A cookbook like no other.
A first hand look into commercial catering. With recipes, tips and quirky anecdotes as well as funny observations from a real chef.
I don’t think I’m alone in the world of catering when I say; I don’t like celebrity chefs. With the current craze for proper cooking and making top drawer food more accessible to everybody, celebrity chefs have become mock idols in the eyes of many, making a tidy profit in book sales and restaurant punters in the process. One down side from the point of view of those employed in the catering trade is that everybody is a chef now. A few TV cookery shows makes the world and his wife experts on all things culinary and apparently gives them the right to pass judgement on those who cook for a living. My many rants about know it all customers and celebrity chefs have been condensed into this book, oh and I’ll also be giving you a few industry tested recipes along the way.
Eating out is a luxury that few of us can afford with much regularity in recent times and when we do go out to eat chances are it will be at a local bistro type deal or a gastro pub if we want something a bit sexy for tea, (notice I haven’t included any eateries owned by celebrity chefs here...). It’s all very well making exceptionally nice meals (one at a time) with no consideration for ingredient cost (another difference between TV and real world cooking). Cooking at home and in the majority of restaurant kitchens usually involves much tighter purse strings than TV producers need to think about. Now consider that a chef in a place that the majority of us would have making our food has to make a gross profit of 65% and upwards on meals he or she serves, do they order or buy any ingredients they feel like? No they don’t. They have to buy the cheapest ingredients they can and produce meals of a high enough standard to keep Mr and Mrs-Expert-Michelin-star-wannabe happy to part with their measly wages. Not an easy task by anybody’s standard. Michelin star.... buzzword of the last 5 years..... Everybody has heard of them, people expect chefs to have at least one; nobody knows what is involved in obtaining one! I have worked with chefs who tirelessly knock out hundreds of amazing quality dishes day in day out and will do until they retire without a gram of recognition or even decent pay. The country’s restaurants are full of unsung heroes like this who put up with all the irritating and moronic orders and smart arsery that gets thrown at them and still come in to work and make beautiful food.
