Oops!....I Did It Again
A competition, a dusty brownie and missing cinnamon.
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It’s competition time. No not for you, but for Lozza. This is an interesting story, you might like it.
So, you may remember that Lozza was a student at the local college, as well as working part time with us. Most of the students had part time jobs, it was good experience for them, and they earned some cash so that they could buy things like beer and Benny Hedges.
Well, we were approached by her tutor from college and he asked if we would like to come along and give some support to a little competition that they were holding.
Donna and I definitely wanted to help out, it’s important to give the younger generation some help and support. We especially wanted to help Lozza as we liked her a lot and we wanted her to win.
But before we go on, we need to let you know how the competition actually worked. This was a competition which was organised by York Catering College and it was between the chef students of a certain year.* It was a motivational tool, many colleges hold them.
There had been a few heats held at the college, and Lozza had managed to end up in the final six. And the big final was going to be held in one of those Tudor style halls in York City centre, can’t remember it’s name.
When the big day came, it was a Monday and we weren't working, so we made our way to Thingy Hall. When we stepped inside we could see lots of people milling around, some a bit frantic, some not frantic. There were rows of chairs set up theatre style for friends and family. There was a row of tables at the front of them for the students to cook at, and behind those was a preparation area, a few stoves, and a wash up section. Bud wasn’t there.
We spotted Lozza at the prep area so we walked over to see her. She was nervous, the other five students were nervous also. To these sixteen and seventeen year old kids, this was the big time. They would be cooking in front of actually people and being judged by strangers.
Plus, they had to remember the cooking process for their dish, and they had to be better than their mates so they could win. Lozza was well prepared, she had everything in order and she was super focused.
Now as we weren't involved in the competition, we weren't sure what dish Lozza was cooking, we only found out when we arrived. Well it turned out she was cooking a rack of Nidderdale lamb, well why not, every meat restaurant in York had it on their menu.
We need to quickly explain something here, Lozza was not vegetarian, and she was studying to be a chef, so cooking meat wasn’t a problem to her, or us.
In fact, over the years, most of the people who worked with us were not vegetarian or vegan. This was irrelevant to us. We had heard rumours that some places, probably Beanbag Cafe, only employed people who didn't eat meat. Some people would come along to us for an interview and apologise that they weren't vegetarian. Didn't matter to us, everyone is entitled to their choice, no preaching from us.
Right, enough waffling, back to the competition. The six students started to cook and their tutor stood in the wings ready to give any advice. Meanwhile, we sat on those red and gold seats that you get at events, along with friends and family of the students, and watched intently.
I became bored pretty quickly, Donna told me to look interested. When you have the attention span of a gnat, watching carrots being chopped, or salt sprinkled onto lamb, quickly causes restlessness. Good job our Keanu wasn’t there, we would have ended up messing about like kids.
So to cut the story short, the six students plated their food, some judges, who we can’t remember anything about, tasted the food, then decided that Lozza’s was the best. So Lozza won. Hurrah!! We cheered and clapped like proud parents. That’s it!
But the story can’t end there, this Post would be way too short. What happened next was that Lozza went back to college and carried on as normal. But, her tutor contacted us again and said that he was thinking of putting Lauren into the Yorkshire Young Chef of the Year competition and could we help out a bit with dish planning etc.
Now this was big stuff, it was a big competition, most of the other chefs who entered the competition would be much older, and much more experienced than her, and they were working in some high end meat restaurants. Lozza was seventeen, still at college, and working in the underdog of underdogs. A vegetarian restaurant!!
Don’t forget, and we may have bashed on about this a few times, vegetarian restaurants weren't actual restaurants.
Vegetarian restaurants were like white chocolate, they weren't really chocolate. They were like margarine compared to butter.
But a meat restaurant was the real deal, it was like Cathedral City Extra Mature Cheddar, but vegetarian restaurants were just Dairylea Dunkers, they weren't really real. And to this day, some people still see it like that.
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So Lozza had no chance, surely? Yea, she would have some help from the college, but what could we help her with, surely we only knew how to cook mung bean casserole. But hey, if we all gave up before we started, nothing would actually happen in the world.
