when the calamari is pink and stinky (or what to do when the second chef has pms)

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: when the calamari is pink and stinky (or what to do when the second chef has pms).

At the moment I am working an extra shift at work. This is why it has been so long between letters. It no longer seems to me that I am trading work time for me time. I am trading work time for just enough time to crawl back from exhaustion into tired before I work again.

The other reason is that I love our house so much that I have trouble leaving it.

I’m over this whole chef thing. Gone is the dizzying whirlwind of new information, over is the honeymoon period and I am BORED. I am stewing away in a pan of rancid duck fat and crushed rosemary.

Confit de ceels, with a delicious side dish of quince and frustration.

Of course I am fitter than I think I’ve ever been. I crushed things in a mortar and pestle for two and a half hours today with out getting sore arms. Every night during service I leap like a gazelle no no no. Like a lioness, I bound up and down the steps fetching things people have forgotten and I don't get puffed.

I bought a shirt at the beginning of the year when I was going for job interviews with three quarter length sleeves. I wore it again the other day (because it is the end of my wash cycle – the only excuse other than a job interview for wearing a shirt that pink), and the sleeves don't do up around my arms any more.

Peter is leaving on Thursday. He is the head chef who is a bit daffy. He can be incredibly irritating but I will miss him muchly. He’s a funny bloke; he's a big Maori guy, looks like he might have been a boxer. But he reads his horoscope every day, has a beautiful sweet tenor voice, knows more about music than anyone I know and makes the lightest, most heavenly chocolate mousse imaginable. We have had our run ins. he never really worked out the best way to deal with me. He always told me to do stuff 'because he said so' rather than coaxing me, or fooling me into thinking it was my idea in the first place.

I also feel I should give Dan another go. He’s the cousin who gets drunk at Christmas and makes jokes about the fairy on the tree. The last time I was dish pig he helped me with the dishes, and he always stops to explain stuff, and even if he never remembers to put day dots on the buckets and doesn't sweep under the benches, he is not a bad guy.

Hope everyone is well in the real world

all my love
ceels

ps. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I shaved my head bald (a couple of weeks ago) and I love our house.



Don’t worry mum, it's growing back.



Hair extensions cost $950.