Who would believe...a YEAR OLD

Yes, a birthday came and went with scarcely a ripple and nary a popping of even a cork!! But I did remember and I promise The Phatt Chef a minor celebration when we have the time. What a brilliant season we have been lucky enough to have had. Great customers, reliable, well almost reliable staff, except for two kitchen ladies who arrived absolutely plastered out of their tiny sculls on New Years eve. If it was not so annoying it would have been amusing to watch them as they pin balled around the kitchen, picking up red hot pans and not realising where the smell of searing flesh was coming from....well anyway that's staff for you, can't sell 'em, can't kill 'em just got to pay 'em and grin and bear it!!

Our first batch of trainees have arrived from The International Hotel School in Sandton....long may THEY last...lots of energy, lots of aspirations, they think cooking is akin to gamboling through a green field full of daisies and poppys, chasing butterflies...well we're all in for a rude awakening methinks!!

Well, another year older, another year wiser??

Just as we were celebrating the imminent opening of the Wobbly Waitress, I was slapped with the resignation of my kitchen right hand lady sous Chef, you know, the one I was waxing lyrical about.. a few scant months ago. Seems mendacity is the byword amongst young kitchen lowlifes. After requesting Christmas & New year off, (Yea I know get real..)she resigned in a fit of pique in the first week of peak season!! Well, it just goes to show...no one is irreplaceable, in fact I'm sure this situation is where that old proverb comes from, you know Every kitchen has a silver lining, or maybe something like Those we think we most need are in fact those we least need but we just need to wake up and smell the fresh cream instead of the rancid butter might be more appropriate!!Anyway enough of that.

The Wobbly Waitress opened to a low key rush in mid-December and Mouse, The WW, has done a sterling job of training her staff, keeping the menu up to standard, putting up with her Dad's constant advice giving but more than that having fun running her own business. She's paid the rent and her overheads and has a little left over after 6 weeks of trading!! Go you good thing..

What A Phlipping Year!!

Well nearly a year to the day OKOK only eleven months since my last post but nevertheless what a year, but really what a year.

In Brief:

JAN 2008 We're ready for opening and cruising when my partner (the one in the business) {no not my wife..could I be that lucky?} decides this is NOT FOR HIM!! and bales out. I'm forced to repay his contribution and find some more to finish off all the last little bits.

FEB 2008 We open , not in a blaze of glory but just quietly and slowly...things go well..we don't poison anyone In the first few weeks or if we do they die and don't come back and complain!!

MARCH 2008 I get a pommy chef to help me in the kitchen who has worked in a 2 star Michelin restaurant in Scotland...I am soooo excited I can hardly contain myself. He arrives and I am largely disappointed..very average, competent, yes, but very unimaginative or are we so in awe of these starred restaurants that we don't realize that the star goes to the chef and not the staff? Any way a great help but not somebody I would break my bake or my bank account to keep so when he wants to go and play in the great outdoors and coo(K) in a game reserve I'm quite fine with the idea.

MAY2008 A little pixie of a chef applies for the vacant position of sous chef and I take her based on the fact that she worked in Franschoek (VERY COOL IN SOUTH AFRICA AT THE MOMENT) and that 1) I can afford her and 2) her ex-head of training told me she regularly tells her Head Chef to Fak Off!

JUNE TO OCTOBER 2008 Marcel turns out to be gem!!

NOVEMBER 2008 We gear up for the festive season, ride the worldwide economic downturn (all yanks are wankers to let their bankers get away with all the shit they caused..told you there was political commentary in this blog!!) Celebrate Obama and Melissa's 18th Birthday Party {My daughter..boy do I feel old..er}and a new political party in SA but keep on cooking great food...HOW DO I KNOW?? Well it's simple

1) we don't get many plates sent back to the kitchen {less than 1 a week on more than 200 diners} 

2) My kids love the food and refuse to eat anywhere else,{especially good recommendation},

3) we get regulars who keep coming back even the ones we don't like and are rude to (OK that was a joke...not).

NOW WE NEED TO GET SOME REAL KICK ASS PUBLICITY and get this thing to fly...OH yes I almost forgot...WATCH THIS SPACE FOR THE BIRTH OF 

TRA LALA FANFARE

THE WOBBLY WAITRESS COFFEE SHOP

From the frying pan into....CYBERSPACE!!!

Yes, the first post of a slightly rotund chef, busy trying to get his new restaurant, THE PHATT CHEF RESTAURANT, on its feet and operational. We have decided not to try and rush and open in mid season, but to wait and slide into 2008 like a Poppadom being slid into a pan of hot oil. Hopefully like the poppadom we'll all rise crispy and cooked to the surface!!