TWO YEARS EARLIERNoelle
The vegetables are burnt.
In quick succession, my heart leaps into my throat then sinks to the bottom of my stomach as I yank open the oven door. Thick, dark smoke wafts out of it and that unmistakable, charcoal-like burning smell invades my senses.
Shit.
They’re not just burnt. They’re utterly unsalvageable.
‘Who was supposed to be keeping an eye on the veggies?’ I call as I pull on my oven mitts and yank the tray out. There had been rows and rows of perfectly sliced carrots and parsnips on the tray just two hours ago. Now it’s just one blackened rectangle. I swallow down a sob.
‘Uh,’ says Jamie, barely lifting his head to spare a glance in my direction. He’s been ‘working’ on the same dish – thecranberry sauce of all things – since he arrived this morning. ‘Pretty sure veggies were on you.’
‘No,’ I grit out. ‘They most definitely were not on me.’ I stride across the kitchen and toss the remains into the bin. ‘The pheasant was on me. The lamb was on me. The potatoes were on me. The scallops were on me. The gravy was on me. The Brussels sprouts were on me—’
‘And, last time I checked, Brussels sprouts are a vegetable,’ Will cuts in with a smirk. He’s over at his station kneading a giant bowl of stuffing into precise little balls. ‘Like Jamie said, veggies were on you.’
It’s an unfortunate testament to how used to this kind of behaviour I am, that I don’t turn around and march out of the kitchen, middle fingers held high. Though it is getting more and more tempting.
You’re a professional, I remind myself as I pull out a fresh bag of carrots from the fridge.Don’t sink to their level.
Sometimes, being the bigger person really sucks. If Eve, my twin sister, were here, she wouldn’t have thought twice about tossing the tray straight at their heads. A smile tugs at my lips as I lean into the daydream of smacking both my annoying co-workers with a tray of burnt vegetables.
It wasn’t always like this.
When I first started at The Avalon, a four-star restaurant attached to one of the city’s most luxurious hotels, I would have bet good money that nothing could douse theexcitement I felt for the job. I’d spent years working in kitchens that should never have passed the health inspection; they were grimy, cramped spaces with unimaginative menus and the only thing more filthy than the floors was the attitudes of my fellow co-workers.
Food standards, who?
Health and safety, where?
That, and the fact that they barely paid minimum wage, has left me feeling like a cog in a relentless, greasy machine. I’m just another line chef in a sweat-soaked kitchen where the stench of old oil clings to my rapidly yellowing uniform and the closest thing to a break I ever get is a five-minute respite in a grimy staff room that smells like cigarettes and burnt coffee.
In short, my current career status is most definitelynotwhat I spent thousands of pounds on culinary school for.
But working at The Avalon was supposed to be different. Here, the walls were pristine, the countertops gleamed like polished silver, the air smelled like fresh food instead of stale cigarettes, and the staff had a level of professionalism I’d never seen before.
It was like a dream come true.
Until it wasn’t.
The decline snuck up on me so gradually, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment things started to fall apart. All I know is that, in the last six months, we’ve gone from a teamof eight to three, and Will and Jamie have lost any kind of enthusiasm and commitment for the job. They’re like ghosts floating through the kitchen. Anything and everything they can push on me, they do.
And I let them.
I let them because I genuinely love cooking. I love the way the ingredients come together to create something magical. I love seeing a table of full, satisfied customers and knowing that I did that. Me. Something I made. Nothing beats that feeling.
And Will and Jamie know that about me. They know I’ll never say no and let the kitchen fall into chaos, because cooking is my passion. I’m the one who comes in early every morning to prep for the day, even though we’re supposed to be on a rota. I’m the one who stays late every evening to clean up and make sure we don’t lose our perfect health rating. I’m the one who meets with Gareth, the restaurant manager, to fine-tune the seasonal menu every three months. They know it all. They know I’ll always be there, picking up the slack and putting in the extra hours.
‘Not for long!’
Eve’s sing-song voice trills in my mind as I place the newly sliced carrots into an oven tray and reach for the parsnips. She’s the constant recipient of all my work-related woes and her advice hasn’t wavered even once over the last three years:
‘Quit and start your own restaurant.’
I wish it were that easy.
If it were only about passion and dedication, I’d have started up my own place years ago. But there is a mountain of obstacles standing in the way, and each one is more daunting than the last.
