Be The Jam

Somehow I have got myself a job in the Alps for the winter, in Italy. Hopefully this should mean that by the spring I should just about be able to afford to get to the jungle. That's my justification and I'm sticking to it. I am in no way influenced in my decision to go and work a ski season by the fact that it sounds like a whole lot of fun and most certainly a lot more fun than working in London.

I went for an interview on Monday, I wasn't looking very smart. I had a bit of a crumpled look about me, clothes that have spent a bit of time squashed up in the bottom of a rucksack tend to take on the crumpled look I find. I did hang a blazer and shirt up on a tree overnight and so the worst of the creases had fallen out by the morning. I was going for a job as a chef so I diligently wrote up my 12 day menu plan, packed a copy of my passport, made a sample dish (endemame and prawn salad in a Thai dressing), and put them all in a bag together with the calculator I would apparently need. I was less than pleased when at Victoria I realised that this bag was now wending it's way off into the distance on the train I was no longer on. I had half an hour to spare in which to cook a sample dish. Interesting.

I'm not sure if you have ever tried to cook an impressive dish in half an hour at Victoria station, if you have not you probably won't realise that this isn't as simple as it seems. For a start there are not that many useful looking shops - "Whsmiths? No. Burger King? Hmmmm, maybe. Ah! Marks and Spencer's; fantastic!" Only it wasn't so fantastic, M&S are useless. They never have any ingredients worth speaking of just rows and rows of ready meals. "Hmmmm, ready meals - maybe? No". In the end all that I could think to make was a Raspberry Fool.

Recipie

Raspberry Fool

Creme Fraiche

Double Cream

Raspberries

Smash the berries to a pulp and mix in the Creme Fraiche and cream. A higher proportion of creme fraiche will result in a healthier pudding, a higher proportion of cream will result in a nicer one.

I managed to borrow a tuppaware container from a nearby cafe and then make the fool on the train to Clapham Junction. It was only later that I realised that the container was infused with the smell of garlic.

I thought I was going for a job cooking meals for people in Chalets, the interviewers thought I was going for a chef's position in a Hotel. I was briefly tempted but the idea of 12 hour days working hard without a break and stupidly high stress levels didn't appeal. In the end we settled on a compromise, I'm going to be the chef in a large chalet; maybe about 40 people. This means all I have to do is cook breakfast, afternoon cakes and an evening meal and the rest of the day is free, easy. As there are quite a few people to cook for I don't have to clean the chalet or make beds, just cook food and play in the snow.

I asked about living outside and they said that accommodation is included in the package. I said I knew but I wanted to live outside. They said this was most unusual and they would have to get back to me.

Apparently it is not possible to live outside in the Alps during the winter and hold down a job at the same time. I bowed to their superior knowledge and said I would live in doors.

I'm glad I'm a well balanced rounded type of person who doesn't take being told that something is not possible as a personal challenge. If I was that sort of person I might be planning to spend the first month or two in Italy getting the right bits of kit together, checking out how the system works and then going to live outside for a month or two without telling anyone. Good thing I'm all grown up now isn't it.