If You Can’t Stand the Heat!

In the world of Internet marketing, being nine years old is something to celebrate!  Especially if the next nine years look very encouraging indeed.  Thanks to some very hard work, fantastic clients and the arrival of James Caan as our new company chairman, we really did have a reason to push the boat out on March 20th this year.

Rather than look at the usual “team building” activity of making something out of barrels or paintballing your pent up aggression out on senior management, our MD Adam Stafford arranged something a little more constructive, but equally competitive,  for our  9th birthday party.  Many of us have seen Gordon Ramsey ranting and raging on ITV.  Fresh Egg client Red Anywhere has developed their own version of “Hell’s Kitchen” and since food and drink is – well food and drink – to all of us here at Fresh Egg, it seemed the ideal celebration, motivation and team building exercise!  Something a bit different that involved all of us egglets!

We were split into teams: The T Team (eventual runners up) of Tony, Andrew, Dave, Doug, Jaamit and Ollie.� The Toques (who won!) crewed by Adam, Chris, Pip, Gavin, Lee and Scrooby Dan (yup – the team with the directors in it won..umm?) and the multi-talented but ultimately unsuccessful Dan’s Kitchen Nightmares consisting of Dan, Tom, Stu, Duncan, Allan, Nikki and Musa.

On arrival at Red Anywhere’s professional kitchens in Littlehampton we were given a welcome drink and nibbles followed by a tour of the equipment under the guidance of Masterchef Dan Clarke.  He demonstrated some quick dishes to inspire us (I know how to cook a perfect steak and how to poach an egg now!)  and then revealed the mystery ingredients from which we’d have to create a three course menu for four covers, all of which had to be served to hapless “guest diners “in just one and a half hours!

Well, let’s just say that we all managed to serve on time and the concentration, rivalry, team work, standard of fare and plain fun was fantastic. There were some real foodies taking part and the winners actually did deserve their victory, maybe because they had an ex Chef (Chris) in their team.  Pretty much everything produced was edible – apart possibly from the dessert created by Dan’s Kitchen Nightmares, the brainchild of – well I shan’t say, but he knows who he is!   What was undoubtedly edible (delicious in fact!) was the two course supper Dan Clarke prepared for all of us and the well deserved glass of wine at the end of the contest.