Chef
PGL

Adam D

0.00.00 I’m Adam D. I work as a Chef at PGL Caythorpe Court. We work on a two week menu, so it’s your day what’s on the menu for that day from breakfast all the way through to the evening meal and you just kind of work it off check by check and ensuring that you’re getting everything done as you go along. It’s a busy day. It’s a busy day. It’s nonstop but like you say very enjoyable.

0.00.30 I was never one for the classroom kind of base stuff. I’ve always found that I liked practical stuff a lot more, so did design technology, your cooking classes, PE, that kind of thing. I was a bit temperamental to sit and do paperwork but obviously that takes up a lot of the stuff at school so that has to be done as well. My GCSC’s weren’t the best but they were acceptable. They were enough to get me onto the motor vehicle mechanics at college that I wanted to do.

0.01.00 Stuck with that, passed my motor vehicle qualifications which was good, that was a bit of a notch on the belt I guess. I really enjoyed it to be honest but it wasn’t for me kind of thing. I had to, every time I’d go to my motor vehicle class I had to pass the catering section and just generally every time I walked past I thought oh maybe I could have a go at that instead. So yeah, it just come about it like that. My dad actually works for the AA so I suppose maybe that could have influenced the motor vehicle side of it.

0.01.30 As a young lad he was well into cars and that kind of thing so maybe being brought up with that kind of thing sort of pushed me in that general direction to start with. And my mum works for a bank. I’ve got an older sister that she was a, usually the brighter spark among the two of us. She went off to uni and she decided to carry with on all of that further education kind of thing, but it didn’t appeal to me. But there was none the difference.

0.02.00 My mum and dad were it’s your life kind of thing, you’re old enough now to make your own decisions, so we’ll sort of leave it down to you but they were still there to back me and guide me in a certain sense and it seems to have worked out alright, so I guess they didn’t do too bad. It just come about that I was looking on the internet, just purely out of interest at different jobs and jobs abroad and just a bit of a lifestyle change kind of thing. And PGL’s name cropped up on Google and yeah,

0.02.30 I seen the blue skies and the sun and thought why not give it a go. I mean I was only 18 at the time, so I mean it’s a pretty big step. I was really scared standing at Dover ferry station at the age 18, not really knowing where I was going or what I was doing but like I just says, I suppose it’s the whole independent step of getting out there and trying it. So yeah, went off to France. As my contract come to an end there I got offered a position in the kitchen at Caythorpe, so flew back, had two days back at my house and then ended up at Caythorpe in the kitchen.

0.03.00 Just working alongside the other chefs, I’ve got a really good Head Chef that I got offered other positions in other centres which I’ve chose to reject purely because I feel I can learn a lot more off the chefs that I’m working with now. Yeah, it’s just generally working in a team environment. You pick different things up and you just log them in the back of your head so next time you come to do it you remember what they told you and how

0.03.30 they say to do it and just work on it from there really. The grand plan is to have my own place eventually. This is a start to the whole future career I guess. It’s mass catering but it’s getting involved with food and cooking food and I suppose eventually in the long term, yeah, I’ll have my own little restaurant or something like that.

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