So a plan was put in place, Lozza would squeeze in some practice for the game element of the dish at college in between lessons, and the veg, spuds and dessert would be perfected with us. A good plan.
Well the main course was grouse which Lozza practiced roasting at college, we couldn’t have game products in the restaurant. Actually, we couldn't have any meat or fish at the restaurant, that would be wrong.
Meanwhile, with us she practiced the vegetables and spuds to go with it. But a bit of honesty here, we can’t remember what the side bits or dessert were, so we’ll make it up.
Here we go, it was a tian (a stack type thing) of tomato and aubergine and a potato mousseline (mashed spuds with extra cream). And the dessert, lets go with steamed apple sponge and salted toffee sauce. That’ll do.
So we practiced these elements numerous times and wrote out a detailed prep list with timings to give her guidance on the day. We then plated up the dishes so that Lozza would be streamlined.
We plated the main course without the grouse, and just left a place where it would go. Lozza felt prepared and was determined to make an impact and to prove that she had what it takes.
Why?
Well a quick funny story, while Lozza was given time to practice at college there was inevitably a streak of envy going through her follow students. Some of them had started winding her up and saying she had no chance because she worked at the vegetarian restaurant, Vanilla Bland.
Right let’s move on. The day of the competition quickly came around and it was a Sunday.
Donna and I met Lauren and her tutor just outside Thingy Hall, we were all a bit jittery, but excited.
The tutor had all of the ingredients, apart from one, some cinnamon for the apple sponge. He forgot to bring it. There was a bit of panic about this until one of us came up with an idea……don’t use cinnamon. Genius.
We went inside the Hall and were met with an air of panic. It was the same venue as last time, and there were still only six contestants, but this time these weren't fellow students.
And again, there were seats organised in a theatre style, but now there was double the amount. The six work stations were bigger also, and each had it’s own oven. It felt tense.
Other hospitality bosses and owners were there organising their chefs, the noise level was definitely higher, and there was lots of directions being shouted.
“Can we get another chopping board for this section?“
“We need oven cloths.”
“Anyone got a match or a lighter?”
“Chef, put your apron on.”
Although to Donna and I the chefs looked about twelve years old, they weren’t, they were all a few years older than Lozza.
Some were as nervous as Lozza, others were strutting their stuff, bouncing with confidence. They were all from restaurants or hotels in the Yorkshire area, but we didn’t know from which ones. They were all in place and getting on with preparing their dishes. Four judges sat to one side, like a quartet of wise old owls.
You could easily tell that Lozza felt out of place, her head was down, she never looked up once. Lozza just got on and unloaded her gear, she was focused on getting her prep done.
A silence took over the room, the chefs said nothing, they had nothing to say. The crowd said nothing, they just watched. All that could be heard was some pans rattling and chopping boards tapping.
A guy, like a compere, passed from table to table with a cheap microphone asking the chefs questions. Funny, he wasn’t getting much response. The chefs were too nervous and too focused.
Lozza’s tutor suddenly appeared on the empty seat next to us.
”Hey, some gossip, see that chef there on the end, Claire, people are saying that she’s gonna be the winner. Works at Woodlight Hall, (we made that name up), good place.”
“Yea, she looks confident.” She actually did look very confident, and tough.
Then Donna nudged me and pointed to Lauren, she was looking over at us, she looked concerned. She tipped a small saucepan towards us to show us the toffee sauce, it had set to the consistency of clay. She needed help. We’d seen others shouting advice over to their chefs, so we took it as the norm. But we didn’t want to knock her confidence by telling her what to do in front of everyone, so I glanced first to the stove, then carefully gestured a stirring movement, then I looked at the carton of cream. That meant, warm it up and stir a bit of cream in. Lozza got it.
As the cooking was coming to an end you could see the chefs moving into frantic mode, Lozza didn’t need to. She’d sorted the salted toffee sauce out and was now pretty calm.
She took the grouse off the bone, added it to a white plate along with the potato and the vegetable stacky thing. She finished it with just the right amount of sauce.
