Day One!

Day One: Friday 1st July 2005:

The Story begins...

This morning, I awoke early at 4:00AM. It was already beginning to grow light and I found it hard to get back to sleep. I dozed on and off, until about 6:30 AM when I staggered out of bed, feeling a little worst for ware.

'we get changed in a garden shed'

I left the house at 7:30 AM and arrived in Bray by about 7:45. There were only a couple of chefs already there and I waited for a few minutes until some one else arrived. The main kitchen is as small as I had envisaged. The whole building is not particularly big and even the tables in the restaurant it self seem a little close together. This impression is possibly increased by the low beamed ceilings and dark windows which make the room seem even smaller. At the back of the restaurant is an area for the wine bins, coffee machine, electronic till and the entrance to the kitchen/ wash up area. Beyond this is a door to the back yard, which contains about 6 wooden garden sheds. These sheds are used for storage and the furthest shed away from the restaurant is even used as a changing room. I don’t think I have ever worked any where, that used a shed to get changed in.

I spent the whole day working in the preparation kitchen. This kitchen is situated across the road from the restaurant, at the end of a short drive off the main road. This two storey building has two kitchens and a large storage area with chest freezers and walk in fridge. About 7 of us worked together in the one kitchen downstairs. Space was very limited with this many people and at times there were 4 people working to one small bench. This area only just allowed 4 chopping boards to fit on the surface next to each other, with about a couple of inches in between.

‘every thing has to be perfect’

I was kept fairly busy all day- preparing certain ingredients for other dishes. This included chopping vegetables, preparing pancetta and duck foie gras. I am always frustrated by my poor knife skills. The quality of preparation has to be perfect. For example, I was asked to re-dice some carrots, which had to be about 1 mm square each. Each piece had to be roughly the same size and had to be square. OK- may be that sounds obvious, but when you had to prepare carrots, celeriac and button mushrooms to the same specification, you may begin to appreciate the challenge. After all how many mushrooms and carrots are square? I am also always surprised working in these kinds of places, by the huge amounts of waste. I watched another chef prepping some beautifully fresh spring onions with about 2 feet of green shoots above the bulbs. The restaurant only required the bulb and about 2 inches of the shoot. I watched everything else be thrown away. However, often trimmings and spare food are used, especially for staff meals.

We stopped briefly for lunch at about 11AM and then continued with various tasks during the afternoon, until another brief break for dinner. As I walked back to our kitchen, I noticed the kitchen above ours on the first floor of the building. I think this room is used mainly by Heston and through the window I could just make out a row of clear glass conical flasks and other scientific looking apparatus.

By about 8PM we were winding down, whilst at the Fat Duck, the main kitchen was only in the middle of service. One thing that also impressed me at Ramsay’s Boxwood is the high standard of cleanliness. It often reminds me of a hospital surgical room. Everything is stripped down, work surfaces were moved, even the skirting boards were scrubbed and stainless steel surfaces sanitised and polished. We finished just after 9PM, over 13 hours since I had first arrived for work. I was pleased with the day’s activities, but pretty tired.