawled
out the fire door & five minutes
later I was fine again