And as Lozza plated, so did the others. They stared at their plates, picturing where everything should go, and finished off with their sauce of choice.
It was awkwardly quiet.
As the last chef put his spoon down, the compere asked the crowd to have a look at the plated dishes. And we did. It had to be done quickly so that the judges could pass their expert opinion. There was some decent plating, these guys had put the work in.
As the judges ate, nodded and prodded, the chefs continued with plating their desserts. There was much less stress about this procedure, not sure why.
The room was still quiet, the judges were monitored by the crowd, just hoping for a little indication of what was going to happen.
Some of the desserts looked amazing, Claire, the favourite to win, had made an Assiette de Chef, basically a selection of little desserts. Now that looked impressive.
Next, the judges moved onto the desserts, they pushed sweet things around plates. They mumbled and made funny faces. And we sat and watched.
Then they beckoned over the compere, and by the look on his face, you could tell he’d been given the verdict.
So Mister Compere switched on his cheap microphone and gave us all the news we’d been sat there waiting for.
“Ladies and gentlemen……….”
Now, we’d like to tell you that Lozza came at least third, that would have been pretty amazing considering the competition she was up against.
But she didn’t come third.
Or second.
She won!
Yup, the young college student who was working part time at Vanilla Bland, beat the rest of the chefs.
Did you see that coming? We didn’t.
There were some glum faces behind those tables, but Lozza’s face was confused, and happy.
We hurried over to see her, as did a crowd of others.
And Lauren blurted out, “How, how did I do it?” She just couldn't believe it was her who had won.
Next came the usual hand shaking and trophy giving, and some of the other chefs came over to congratulate her. Decent eh? Lozza was the star of the show and had a new title, Young Yorkshire Chef of the year. We were very chuffed for her.
And as the fuss died down, the chefs tidied their work stations without being told, just like they always did since they first started working in a kitchen. Then the crowd drifted out of Thingy Hall and onto the cobblestoned square, the judges did their final goodbyes and left also.
But the next thing that happened was yet another lesson for Lozza.
Donna and I tidied up with her, most people had gone by now, it was starting to quieten down. Then Donna noticed something.
“Look, there’s Claire’s dessert, the one who was supposed to win, the Assiette de Chef.”
“Oh yea. Hey look Lozza, does look smart like doesn’t it?”
It was virtually intact, the judges had barely touched it. There was even a miniature chocolate brownie still in one piece.
So what did we do?
Yea of course we did. We snapped it into three and had had a little taste of the miniature brownie. This was going to be excellent, it certainly looked it.
What did it taste like? Imagine this, open your hoover bag, put it to your mouth and inhale. That’s what the experience of eating that chocolate brownie was like.
It was so dry that as you breathed through your mouth the brownie dust rushed into your lungs and made you cough.
Lozza, turned to Donna and I, “It’s awful, it’s so dry.”
She wasn’t wrong. As well as being incredibly dry, it just tasted of musty powder, it wasn’t even sweet.
When Lozza managed to swallow it she said, “But it looked right good. I thought it would be beautiful.”
And there we go, just because it looks good, doesn’t mean it is.
Lozza got her picture in the paper and became a legend for a week or so.
Then something else happened. Other restaurants started to realise that we existed. Chefs started to visit us for meals, easily spotted by Donna because of the blue plasters** on their fingers.
We were approached by one of the competition organisers who asked if we wanted to take part next year.
They also asked if I would be a judge, I declined that offer because I didn’t want to try the meat dishes.
Well, a year later Lozza entered the competition, but only made second place. Well, it would look wrong if she won twice wouldn’t it.
So there we go, thanks for reading and we’ll catch you next time.
Cheers, Andrew and Donna
*To the best of our knowledge.
*Blue plasters are used in kitchens so that if you accidentally lose one in the custard, it’s easily spotted. So why not green or red, why blue? Because if they were green or red you wouldn’t spot them in a salad. There is no blue food.
Well done Lozza !!
Just about halfway through and each post gets better and better 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