How To Stay Awake - A Chefs Guide!

Allow me to fill you in on an extreme annoyance of mine...being tired! All Chefs, at some point in their career will become exhausted and start to make monumental and biblical mistakes. We let our working persona's merge with our social and home life creating a colossal chasm...a sort of culinary black hole if you will.

As our various 'masks' morph to become one, it leads to a general existence of work, more work, even more work and household duties and chores becoming a inevitable smelting smorgasbord of things to do and no time for anything else like fun, blogging or even sleep!

It is with this in mind I dappled in a small experiment. My own 'theory of relativity' if you will. Before I get any teachers, teaching assistants or graduates from the school of physics mouthing off about how I can compare this experiment to the likes of the fundamental basics of the world as we know it, allow yourselves this one thought...It's my experiment and any pompous intellectual idiots will be visited by me, a 5kg Salmon and an industrial sized tub of Swarfega!)

Back to the experiment...

I have conducted research into so-called 'power' drinks. Words like 'isotonic' and 'energy' have now been banded around since the introduction of Red Bull to the raving and dance communities back in the 90's and Chefs all over the globe have created their own ways of using these caffeine and sugar filled aperitifs in their own concoctions. Trial and error has usually been the way and recently myself and some fellow 'Culinarians' marched on our merry way to create the ultimate 'power drink'!

We were inspired by a plethora of sources and working on the principles of 'Molecular Gastronomists', a blog article on 'Desperate Chef Wives', sheer stupidity and male bravado. We were astounded at the use of items such as iced tea, espresso and 'Energy Powders' (which we couldn't find so we stuck to Lucozade Sports Tablets and Pro-Plus). So, with shopping list in hand and the male bravado forefront we set out on a monumental shopping spree. Once our spree was completed we began our 'Culinary Mixology'...putting our 'bar-tending morons' to shame.

We started lightly looking for an industry standard benchmark. We took our findings taking into account flavour, smell and 'energy boost'...very boring this science bit so I will just post our results and the innovative names we concocted along the way.

Irn Bull - A delightful sparkle with plenty of zing. Good for an immediate boost. 1 standard sized can of Red Bull with 1/2 a bottle of Irn Bru (Made in Scotland...From Girders)

The Nickleback - A very potent flavour with a fruity twist. 1 can of Rock Star with 2 shots of chilled espresso. For extra sweetness add 2 Teaspoons of sugar to the espresso before cooling.

The Truffle Shuffle - Pure sweetness in a glass. A combination of Red Bull, Rock Star and Purdeys Gold (An Oriental herbal drink available from all good Supermarkets). Boost energy three fold and pile on the pounds with this urban liquid zinger!

The 'Jordan' - With a mix of herbal and chemical tablets with the liquor of choice, the 'Price' will definitely be right. We used the industry standard of Red Bull with powdered Pro-Plus and Yeastvite to create this 'Mediterranean Sangria'. A mortar and pestle is required for the powdering of the tablets but please be warned, it may send you 'Insania'.

The 'U2' - It certainly is the 'Sweetest Thing' as We tell you about our No 2 Mixology Masterpiece...Four espressos, eight teaspoons of sugar, two powdered Lucozade tablets and a floater of the new Relentless Energy Shot (50 mls of pure power)

The 'Ariston' - And just like the advert you go 'on and on and on and on!'. There is no stopping this explosive aperitif... 1 can of regular sized Red Bull, 1 can of Rockstar, 1 can of 24, 1 bottle of Lucozade (Fizzy) and finally 2 shots of Relentless Energy shot. You may need a pitcher for this wonderfully fruity concoction, but believe me when I say, It ain't called the Ariston for nothing!!!

Can I just take a brief moment of your time at this point to ask you to read my Disclaimer...

All the above mixtures can be hazardous to your health and, at times, extremely dangerous. None of the drinks or Companies that produce said drinks, condone the miss-use of their products in this manner and Grumpy Chef Ltd, and all subsidiaries of Grumpy Chef Ltd do not condone the miss-use of the above products. If you you do try and mix your own, we accept no liability to any repercussions that these mixes may do to your physical or mental state. These are including but not limited to Death, popping your clogs, kicking the bucket and meeting your maker (when we say 'maker' please replace with your choice of God, Deity or Entity that you worship, pray or gain advice from).

Any Celebrities (Minor or Minuscule) mentioned above have not given written or verbal consent for their names to be used in this written piece and if objected to will be removed at their request and replaced with alternative titles. The alternative titles will follow in the correct order as written above...

The Steel Cow, The Quarter Front, The 'God my Belly is Fat and Looking like that kid off the movie The Goonies', The Katie 'Come On Down' Cost, The 'I only know how to play one note constantly through the Song and spend too much time dealing with other countries problems' and, well, The Ariston as the company has no money to be able to sue me because they went bankrupt a while back!

On that extremely official and career ending note...The News...

Jamie Oliver is set to expand his 'Jamie's Italian' Chain into Asia. Starting in Hong Kong, 30 sites have been planned with six sites being built in Hong Kong itself and a further 24 rolling out into China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Okay...Can everyone remember when Ramsay began to over stretch himself? Not to mention the likes of Rankin and the Poisoned Dwarf Worral-Thompson? To me it seems like history is repeating itself! There is only one thing we can do dear readers and that is to wait with baited breath...I on the other hand would rather he opened in Italy...let's see him take to that challenge!

Since when did eating processed meat become bad for us? In a recent claim, the WCRF (World Cancer Research Fund) has denounced processed meat products such as ham and salami and now Chef Aldo Zilli is backing their claims. I don't think I need to comment on this as Bob Farrand of the Fine Foods Guild has got it spot on in his retort to these claims..."The most charitable thing these people can do is to shut up,” he said. Well said Bob!!!!!

Sur cette note, les Chers Lecteurs… bonne nuit et (nom de lieu de votre Dieu, entité ou déité choisie ici) bénissent !

Le Chef Grincheux