We Were Not Armed by Christine de Védrines

Author:Christine de Védrines
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyscraper Publications
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

He explained to me how the kitchen worked. Every day local caterers and restaurants put in their orders (in English, in the case of several dishes in particular, for which I had no recipe). What he needed was some vigilant person who would ensure the safety of the food chain. The latest health inspection report had been negative, so that we must above all avoid being closed down. I had two helpers, Brazilians, who were charming, but whose sense of time was, to say the least of it, imperfect. We started at seven in the morning – fortunately the kitchen was close to where I lived – with the preparation of the main courses and the fresh vegetables: falafel, chicken, vegetarian dishes whose ingredients came from an organic farm. Everything had to be ready by eleven o’clock and dispatched immediately in large metal boxes. In the afternoon I tidied up, and put in further orders for fresh produce, dried vegetables, rice, pastas etc. The early days were very hard work. Embarking on a professional life, after six years of isolation and the trials I had undergone, was not easy. On that first day, I did not even know what the date was, still less the year. I had to rummage in the drawers in the hopes of finding an up-to-date calendar or bill. I hadn’t spoken any English for years and I was in a complete panic. I found even the routine work difficult. But Charles-Henri accompanied me to work every day and came to collect me afterwards. Tilly had – in the interests of safety and vigilance – ordered him to do so. I did not mind at all. It sometimes happened, even, that my husband stayed on for a while at the start of the day and helped me.

But I managed to adapt to this new state of affairs more quickly than I had thought possible. I was so pleased to have found this job, Bobby seemed so kind, and I was determined not to disappoint him. He had noticed, of course, that my methods were not those of a professional, even in preparing a salad. But he was determined to keep me on. He had understood that the social milieu from which I came was more like his own than that of a professional cook, and he wondered what reverses could have reduced me to such a situation. Observing me out of the corner of his eye, he sensed a mystery. I divulged nothing about myself. Nevertheless, in spite of my secretiveness, he appreciated my work, to the point of getting me to train as a kitchen manager so as to improve my competence and range. Then he employed Tim, an English cook who proved to be a good assistant and an efficient second-in-command. The random checks operated by the public health department were soon perfectly satisfactory, and we were allotted the highest grade.

When the Brazilians forgot to wake up in the morning, Bobby and his wife came to give me a hand.

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