Category: Kitchen

Start a catering company, they said. It will be fun, they said. You like to cook, I said.

That last one is true, I guess. But as soon as something becomes your job instead of your hobby, you’d better prepare for the whole concept to come crashing down a few pegs in your mind. It’s like moving into an apartment with your best friend, and it’s all sunshine and roses for the first few days because you’re total besties and now you can be together all the time! But then towels are left on the floor, rent is late, dishes are unwashed, someone keeps missing their turn on the roster to clean the toilet and good grief, Samantha, if you block the dishwasher one more time I’m going to shove a dish rag in your face while you sleep! Then put the dishwasher on the pots and pans cycle.

I need a commercial wok burner. That’s the current worry, because I have 200 people to feed on Saturday, they want a Chinese feast and my pitiful little two-person burner just isn’t going to cut it. Commercial grade goods are something I’ve been in dire need of for a while, but the catering business has exploded so suddenly that I just can’t keep up with the massive demand. Can’t stand the thought of refusing jobs that I’m pretty sure I can do myself, but it’s really going to bite me at some stage, and this might be it. Maybe I could borrow a commercial wok burner? And this imaginary person could also let me use their commercial steamer, because 700 dumplings aren’t going to steam themselves; certainly not in the fun-size steamer I have in the van.

And the van…hoo boy. It was fine for small gatherings, but I don’t even think it could take a commercial oven before it loses the ability to go up hills. There’s a ‘bitten off more than I can chew’ pun to be made here, except there’s really nothing funny about the situation.

-Albertine

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The landlord came today and said that the kitchen was in a really good condition. He also said that he was really surprised that it was looking so shiny and new, especially considering that we’re a bunch of uni students.

I didn’t want to tell him that we don’t really…uh, we don’t USE the kitchen. Sometimes we use the microwave to heat up pizza and other leftover stuff, but that’s pretty much it. We get chips and stuff when we want them, and since Gazza discovered breakfast bars we haven’t even had to use bowls for cereal. Just grab a bar and you’re out of bed and ready in five minutes. Sleep is awesome, man.

So now he says that we’re getting some serious kitchen renovations all up in here, and he said that we can’t go in the kitchen for a few days while it’s all being done. Like…okay. We can just take pizza into the lounge like we usually do, I’ll keep the chips in my room, or we can buy our own chips…uh…anything else? Oh yeah, gotta keep the beer cold. Maybe we can get a mini-fridge and keep it in the lounge? Actually, why don’t we do that ALL the time?? It’s where we take the beers anyway.

Even if we get a bit old kitchen makeover, I’m not sure if we’ll use any of the stuff. Maybe we could request a few things? Like, it’d be nice if there was some sort of oven that heats up at the press of a button to the same temperature every time. Then we could stash the pizza in there when one of us is late back from uni, so it won’t get cold. And maybe a bigger fridge, because sometimes we have too much beer and it doesn’t all fit in.

I dunno what goes on when you get modern kitchen design. Maybe robots or something. But if it’s not to do with takeaway or keeping alcohol cold, I’m pretty sure we don’t be bothered. At least it’ll be clean.

-Derek

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