The Apprentice Chef— Inside a London Kitchen A Short Story Simone L Woods
Copyright 2012 Simone L Woods Kindle edition ISBN: 978-1-4657-1006-2 Typeset in 12/14 Times New Roman Kindle edition, License notes
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Yep, claim to fame indeed! Not everyone has a famous actor from their home country chatting to them over coffee in the ultra cool, groove-fest of Soho. Jesus, what am I saying; everyone has celeb close encounter stories with which to impress friends and family back home. It’s de rigueur for the backpacking European experience for young and not-so-young antipodean experience junkies. Attempting to live in London in winter sans money is an extremely depressing experience. You can forget the rights of passage bullshit. It’s grey, dirty and forbidding, and all I want to do is cry. I have a twenty year old A to Z, with the maze-like central London pages littered with worm-like circles of hope of a home. I like that—‘littered with worm-like circles of hope’—it sums up beautifully my view of London at this moment. What you need here, like anywhere, is money, or friends with money. I can hear Stephen, a British expat friend of mine, extolling the virtues of living in Australia, ‘This is the lucky country.’ Yes, I agree, although I always think he’s being sarcastic with that comment. But what about when you want to live like a king in one of the centres of the world? You need imagination, lots of bullshit and balls. I fail miserably on all three. I need lots of luck. Hah. Living in a bedsit in Kilburn is not just an eye opener. It leaves you dumbstruck. There are people who live like this all their long lives. The middle-aged married couple across the hall have a home that consists of just four walls, worn carpet, illegal television and no phone. They share a gas cook-top on the landing, a bath and a toilet room with a smashed window with a well-developed black guy who likes loud Pearl Jam and frequent short-lived visits from fat white guys in track suits. There’s a phone line that runs along wire from a connection in my room to his. The landlord says it’s first in, first served. Obviously. The place is even more depressing than it sounds. And I have a job. Right now I wonder what the fuck I’m doing, but I love to be the martyr. I mean, who really wants to be a chef in England, and a female chef at that? Once upon a short time ago there were no female chefs in England; well; apparently only one or two pastry chefs. Stephen tells the story of the one he remembered who managed to get a job at a very famous restaurant working for a very famous English chef. ‘He fucked her in Hyde Park.’ That sums up English kitchen culture in one. Christ, I’ve seen photos of said famous chef in his cookbooks. If he still looked like his photos in the first, okay, but his last one? Hell, no job is worth that. The only reason I’ve got this job is through connections. I worked for one of Australia’s best female chefs in Sydney who knows so-and-so who knows so-and-so and so it goes and here I am. I’m dreaming of fame and fortune and it’s a long road and so far it’s led to Greek Street in Soho. The day before I’m due to start I go in to introduce myself to The Chef. The first thing he says when he doesn’t shake my hand is that it’s lucky I’m a brunette otherwise I couldn’t work in his kitchen because he fancies blondes. This is with a perfectly straight face.
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