...but I don't 'do' cooking!

When I saw my job as the driver of the white van from hell advertised it said nothing about 'cooking'. In fact it very carefully didn't it seems to me, what it actually asked for was a 'sandwich van salesperson'. Had it mentioned anything remotely involved with culinary skills you would have seen me headed in the opposite direction....and fast!

There are things I do and things that I definitely don't do and one of the definite don'ts is anything remotely associated with food, aside from eating it of course or dipping the odd strawberry into deliciously melted chocolate. Domestic I can be, cleaning, ironing, washing, vacuuming...all no problem but things culinary...ugh! Ok, so my way to a mans heart is not through his stomach! ;o)

It has come as somewhat of a shock to me therefore to discover that by 06.30 each weekday morning I am up to my armpits in 'sandwich making' equipment, for in reality not only do I have to deliver said delights but I also have to produce them all myself beforehand, this is not good, it does not start my day well to be surrounded by commercial quantities of various hams, cheeses, salad stuffs and other assorted 'fillings', nor do mountainous piles of empty baguettes, and other bread products fill me with joy with there apparent need to be transformed into attractive lunchtime fare, by my own hand.



But fill them I must and if you please, at the rate of approximately 60 an hour.... yes, that's one a minute, no mean feat let me tell you. That includes wielding an electric knife (OMG), the 'buttering' procedure (though the stuff we use has long since lost any resemblance to real butter) and the tidy and attractive inclusion of usually something in the region of five or six different items of filling...all of which are hell bent on not remaining where I originally put them!

But there is worse still to come. Once I have fought tooth and nail with lettuce, beetroot, stuffing, pineapple, corn, etc. etc. etc and various dead animals and persuaded them successfully to 'stay put' I then have to somehow maneuver them into a long thin bag and then into a 'sealing' contraption, all the time fighting the attempts of the darned stuff to escape and fall untidily into an ungainly heap at the bottom of the bag!

Now this might not sound like too much of a trauma to most of you but I really don't 'do' cooking and to me this comes under the heading of cooking, it involves food and knives doesn't it? Yes? so it's cooking then and I don't do it, I just don't!...or at least I didn't!

...but three weeks in and I've got it mastered, I've got a routine and a plan and this morning by 7.30 all 60 were done and dusted and immaculately waiting to be sold within the ridiculous given timeframe. There they were all tidy and yummy looking, nothing hanging out or sitting sadly at the bottom of the bags and at last, my supervisor (I use the term loosely here) who can rarely let a moment go by without criticism, could find nothing to winge about!

...but I still don't 'do' cooking! Ppffttt.