26/03/2012

Today's Confession: You Can't Curry Love

Dear Forgiving Foursome,

In the early 1990s, I was working as a chef in Lancashire. It was a small, but popular eaterie that was owned and run by a jolly fat man who had an uncanny knack of making everyone happy. He also had the talent of being able to recruit the best looking local girls as waitresses, which for me led to a very pleasant working environment.

There were 2 chefs in the kitchen, and I was the junior, but the senior chef was a kindly and patient man and I learned a lot from him. In fact, when I look back on this period of my life, it was probably the happiest two years in my catering career, the hours were long, but everyone was happy and we all worked well as a team. The only blight on this otherwise perfect tomato was Captain Watkins.

Captain Watkins was a regular client who was an ex-colonial type that dressed in tweed and would regale anyone that would listen about his military service in India. He spent most of his time bossing his poor downtrodden wife about, telling her were to go and where to sit and even dictating what she would eat and drink. He was a thoroughly dislikeable fellow and everyone disliked him. The waitresses hated him for the way in which he treated his wife, the waiters didn’t appreciate the way in which he would put his hand in the air, snap his fingers and shout “Boy!” whenever he wanted something, he upset other diners with his boorish manners and even managed to upset the otherwise unfazable owner of the establishment by never actually booking a table, but he would turn up at 8 pm on a Friday evening, expecting a table for two to be available, without fail.

However, it was the chefs that he managed to upset the worst, as he would, every time he came to the restaurant, wave the menu away when it was presented to him and demand that something special be cooked for him. The poor flustered waiter or waitress would stumble into the kitchen, asking what specials we could rustle up.

After a particularly bad Friday evening service, which had been wrecked by the Captain’s childish demands, I decided to do something about it. Arriving early for work the following Friday, I made my preparations (both for Captain Watkins and the other diners) and waited for service to start. At about 8.10 pm, the arrival of a flustered waitress in the kitchen announced that Captain Watkins had made his usual request for something special. “Right”, I announced, “I’ll deal with this!”
“Ahh, Capitan Watkins!” I enthused with my best French accent. “I am zo pleased zat you have joined us ziz evening. For you, I have prepared somezing truly special! For starters, I have obtained for you from ze Ennstal Alps of Auztria, Auztrian Blue Shrimps, served on ice wiz a brace of fresh oysters. For Main Course, I have prepared for you a traditional Punjabi Mutton Curry.”

At the mention of Punjabi Curry, Captain Watkins eyes lit up and the fact that Austria is a land-locked country that cannot possibly produce shrimps, let alone blue ones, didn’t seem to occur to him. “A Punjabi curry, eh?” he growled enthusiastically. “I’ll look forward to that, son, because I’ve not had a decent curry since leaving India, it had better be hot mind!” He warned with a scowl on his face.

Assuring him that he would be fully satisfied, I retired to the kitchen, whereupon I removed a half pound of standard cooked Atlantic prawns from the pint of blue food dye that they had been soaking in for most of the afternoon. These went down well with the Captain. I then turned my attention to the curry.

Now we had a normal curry on the Menu, which was quite good in terms of flavour, but not that hot: However, I had made some adjustments to the standard recipe, which now included extra onions, dried chillies, chilli powder and Paprika. Duly noting Captain Watkins warning that it had better be hot, I quickly chopped up a couple of fresh chillies and threw them in too. I then chopped up half-a-dozen more for good measure. In the space of an afternoon, I had managed to change a sophisticated and delicately flavoured curry into a veritable furnace. It was so hot that even the fumes made peoples eyes water.

The sight of the Captain trying to eat this curry was a tale that the owner of the establishment would retell for years to come. He went through numerous glasses of water, 3 pints of beer and even had to leave the table for 10 minutes during his manful struggle with this culinary inferno. He could not finish it though, and the remnants were brought back to the kitchen, with compliments to the chef.

So, Father Simon and the collective, it is now that I seek forgiveness. Not from Captain Watkins as he was an insufferable, pompous windbag, who made everyone miserable and thoroughly deserved everything that was coming to him. No, I ask for forgiveness from several other people:

Firstly from my replacement, who I hear had the unenviable task of trying to live up to the night of the Blue Austrian Shrimps but was never able to. Secondly I seek forgiveness from the medical profession, who were presented the following Monday morning with Captain Watkins and a mysterious medical condition that he christened The Screaming Blue Hot-Trots, which undoubtedly caused much head-scratching and pondering for several days afterwards before it appeared to clear up of its own accord.

Lastly, I also ask for forgiveness from Captain Watkins poor suffering wife, who no doubt had to clear the mess up and I am truly sorry for this unforeseen consequence of my actions.

I fling myself upon your collective mercy. Jules.