Yes Chef, No Chef - By Susan Willis Page 0,64
large decorated cake sat in the middle of the spread with ‘Good Luck’ in pink icing. The usual dull cheerless room was decorated with good-bye balloons, best of luck banners and pink bunting was pinned across the walls.
David stood at the end of the table and welcomed her to her official leaving-do at which everyone laughed at his attempt to be humorous. He read out a little speech about how sorry they all were to see her go and described the enormous contribution she’d made to the company during the last eight years. There were little anecdotes from funny incidents over the years, and the mention of some old colleagues, and how the business team had changed since she first started.
He wished her, on behalf of all her friends, the very best of luck with her new venture and handed her a big card that had been signed by everyone with another envelope containing vouchers for the local Cook-shop. “We thought these would come in handy for your new kitchen equipment,” he said proudly.
She opened the envelope and gasped at the amount of money that had been spent. “Oh my God, thank you all so much,” she said as Harry entered struggling with a huge bouquet of fresh flowers. She looked around the room at her friends, the people she’d worked alongside for years and felt a lump of emotion gather in the back of her throat while Harry awkwardly presented her with the flowers. Peeping over the top of the bouquet and hoping the tears stinging the back of her eyes weren’t going to escape she took a deep breath but was speechless and then started to gabble her thanks in a shaky voice.
Frances came to the rescue. “Come on everyone, tuck in. Katie can mingle around everyone when she gets her breath back.”
After a lovely lunch and feeling a little lightheaded with champagne she managed to say goodbye to everyone and took most of their business cards for catering bookings.
She popped a chocolate truffle into her mouth and swooned with the hit of chocolate letting it melt on her tongue without swallowing and then felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Terry and she swung around to face him.
“Hi, Terry,” she said, “are you still looking for someone to cook dinner for you?”
He grinned. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“Well, if my kitchen installation goes to plan in a couple of weeks I’ll be ready-steady-cook?” she said laughing at her own joke. “But you might have found someone else by then?”
He vigorously shook her hand. “Oh no, Katie,” he said. “I’d much rather wait for you. I’m thinking of asking Jessica to marry me so you could maybe do me a special engagement meal and I’ll surprise her with the ring?”
“Aah thanks, Terry,” she said grinning with pleasure at the thought of her first booking.
Chapter Sixteen
“Wow!” Tim said looking at the moulds on the table. “Simon, they’re fantastic.” Simon glowed with pleasure. “Yeah, when I told my mum we were doing food from the Victorian times she rang my old aunt who used to work as a maid in a stately house when she was young. And hey presto, she sent them over,” he said picking up the largest mould in the shape of a graceful swan with a very long neck.
“How about white champagne sorbet in the swan and we decorate the plate with coloured sugar paste flowers, green buds, and foliage?” Tim asked, “What do you think?”
Simon looked delighted to be included in the project and beamed with Tim’s newly found confidence in him. “Oh yeah, it’ll be amazing!”
“Well, if you’re not rushing off this afternoon we could play around with it together?” Tim suggested and was pleased to see his happy response.
Leaving Simon he headed back to the office thinking of the valuable lessons he’d learnt in dealing with people and utilising their best skills, and the thought of how uptight and fussy he’d been on his arrival to the business made him feel ashamed. But, the restaurant was busy and running much more smoothly, his two new chefs were good workers, and now that they were taking over some of the actual cooking duties he had more time to spend on actually managing the kitchen. Even Jack wasn’t on his back as much which he knew was mainly due to his new successful dishes and the rise in profits. If only he could have done all this when he was