Caricature In The Kitchen

The Age

Saturday October 18, 2008

John Lethlean

Spring has sprung but it's not all fun with games for John Lethlean.

IT IS A MAGNIFICENT spring day. The blossom is blossoming, the birds are a-chirping and it's almost possible, for a brief minute anyway, to forget the world's financial markets are imploding and, with them, my hopes of retiring before 87.

I should be out walking, taking coffee at a footpath table, filling my lungs with the verdantly scented airs of our fair and amply parked city. Instead, I'm inside with my head between headphones, staring at a laptop, with a wrinkly little Scotsman whittling away at my self-esteem and a subtle cramp on my right-click finger.

"You donkey," he snorts. Repeatedly. And I'm beginning to believe it.

I promised myself I'd do this for an hour. That was three hours ago. The heart rate is up and remorse for that second espresso has set in. I've gone beyond "alert" and am now verging on "edgy".

A bad mouse click. An un-prepped salad. A table waiting to be bussed and suddenly, it's all gone pear-shaped.

"Oh f--- me senseless, don't even touch another thing in this kitchen."

There's no team, no television audience, but it's humiliating nonetheless. My mains have been thrown in the trash, again.

Despite all my best instincts, having followed the man's career, watched him on the box and even interviewed him a couple of times, I find myself wanting to impress Gordon Ramsay this sunny day. Ugggh, I feel dirty.

He used to be a chef. A chef/restaurateur. Now, Ramsay is, quite literally, a caricature of himself.

What do you do once you've done books, a million television series that have crossed you over from food guy to bona fide celebrity, and been the "Star in a Modestly Priced Car" on Top Gear?

You become the hero of a computer game, of course. For those who cannot get enough of the extraordinary phenomenon that is Gordon Ramsay, may I present Hell's Kitchen: The Game.

Some of course, would say Ramsay had become a caricature of himself well before the animators turned his celeriac-like face into a Big Brother kitchen monster, sent to intimidate and repudiate your restaurant skills via PC or Mac. They'd have a point.

But quite possibly not Ramsay's personal wealth.

So, I'm assuming you have a vague idea of what Hell's Kitchen - the telly series - is about: teams of wannabe amateurs who long for the approbation of "The Great Chef" (but who secretly get off on the recrimination and admonishment he dishes out to anyone who can't so much as bone a squab) are flung to the lions in a kind of competitive mock restaurant environment.

It's been popular. Leaving games developers asking themselves: surely there are millions more out there who seek a similar psychological whipping from this Marquis de Sade of British gastronomy, this Robbie Williams of the kitchen?

And I suspect they're right.

So now, in the privacy of your own preferred gaming environment, Gordon can pour acid on your ego, just the way he did to all those hapless folk on TV. Mine's shot.

My first "week" as an apprentice went fairly well, although it's a funny system, because, in its infancy, the game has just one person - you - as cook, waiter and maitre d' and you race from role to role trying to co-ordinate greetings, taking orders, clearing plates, cooking the food, delivering the dishes and cleaning up.

"You donkey," says Ramsay for the 30th time this morning, as I fail to remove a pot from the stove quickly enough when the timer goes off. "Unbelievable."

The psychologists are going to have a field day with this one.

"How are you feeling?" he keeps asking when he just knows you're feeling harried. "People are getting very impatient," he reminds you when you're trying not to burn the soup and gesticulating Americans (they look like Americans) are queueing at the front desk in their shorts and T-shirts waiting to be seated.

"I need you to really, seriously, up your game." And this when you think, finally, you're doing modestly well.

And then suddenly the monster becomes the mouse. "I'm a very proud man," he coos when you get something right, or "Finally, I've tasted something delicious" and after hours of grinding my morale with a mortar and pestle, a pathetic feeling of pride wells in the chest. Gordon liked my work.

Into week two.

"You've made it through the training phase but don't think I'm impressed. You have barely scratched the surface."

And, of course, it all comes crashing down in week two, and on more than one occasion have I been told: "That's absolute rubbish. Get it in the f---ing bin."

It hurts.

And on day 11, I hit the first serious snag: fillet of beef Wellington with roasted carrots and mashed potatoes. I've been on day 11 for an hour now. Somewhere between greeting, seating, prepping, taking orders, cooking, delivering, re-prepping, clearing, cooking, delivering, clearing three courses to four tables, a total of 12 "covers", my mouse and brain are splitting like a butter sauce.

(Grim echoes of the one licence test I cannot get past on Gran Turismo 3, and it's been four years.)

And I'm still a bloody apprentice; I thought I'd at least have a little aptitude for this.

So, now the morning has vanished, I've skipped lunch, been subjected to verbal abuse, had my food rubbished mercilessly, seen my dining room full of unhappy customers, and generally failed in the Gordon Ramsay stakes. This game is hilarious.

Like I said, a magnificent spring day.

© 2008 The Age

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