so as a chef i think you have to be pretty thick skinned anyway but by god working at petrus took this to a whole new level. donkey dick. fuck face. dick head. jerk. idiot. big boy. these are a sample of the commonplace terms of endearment i becam known as over my time in this cutting edge 2 michelin starred kitchen. these names weren't unfortunatley (or is it thank god?) reserved for just the likes of me. oh no, these were part of the standard list used on all the guys and girls in the kitchen at any given moment. it wasn't until in a mock boxing fight with the head chef did I raise my hands into fighting stance and swing back in a service driven sweaty derperate lashing out of sorts did i earn my stripes and graduate to big boy full stop. i was now big boy. this insider knowledge of why i graduated from donkey dick, etc. came to me one morning whilst in the fridge setting madieria jelly plates as i over heard the head chef on a (rare) occasion that he was in early speaking to another chef about how he thought i had bollocks. so what if they call me big boy I thought. this is better than before. but now the stakes had risen. my progress as a cook was invetibale because of the level i was thrown into in this kitchen but by god now that i was exclusively big boy I had a reputation to uphold. certain other people with hot spoons didn't see it that way.

so what they call me big boy part 3

So i'd been working at petrus now for a few weeks and my day would start with a 6:30am wake up, a quick breakfast consisting of a smoothie and some cereal, (this was the only meal of the day for me sometimes) then off to work to be changed and in the kitchen for 7:30am. I'd usually go upstairs first and turn on the stove for the garde manger section where I was working, then head downstairs to set Maderia jelly plates in the fridge for the next hour or so. this was the most annoying job because you had to clear a load of space in a small area and then spread out the plates to set the jelly on. everybody knows that first thing in the morning the fridge is always a busy spot with putting away deliveries so i had to put up with everybody coming through and getting in my way, bumping plates, commenting on a little bubble here and there and just being typically negative and trying too hard to sound like a sous chef or something. Just to be clear anybody in the fridge before 10am would not be any member of seniour staff as they would not arrive until after 10am to start their day. once the jelly plates where set I would head upstairs to start chopping herbs for all the sections in the kitchen, then it was refreshing the micro-cress and flowers in ice water and then avocado puree... and then... Everyday was the same. Being a commis in a kitchen like this is tough. You will inevitably be tasked with doing the most time consuming, boring yet difficult, in the most simple things are the hardest to get right sort of way, jobs. All the while being shouted at to hurry up and move your fucking ass big boy. The problem lies in the fact that most people would walk out after a few days of this and then I'd be back to square one. Great. I suppose just for the pure fact that I did not walk out and did stick around I earned a place in the kitchen after a month or so and I did manage to crack my early morning MEP and everything was perfect. This of course would be finished by 10am when all the sous chefs and head chef would arrive. This is when they called me big boy. This is when they tried to break me.

so what they call me big boy part 2

I'd obvioulsy heard about tom aikens and all that went on with him at peid a terre before he got pushed out to the bamfords, i'd obviously heard about gordon and marcus and seen them in action on 'boiling point', i'd obviously heard all about marco and gordon's time working for him at harveys, i was even familiar with the concept that like child abuse, abuse in the kitchen is carried down from generation to generation, passed down the lineage from chef to chef. i didn't care about that. it's a fucking badge of honour. so i signed up thinking i was special for getting the job but little did i know i was not so special. i started along with 4 other guys on the same day at petrus. why they needed to replace 4 members of staff in one go? well that's bloddy obvious. They lasted a week and then there was just me.

so what they call me big boy

yeah so i guess it all started way back at petrus when i worked for the gordon ramsay regime. big boy was the definitive term of belittlement handed down from all the clones working above me. funnily enough at the time i was happy to be accepted into the doctrine of the london GRH scene which back in 2004 was without comparison the place to be working. I felt, as did alot of people, that, like the roux robots before us, this was quite the tour of duty and just what i needed to become the pale, emanciated chef i wanted to be. then they satrted to burn me.