FOOD & DRINK / Daily Bread: Anton Edelmann: What the master chef ate one day last week

I RISE at 6.30 every morning and start the day with a cup of peppermint tea. I don't eat breakfast at home, it's too early. This morning when I got to work I had three glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, this was the first thing I tasted today. I have breakfast when I get to work; this morning I had haddock with poached egg. I also had a cup of peppermint tea: I drink peppermint tea all day long - it's so refreshing and helps with digestion. At about 8am I met the breakfast chef and tasted small quantities of the breakfast; this morning I tasted some of the black pudding, the poached and scrambled eggs. Every morning, the baker puts aside a plateful of all the different pastries I will taste. Today, this consisted of croissant, brioche, bread rolls, Danish, pain au chocolate and croissant filled with Philidelphia: this is one of my favourites and I had two of these. After about an hour in the office, I go to the kitchen at about 11.15 to oversee the preparations for lunch. During the morning, deliveries come into the kitchen and I make sure I see, taste, smell and touch samples of the produce. I then taste all the dishes on the menu as they are prepared. When lunch starts at 12.45, I taste, smell, touch anything that goes past me in the kitchen including starters, main courses, vegetables, sauces, meat, fish, pastries and so on. Lunch finishes at 2.30pm, when I prepare the orders for the next day, and then I sit down to my lunch. Today I had a piece of poached salmon with tomato and cucumber salad, followed by mixed summer fruits marinated in Chablis and creme de cassis with strawberry sorbet. I drank water with my lunch. I usually escape for an hour in the afternoon to play squash, returning to the kitchens at around 5pm to get ready for the evening service, which is usually busier than lunch. The tasting then begins again. I finish work at about 10.30pm and have my supper, which today was linguine with mint and fresh peas, one of the dishes on our dinner menu. I also had some more peppermint tea and then went home.

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