🔪 WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM GORDON RAMSEY? FOODINI FROM THE KITCHEN! TripLog #2
For some people, the heroes of their youth are football players, for others singers or actors, and for me... chefs, restaurateurs and culinary travelers!
Gordon Ramsay, Anthony Bourdain (RIP), Jamie Oliver, Andrew Zimmern, and Magda Gessler, Robert Maklowicz and Pascal Brodnicki from my country. They taught me how to compose flavors, take care of standards and run a profitable business.
Also with them, I took my first steps in the kitchen and owe them the first cuts from the knife on my fingers. I admired their programs on TV, read cookbooks and biographies, studied courses on YouTube and mastered my cooking theory thanks to them.
AT FIRST THERE WAS A BLAND BARLEY SOUP
In my home nobody liked, so nobody can cook well. Blank, repeated weekly patterns. Meat, potatoes, salad and so on over and over again. Everything was fresh, but completely tasteless.
For me it was too small, too weak, too salty - I expected much more from food! That's why, since I moved out from my home at the age of 18, cooking has been with me all the time and I was finally able to do something in my own way. I quit from my studies at the Warsaw University of Technology very quickly. After just three weeks I knew that I didn't fit in this place. One day I sat down to learn, looked into mathematics notes, understood completely nothing and closed the notebook. I opened a Word, wrote a CV, sent it to several companies and found my first job at Call Center.
I was a hellishly good seller. Like the devil himself whispered into my ear the things that people on the other side of the phone want to hear. Years later, I am not proud of that, but then, because of the payment, I was in heaven. When I got my first payout I can't believe what you can earn in a month almost 1500$ without any experience. It is a lot of money in my country.
Finally, I could experiment, search, check and discover new flavors! I could afford to go to a restaurant, buy kitchen equipment, spices and accessories, which were always missing in my family home. Finally, I had my own kitchen training ground. And the exercises took place very regularly! After all, there was always a recipe to check, an idea came to mind or a hungry friend came up. I couldn't stop it anymore and the kitchen became my temple.
Before I went on my journey I was preparing three meals for our two everyday for almost 5 years. Each dish was different, fresh and prepared "from the heart". That’s becouse cooking for someone is for me showing him respect, care and feeling.
When I see smiling, satisfied faces of the people for whom I cook, I feel happy and I’m fulfilled. As the owner of a small bitro in Cyprus once told me, "food is love, my friend". He has been leading 'Vassano' for more than forty years, and I know he is right.
THE BISTRO IS NOT A SUNDAY BROTH!
I know this well, which is why I have moved from theory to practice.
While I was still an employee at a real estate fair company, I was get a job at Gringo Bar for the weekends. It is a Mexican restaurant opened in Warsaw by the famous rapper Bilon from Hemp Gru. I was with them from the very beginning and I felt a great joy when I saw how this place started to run and vibrate with good energy. Bilon was a fair and ethical owner, taking care of the quality of ingredients, cleanliness and atmosphere. I was happy to see his business grow and I kept my fingers crossed.
I didn't count on any payment here, because I earned really good money at that time. I just wanted to test myself in the real kitchen, see what the work of a cook looks like and see if I can manage it. And so I dropped into the gastro for good.
The greatest part of that was due to Saper, the chef, who showed me the true face of this work. He immediately noticed my passion and taught me many tricks and proper work organization. It turned out that I have a cooking talent and I have mastered the recipes in a flash. So I quickly became his right, weekend hand. On the weekends, there is most going on in the restaurants, so I was thrown into the deep water and I just loved it.
On Friday, after "normal" work, I was coming back home and could not wait until 6:00 a.m. on Saturday when an alarm clock will ring and I will be able to go to Odolanska Street to start the next day in Gringo. I worked 12-14 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and returned to “regular” work on Monday. It lasted quite a long and although it was very hardworking it was also a great time of my life.
I still warmly recall the whole Gringo Boyz Crew. They pushed me in the direction of the kitchen, and she hugged and holds me in her arms to this day.
WHY THE FOUR WHEELS?
The Dream about a pub on wheels was born a few years ago. It appeared from nowhere, greeted me nicely, made itself comfortable in the back of my head, but it was very rarely spoken. Finally, forgotten lazily fell asleep for some time.
And it was slept until I saw the film "Chef" from 2014. I watched it about 3 years ago, when I was living from ASAP to ASAP and running for more customers.
The film, although not a work of art, triggered in me a great desire for change and motivated me to finally do something about my own, mobile bistro.
After this movie, the Dream became braver. It started to shout at me, more and more often it demanded attention, and I did not protest and I allowed it to do so. I subconsciously knew that sooner or later it would explode in my head and turn my life upside down.
Today, when I am sitting in a s***hole at the end of the world, writing for you this text and observing the situation I can say that the dream has done well and exploded with the power of a tone of TNT. Now it has my absolute attention.
How I plan to get the money for these four wheels?
You will find out this from the third, final part of this story!
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