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The housewife sighing over what to cook for her family that night might feel less put upon if she knew that in a kitchen in Lyndhurst, 35 500 meals are prepared each month.
Forget images of an eccentric chef adding a pinch of this and a bit of that while dipping fingers into fragrant pots to taste if a little of something else is needed. The gleaming workspaces overseen byfood and beverage manager Steve Burton lend themselves to the precise, well-ordered world that is Cookchill, the catering arm of century-old non-profit organisation Rand Aid Association.
With less than .01% stock losses each month, and a meal never late on the table in Steve's 11 years as Cookchill manager, it is clear that he has perfected a flop-proof recipe for large-scale cooking. "Everything is worked out according to weight, so there is no waste," explains Steve. Emphasis is also placed on health, cleanliness and safety.
Rand Aid has under its umbrella retirement villages, care centres and a substance abuse treatment centre, and Cookchill provides three meals a day where full board is offered, catering as required to the villages and in addition, provides meals for the Catholic Church-run Joseph Gerard home in Alexandra.
After matriculating in the UK at 15, Steve did a four-year apprenticeship with the Health Authority, based at various hospitals for his hands-on training while travelling to nearby colleges for his theory and exams. Something was always cooking in the kitchen, apart from food, says Steve, remembering when he and other more senior staff members told an apprentice to 'chop flour so that it is finer, like corn flour' and sent the same chap to 'collect a bucket of steam'. No sooner had he set off, then they reminded him to take a lid, so that the steam did not escape.
Immigrating to South Africa in 1981, Steve spent nearly two decades overseeing the catering for the Kenridge Hospital in Parktown, before joining Rand Aid.
As a youngster, Steve already knew that he was interested in cooking and despite the routine of feeding so many people each day, he finds ways to remain creative and inventive. "You have to change things now and again. Don't ask me for a recipe, it's all in here," he says, tapping his head, although judging from the aromas sweetening the air, a fair bit of his inspiration comes from the heart.
Cookchill was started by Rand Aid as a cost cutting measure after a study proved it would be cheaper to have a centralised manufacturing and distribution centre instead of maintaining kitchens at each of their properties.
Using the Cook-Chill Process, meals are cooked and then blast chilled. This sees food going from oven-hot to 0C in two hours, retaining both goodness and flavour. After being transported by refrigerated truck to the various destinations, it is reheated on site and served.
Menus are based on a four-week cycle, ensuring that repetition is avoided. Nutritional needs are also high on the agenda. Breakfast could consist of fruit juice, a choice of cereal or oats, yoghurt, a Spanish omelette, toast, butter and preserves. The main meal is served at lunchtime with a typical offering being chicken casserole, parsley potatoes, peas and cauliflower with apple sponge cakeand custard for dessert. A light supper might consist of a leek and rosemary flan with crisp salad.
The proportions of Cookchill are mind-boggling, from walk-in fridges and freezers bigger than the average bedroom that allow for the separation of foodstuffs; a storeroom packed high with 50kg bags of dry goods and other non-perishables; a smaller room lined with vast roasting pans, casserole dishes and gigantic pots; to man-sized mixers with 60-litre bowls.
But then when you stop to consider that an average meal calls for 40kg of spuds, or that 21 600 eggs are prepared a month, you begin to understand that this operation is not 'small potatoes'.
Yet Steve says his kitchen is quite capable of providing even more meals, saying, "We have the capacity to provide cost-effective meal solutions to other organisations as well."
For more information, call Zabeth Zhlsdorff at 011 882 2510.
Steve Burton mixes things up so that diners anticipate their meals with relish
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