Gordon Ramsay’s Playing with Fire
Not a sausage. That is what Gordon Ramsay had when he started out as a chef, working 16-hour days, 6 days a week. When he was struggling to get his first restaurant in the black, he didn't think he'd be famous for a TV show about how to run profitable eateries, or that he'd be head of a business empire. But he is and he did. Here's how."In the beginning there was nothing.Not a sausage - penniless, broke, fucking nothing - and although, at a certain age, that didn’t matter hugely, there came a time when hand-me-downs, cast-offs and football boots of odd sizes all pointed to a problem that seemed to have afflicted me, my mum, my sisters, Ronnie and the whole lot of us. It was as though we had been dealt the ‘all-time dysfunctional’ poker hand.I wish I could say that, from this point on, the penny dropped and I decided to do something about it, but it wasn’t like that. It would take years before the lessons of life, business and money began to click into place - before, as they say, I had a pot to piss in.This is the story of how those lessons were learned."This is Gordon Ramsay at his raw, rugged best. PLAYING WITH FIRE is the amazing story of Gordon’s journey from sous-chef to superstar. In his no-holds-barred style, Gordon shares his passion for risk and adventure and his hard-won success secrets.
Читать Gordon Ramsay’s Playing with Fire онлайн беплатно
Gordon Ramsay’s
Playing with Fire
Contents
7. We Write to Tell You How Disappointed We Were
11. For Sale: Intellectual Property
13. There are Girls in my Soup
THE BEGINNING
And in the beginning there was nothing.
NOT A SAUSAGE – penniless, broke, fucking nothing – and although, at a certain age, that didn’t matter hugely, there came a time when hand-me-downs, cast-offs and football boots of odd sizes all pointed to a problem that seemed to have afflicted me, my mum, my sisters, Ronnie and the whole lot of us. It was as though we had been dealt the ‘all-time dysfunctional’ poker hand.
I wish I could say that, from this point on, the penny had dropped and I decided to do something about it, but it wasn’t like that. It would take years before there was any significant change – before, as they say, I had a pot to piss in.
This is the story of how that change took place.
Work and opportunity come hand in hand, but don’t miss the big picture
MONEY ONLY CAME into my life when I received my first weekly wage. It came in a brown envelope with my name on it, and its contents disappeared faster than Jack Rabbit looking down the barrels of a sawn-off shotgun. Whatever money might have come in during my all-too-brief football days, my dad ‘handled’ for me. Whether it paid for his booze or his musical dreams, I don’t know, but very little of it came my way, and I’m pretty sure Mum didn’t see much of it either. To be honest, I was far too busy trying to be good at football to worry about it much, but in later years – much later years – I think it brought on an almost pathological need to know where my earnings went, who was handling them, and God help anyone who couldn’t explain what was happening.
This way of working, to climb the greasy pole of recognition rather than earn a living, followed me right through the early kitchens, where the only aim in this war zone was learning how to be the best. I think that this need to be the best was something that was always with me. It was, in the first instance, nothing more than a competitive streak. If I was racing my snail against the field, then mine would have to win. If I was washing pots, then mine were the cleanest, driest, and finished in the shortest time.
But after a while, this changed. I began to take notice of the competition around me and, in doing so, I realized that I was much keener to get on and do things in a way that blitzed everyone around me out of the water. Being the best was like a vanity, and I became ever-conscious that just being better was nowhere near enough. I had to attain a height that was unassailable by others.
To do this was to search out teachers, example-setters, heroes, whatever. Anybody that could point the way forward was someone whom I needed to know. The early chefs of my teenage years were not always easy to get near, but, in time, they picked up on me. They knew that there was one hungry little bastard in their kitchens and that I would do anything, work without stopping, and consume every scrap of guidance.
All I wanted was to understand how to do something, and I was the fastest learner they would ever meet. Those chefs who were good (and by that I mean lived in three dimensions) watched and encouraged me. Those with a single dimension carried on frying eggs.
As I continued along this culinary towpath, I began to see that, not only was it necessary to learn my trade thoroughly, but to try and move it up a gear. What I also noticed was that, while it was relatively easy for me to do this, nobody else seemed so driven. For me, it was just natural, the only route, and I used to listen to my mates argue and complain about conditions, the hours, the pay. All these things I couldn’t give a flying fuck about, to be honest.
Was I ever jealous of anyone who seemed to be ahead of me? No, that was never going to happen. That person became just a milestone and someone I would overtake as fast as possible. It was just like being a car in a race, and all the other cars were there to be overtaken. Even now, that is very much the case. The only difference is that it’s no longer about being the best pot washer. Now I look for more Michelin stars than anyone else, I need to have the highest audience ratings on my TV shows, and I need to sell more books than all the other celebrity chefs.
Am I always successful at being the best? Am I fuck. Instead, I just think of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over theCuckoo’s Nest when he tells his fellow inmates that he can tear the faucet from the floor and throw it through the window. They take bets because this boast just isn’t going to happen. The camera watches him struggle, sweat and grunt until it is clear that the faucet is staying where it is. Nicholson eventually stops and looks around. ‘Well, at least I tried, which is more than you bastards did,’ he says. That’s me. Just sometimes I aim too high and fail, but it will never stop me shooting for the stars. I might quietly have to accept that Jamie is going to sell more books than I am. For now.
