Echoes from the Kitchen

Every kitchen has music. Some chefs need it, some chefs hate it. I know a few who dance to it amid the clamour of clanging pans, bubbling sauces, and whining pot-wash machines. Whether it is death metal or psychedelia, music pervades through the day of every cook. And if you pay attention, you’ll find music serves as the sonic backdrop to all our lives.

8 am

My phone alarm stirs me awake, and like every morning, I seriously regret choosing ‘by the seaside’ as my ringtone. The sugar-coated cheerfulness of the alarm reminds me of old holiday brochures for British coastal towns. Still half-asleep, and freshly repulsed by images of sunny optimism, I press snooze.

8.15 am

I should really get up. I’m at work at 10, and it’s a busy summer’s bank holiday- which means virtually no likelihood of a chance to cool my heat-oppressed head in the cellar, away from the blaze of a gastropub kitchen. To spur myself awake and delude myself for the next twelve hours into a false happiness, I play The Pixies. The punchy, non-sensical lyrics of incest, mutilation, and Old Testament demons provide a sufficient ‘pep in my step’. I quickly consume the leftovers I foraged from last night’s shift and chase it down with two almost-black coffees.

9.45 am

Heart banging frantically through my chest, headphones on, chef whites stuffed unceremoniously in my rucksack, I head off to work. I measure the distance in songs; it’s the same walk each time but today it is a Bob Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’-length walk. The sun is already high. The air is already hot. Moisture forms on my neck, and as I pass over the canal bridge, I catch the white-hot glare of the sun bouncing off the glittering water. Trees hang overhead, vivid and green. I savour my last taste of freedom, before gathering pace- getting to work a minute later, with a verse to spare.

10.15 am

The other chef, Evie, brings in a speaker but she isn’t due until 11. So, for my first solitary hour of prepping, I turn my phone to full volume and carry it around the kitchen with me in my apron pocket. Filtering through the crescendo of ovens, grills, and fryers heating up, you can hear the morbid longing of Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher album. I only play sad music when it’s just me. I blanch vegetables, precook chicken, and hone my knife skills against a sack of Spanish onions. My eyes are numbed from daily exposure to the chemicals that onions release. So, as Big Sam, a waiter, enters and his eyes start watering from the acidic onion fumes, I’m able to joke that ‘Phoebe brings out emotion in all of us’. 

11.13 am

Evie arrives, similarly caffeinated, but from a neon-green energy drink. She watched the new Barbie film last week and has suffered from an earworm ever since, resulting in spontaneous outbursts of ‘I’m just Ken!’ every odd hour. I’ve come to terms with this musical accompaniment. She’s outside on the barbecue today, catering for a family function with her legendary grilled meats and slow-cooked beef brisket. She leaves her speaker for me and Daz-The-Agency-Chef to fight over. This all means she’ll be subjected to the manager’s slow-paced acoustic playlist on the outdoor sound system, while listening to screaming children. There are indeed some fates worse than death.

12.27 pm

Daz strolls in the back door via the bin-yard, confessing to still being stoned from the night before, and recovering from his weekend of DJing. There is no fight to be had over music with Daz. He’s thirty years my senior, in age and cheffing experience. His leathery, scarred hands- the mark of any veteran chef- tell a story of his culinary adventures working in kitchens all over the world. The decades, lifestyles, and travel destinations he’s collected are ones I can only access through music, films, and books. I suggest we listen to the music of his youth for the lunch rush. Our motion is fluid, we’re slick- sending out table after table as we ride the wave to the tunes of post-punk classics like The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division et al. Even for bands I consider myself a fan of, I learn new tales of their early gigs and the radicalism of Morrisey’s celibacy.

4.02 pm

The rush has withered, and the lunchtime stragglers are leaving. We send out the last table and shut off the speaker as it repeats ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, noting a strange tranquillity we feel in the silence. This is an opening for us, as if by the grace of God, a ray of light is sent through the clouds. We take full advantage of the 20 minutes of quiet. I go out to the bar to get coffees for us (onto my fourth), to enjoy as we sit on crates in the bin-yard, basking in the sun.

6.20 pm

Deliriously, I use a meat probe to measure the average air temperature where I am standing. It is 37 degrees. I see Daz’s mug of coffee keeping warm next to the grill; too curious to stop myself from gazing into the brown abyss, I see bits of flyaway meat and oil splashes floating in the mug. On his tablet, he shows me part of his DJ set from the weekend and introduces me to an artist called ‘Higgo’ who, naturally, “plays house music like God”. Evie leaves with her speaker. I put my phone in a clean saucepan to amplify the sound- treating us to Aretha Franklin as she serenades us into the dinner rush.

9.15 pm

Both of us are sweaty, hollow-eyed wrecks, held only together by the traces of caffeine in our system. The small strip of floor between fryer and pass has become a cemetery for rogue fries. Service has reached its wretched end.

9.45 pm

After we cleaned the kitchen, Daz left. I check the day’s paperwork, finishing the cider Big Sam smuggled in for me in return for a chicken sandwich. All’s well. I turn the lights off and depart for home. I realise my phone is nearing death. I’ve got to be selective with which song I choose for the walk- anything over 5 minutes would surely kill it. 

I step into the cool night and its breeze brushes against my face. Patti Smith’s ‘Kimberly’ starts playing. I cross the canal bridge, and the water underneath is black and glassy. The overhanging trees are revealed by the white moon, whose light fills the gaps in-between the branches. The last whisper of blue is swallowed by the horizon, and it starts to rain heavily. A day of oppressive heat giving way to a night of storm. It drenches me but I don’t care. I still have my music. And Patti Smith’s lyrics-

“So crazy I knew I could break through with you”- 

Will walk me home.