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Gravy stains and tall tales: A real foodie journey

1 day ago

Right… enough of the emotional bollocks.

You beautiful bunch of lunatics actually bought my book.

Some of you bought one. Some bought two. Some appear to be single-handedly keeping Amazon’s packing department employed. Every single order still blows my mind.

When I started writing Lies, Theft and Sh*t on the Ceiling, I genuinely thought about twelve people would read it. Four of those would be related to me, three would feel obliged, and at least one would only buy it because they thought it was a@ cookbook.

Instead, people all over the UK, Canada, the US and beyond are reading the stories of a Canadian who somehow survived the Navy, bought a pub, employed absolute reprobates, cleaned things that should have qualified as biological weapons, and lived to write about it.

Thank you. Seriously.

Now for the part where I shamelessly prostitute myself to the Amazon algorithm…

If you’ve finished the book and it made you laugh, snort tea through your nose, stay up far later than you should, or mutter, “What the actual f**k?” more than once, could you leave a review on Amazon?

Not because I need my ego massaged. I ran pubs. The public cured me of that years ago.

Because reviews are how Amazon decides whether to show the book to other readers instead of burying it somewhere between “How to Crochet for Cats” and a pirated microwave manual.

Five stars would be lovely.

Four stars… I’ll assume you were dropped on your head as a child.

One star… I hope your chips are always soggy, your pint is warm, and every shopping trolley you ever use has one wheel that screams like a banshee.

Honestly though, thank you. Every order, every message, every photo and every recommendation means the world to me.

Now stop reading Facebook, go leave a review… and help me keep climbing the charts.

Jamie Oliver isn’t going to catch himself.

🇬🇧 UK/EU: amzn.eu/d/09Fe064D

🇨🇦 Canada: a.co/d/02ix35FJ

🇺🇸 USA: a.co/d/0eK4UIpj … See MoreSee Less

Gravy stains and tall tales: A real foodie journey

3 days ago

Why chefs walk funny…

You can always spot a chef in the wild. It isn’t the tattoos because half the people in Tesco have sleeves these days. It isn’t the burns either. Plenty of people have scars. No, it’s the walk. That peculiar, stiff-legged shuffle that says, “I’ve just spent fourteen hours on concrete and my body is considering legal action.”

Customers imagine chefs striding out of the kitchen after service like gladiators. Reality is far less cinematic. We leave looking like we’ve survived a bar fight, lost, and then had to mop the floor afterwards. Every joint clicks. Every muscle hurts. Your knees sound like a family-sized box of Rice Krispies every time you stand up. Snap. Crackle. “For fuck’s sake.” Pop.

Nobody tells you this when you decide cooking is going to be your career. They sell you the romance. Beautiful food. Creative freedom. Happy diners. They conveniently forget to mention that you’ll spend decades hauling fifty-pound sacks of potatoes, carrying crates of beer because Dave has mysteriously disappeared for another “five-minute” cigarette break, bending into under-counter fridges roughly six thousand times a shift, and lifting pans that somehow become heavier the closer you get to closing time.

Concrete floors are merciless. They don’t care whether you’re twenty-two and invincible or fifty-two and held together by ibuprofen and stubbornness. They just keep taking tiny pieces of you. First your feet. Then your knees. Then your hips. Your lower back eventually joins the mutiny, followed shortly afterwards by your shoulders. By the time you get home, sitting down feels wonderful. Standing back up feels like an Olympic event.

Getting into the car becomes a tactical exercise. Getting out requires momentum, careful planning, and a noise that sounds like a walrus giving birth. Drop your keys on the floor? Congratulations. Those are now floor keys. Unless the house is on fire, they’re staying exactly where they landed because nobody is bending over unless there’s serious money involved.

People think chefs eat like kings. That’s adorable. We spend twelve hours making beautiful food for everyone else, then shovel three cold chips into our mouths while standing over a bin because it’s eleven-thirty at night and that’s the first thing we’ve eaten since breakfast. If we’re lucky, someone overcooked a steak. That’s dinner.

The funny thing is that nobody complains about any of this. Not really. We moan constantly, obviously. Hospitality runs on caffeine, nicotine, sarcasm and relentless complaining. Every chef threatens to quit at least once a week. Every Saturday night somebody announces they’ve had enough of this ridiculous industry. By Tuesday they’re back in the kitchen, calling the ticket machine a cunt and arguing over whose turn it is to empty the grease trap.

Because here’s the dirty little secret. We love it.

We love the chaos. We love the rush when a hundred tickets are hanging and somehow the whole brigade starts moving like a single organism. We love the feeling that comes at the end of an impossible service when everyone is exhausted, covered in sweat, slightly delirious, and somehow every customer left happy.

The job wrecks your knees, your back, your hearing and, on occasion, your faith in humanity. It also gives you stories that people with sensible jobs could never invent.

So the next time you see a chef limping across a car park, moving with all the grace of a shopping trolley missing a wheel, don’t ask what happened.

Nothing happened.

It’s just Tuesday. … See MoreSee Less