Lisbon, boss!

A lobster soup cappuccino. So that. Make beautiful and delicious dishes. Every day. delightfully. For about seven weeks now, I've been at the helm of my kitchen. Five friends around me. Two of them encourage me to learn Spanish, with one I communicate in Dutch, and English is the common language when it comes to food.

thrilling. From the moment I was asked if I would be interested in a position elsewhere, the wheels started spinning. What if. The one like became now. That's still. However, with the approval of my boss, who I now speak to at a different level. The big scheduling could begin. Initially quite easy, because it was just the two of us. A little more air with the arrival of colleague three, who, after an industrial accident, returning from a broken ankle, can now fully recover. Number four: a very special former colleague who, although already busy in the evenings, likes to roll up her sleeves during our lunches. Numbers five and six arrived more or less and the staff shortage has been solved - holidays and studies are now complicating the luxury problem.

Place orders, register temperatures, make schedules and physically run the kitchen. Of course, with a certain interest, you've always watched carefully from the sidelines, but the big picture is a completely different story. Fortunately, everyone is doing the tasks well and everyone is pointing in the same direction. As a huge experimental opportunity, last Tuesday's party seized with both hands to deploy everyone. At once.

From time to time, I deliberately withdrew to see who takes the lead or who will continue unperturbed with the assigned task. Whether breaks would be taken and whether the receipts would be created. A short consultation appears to be sufficient to commence the last two hours before issuance. Layout, timing, cooking and cleaning up in between. Busy in the kitchen but off the boiler. A very successful evening, together.

The freedom that this function entails when it comes to purchasing and cooking is enormous. Finding competitive prices and offering them a restaurant-worthy challenge. The interaction with my colleagues in the kitchen, but also the dynamics that arise between the front and our input, are gigantic. Mutual satisfaction, feedback friendly and manageable. Overdue maintenance or extra cleaning at quiet times and up a notch in busy times. With all the additional work, I had to invest to get everything up and running. A foresight and a few with tomato paste later, everything looks more or less how I want it to be. We send messages to each other via WhatsApp and clearly communicate what we are doing in the workplace, help each other when and where necessary and leave each other in our value.