First Breakfast In The Lodge

This morning I was scheduled to help out with breakfast at 8:00a.m. I arrived, knowing I was working with the cook who, well, let’s just say he sees things as having two ways of being completed: his way and the wrong way. I don’t particularly enjoy working with him, at all. He is the one who told me I was melting chocolate wrong, then proceeded to completely ruin the chocolate. I thought I would be helping him with breakfast service, with 160 people to feed and both orders and buffet to look after, but first thing he sent me downstairs to put an arriving order away. I met the deliverer, and he went through the order with me as he is required to, though he wasn’t particularly fast about it. I then proceeded to properly decant and store away the order, but the problem was a lot of it belonged in the refrigerator, which was very full and quite messy. So putting away the order also required organizing some of the fridge. I finished this, and went back upstairs, only to hear the cook say, “It’s 8:30! It took you half an hour to put away one order!”
           
            Next he got me to make a batch of shortbread, just like I do at the castle. But he told me to melt the butter, instead of just soften it. Sure, this may be the faster way to do things, but anyone who bakes at all, even at home, knows that butter must be at room temperature in order to be properly creamed with the sugar in many recipes, such as most cookies, cakes, and some muffins. Softening in the microwave is cautioned against as well, but it is better than completely melting the butter. I didn’t dare waste the time to search for a sieve and sift the icing sugar and flour as normal. I made the dough, then tried to roll it out, but it was much too soft, likely from the melted butter in the batter. Instead of wasting time fussing with it, I stuck the bowl in the fridge and went to see what I could do in the meantime. The cook got angry with me and said, “No, you can’t put the dough in the fridge. You do what I tell you to do. I told you to roll it out. And never put anything into that fridge.” Yeah, okay, I understand I am an intern, but you do not have chef status and haven’t worked here that long, and don’t have that much more experience than me, and you aren’t from around here either. I came in to help you out. And I wouldn’t purposely try to make trouble for you, so you could be a little nicer to me. He went to show me how to roll out the dough, but then told me to go get something, so I missed the actual rolling part, but then he left me to it anyway. I quickly rolled them the best I could. Then moved on to my next task.

            He first told me to tray up bacon, and when I was halfway through, he said “No good” (a phrase I was really starting to hate hearing) because I had put parchment paper on the pan, as we always did at school for cooking bacon. He ripped the paper off, so I had to retray all the bacon. So I “wasted” time putting an order away, but redoing all the bacon was okay?? Next I was told to seal sausages. I have done this before, but had been warned that this cook does it differently. Two pans, lots of oil, high heat, no tongs. However, today he told me to use little oil, low heat, and tongs. I finished cooking them in the oven, and when I went to probe them, he said “No, don’t probe them.” We will recook them for breakfast service, so it doesn’t matter if they are fully cooked now. Um, no, that’s not how food safety works buddy. We have sheets we have to fill out showing we cooked things properly. Another reason I don’t necessarily trust or listen to this guy all the time. I suppose he is a good worker in the sense he is reliable and gets the job done, but he does not necessarily follow proper procedures or show a passion or interest in his work.

            He got me to make some granola parfaits, and I did them as I was shown by the breakfast chef in the castle, but then he told me that was wrong. I tried to explain that’s how the castle does them, but he told me I was wrong and that’s not how the book says to make them. He told me to clean up, then said, “No, there are still 25 minutes of service left!” Then he had me clean the entire kitchen while he went downstairs. He told me to come down when I was done, but I knew I was switching over to pastry (thank goodness). Breakfast shift was only three hours for me, but it did not pass quickly.

            Switching over to pastry was relieving. The breakfast cook came up a few times – one to try to summon me down to help him (he must have thought I took that long cleaning) but I told him I was on pastry now. Another time he spilled pancake batter all over where I was working. Another time he asked if I was busy, then when I said yes, I was in the middle of something, told me to come with him for a minute anyway. He brought me to the freezer and said, “I just saw your shortbread, and they are shit. We can’t use them. They’re sheet. See this one? No, not that one, that’s two skinny. See this one? That’s a good one. Yours are shit.” At my face of indifference he said, “Tomorrow morning I will defrost them when I come in, and you can remix them and reroll them at 8:00.” Well, maybe they’re shit because you told me to make them incorrectly! I asked the pastry cook later how he makes shortbread, and he agreed with me, and said the breakfast chef is just a hothead and full of himself.

            I felt very productive in pastry today. I was left with a list of tasks to complete, all of which were explained and demonstrated to me. I made chocolate mousse, cut crème brulée, made an emulsion, made hot brie pastries, and made lime confit. I finished all of this in plenty of time, which meant I worked fairly quickly, so I was given more work to do. A ‘half-hour job’ I was given took me less than ten minutes. So I also made four types of bread, and got the entire section set up for tonight’s service. All the while I would ask the pastry cook questions and watch what he was doing, learning more and more. The chef in the bar asked me to put together the seven welcome baskets when I got the chance, which is a job for the cooks in the bar and I was slightly annoyed as I was working upstairs today. But after I finished my first list of jobs, I went to do it, and ended up having to hunt down containers in the messy office downstairs, then scooping twenty-four portions of three balls of ice cream because we hadn’t ordered enough mini tubs for the family break packages.

            One more thing about today. As the pastry cook was explaining some things to me, he would make little side comments about one of the other interns from the same country as me who was here, but left not too long ago. He would say how she didn’t do these things properly or didn’t listen to him. I can remember that intern complaining about this cook to me. But I have had no issues with him. Basically, he told me he was nice to her at first, but she thought she knew more than him, and as an intern, tried to tell him what to do or how to do his job on her first day, so then he didn’t like her. 
Apparently he asked her to vacpac some soup for him, and she looked at it and said, “What’s that? It’s disgusting!” before even tasting it. Cooks, especially those in training, should never just blatantly call anything disgusting, particularly before even trying it. The starter cook then walked in on our conversation and called her a rather bad name, and said she has an attitude problem and wasn’t very nice. I explained she had been rude to me at home, and he replied with, “Yeah but look now. You were better your first day than she ever was, and she’s graduated from school already. But she couldn’t even stick it out here. Now who’s laughing?” I was glad I was not the only one who found her rather unpleasant.

Treats at the artisan pop-up: jam and cookies

       After work I went to a small pop-up market in the village (actually in one of the old buildings on the estate), where they were selling jams, baked goods, knitted items, glass works, and woodworks. We also took home a pizza and death by chocolate cake.