SERVICE STAFF
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 Chef |
Difficulty: Medium Requirements: 1 hour in Service Access: Service, Maintenance, Kitchen Extended Access: Hydroponics, Bar Supervisors: Head of Personnel Subordinates: None Duties: Cook food, force the botanists to do their job. Guides: Guide to cooking, List of Recipes |
As the chef, your goal is to provide food for the hungry masses using your trusty Microwave, Grinder, and Deep-fryer. Depending on the shift, some of the time you'll have almost no customers, while others you'll be overwhelmed. It is your job to coordinate with the bartender and the other chefs and manage food distribution and rationing, and the types of food needed for the current situation. Ask Botany for the required plants, or stick to animal products.
Open for Business
When starting your shift, your first job is to decide with the other chefs what's on the menu for the shift. Order the botanists on what to grow. Next, is to go to Logistics and order a Cow if you don't already have one. If there's no Botanists on your shift, contemplate getting your own hands dirty if you can get into Hydroponics. Alternatively, consider whether you can stomach cannibalism and if so, make a deal with Medical for unused corpses. You'll be competing with the Medical team and Logistics for precious corpses (both animal and human). Medical needs them for biomass and Logistics wants them as they sell well. Remember to use the Radio to work closely with the crew.
In an emergency where you just cannot source ingredients, plead with the Chemists to generate sugar and salt out of thin air. Remember to return their container if you want them to not get irritated.
When ending your shift, remember to stock up on your created foodstuffs and haul them with you (in a crate if need-be) to Evac. On the shuttle be sure to fill the tables with your food.
Cooking and You
The Basics
Cooking is currently very simple as all you will require is a microwave and gathering ingredients. You will at times need the microwave, a beaker or a knife to prepare some raw ingredients (e.g. mix flour & water to get dough), check the cook book on the kitchen table for more info.
The main, and only, tool used for cooking is the microwave. You can also start with an electric grill or you might need to get Epistemics to research it. See the Guide to Cooking for a list of recipes.
To serve your food, you can use the table that faces the main hallway or serve patrons in person. Theoretically, you can work with the Bartender to serve patrons in the bar, but most chefs don't. If you're lazy you can also hire a random Service Worker to act as a waiter but don't count on them too much.
This is a Knife, and That is a Rolling Pin
The knifes and the rolling pins are invaluable in making food. You can cut cheese very easy with the knife, slice foods like pizza and cakes, and prepare other foods (test what you can cut with it). Some animals can be butchered with the knife as well. The rolling pin, meanwhile, is used to flatten certain ingredients, such as dough, to make pizzas.
Other than that, they are also weapons! The knife, in particular, is an excellent melee weapon.
The Microwave
The Microwave is the Chef's (and unlucky prisoner's) choice of heating utensil, being able to cook everything from bread, to pizza and pies, as long as you select the right time to cook. It has a menu layout similar to the grinder, with ingredients in the microwave on the left, and a selection of buttons on the right. You can pick between Instantaneous and 30 seconds of cooking time using said buttons. Each recipe requires a different time in the microwave. If the ingredients or time are wrong the ingredients in the microwave will either be spit out or it will burn into a burnt mess.
The Deep Fryer
The deep fryer is a kitchen tool to create different food and items from items which may or may not normally be edible. You can start by making sure the deep fryer is turned off to add additional oil and then turn it back on. You can click the deep-fryer while holding items to put them into the fryer or throw them in. After a bit of use the deep fryer will need to be cleaned with a bowl or a beaker and the waste material can be dumped. Oil can be obtained from Logistics, juicing corn, or heating butter.
The Electric Grill
The Electric Grill is the Chef's new way of cooking meat. This includes burger patties, steaks, and meatballs. Simpler than the oven, all you have to do is slap your meats onto the surface of the thing. Remember to turn it on! It has three modes; low, medium and high. This purely dictates how quick things cook.
Hydroponics
Your neighbour most of the time, hydroponics, is a necessity for you to make most recipes. Take a gander at the window early on and see if there are any botanists working, and if there aren't any inside, wait a bit for one to be sent on the arrivals shuttle or go ask the Head of Personnel for botany access so that you can grow your own plants. They will most of the time grant you access because hydroponics isn't a high-risk area. Good things to ask the botanists for to start with are wheat, tomatoes, and potatoes. These three plants are used commonly in recipes, and after you ask botany for those you can ask them for other plants when they need to be used in a recipe.
Homeopathy
All food contains the universal ingredient called "Nutriment" and "Protein". It's what nourishes you and heals your injuries when you eat. Although food might not heal you as quickly as the doctor can (or from the more exotic dangers of the station), it can often heal for more over time.
Tips
- A small menu will make your life (as well as Botany's) infinitely easier as you won't need a bazillion different ingredients on hand. Make sure all kitchen staff knows the recipes for the foods you want, teach them if necessary.
- Most cooked foods can be cut into slices, deliver these to customers instead of the entire batch. Food is expensive in labor and a single crewmember doesn't need a whole pizza.
- Different foods have different nutritional values. Many meat dishes have protein, and other healthy dishes have vitamins. Some healthy dishes, like nettle soup, may even have omnizine.
- You have a utensil dispenser, it is essentially a vending machine for cups, bowls, mugs, and the like. It also contains knives and your trusty cleaver. Thankfully it can only be accessed normally by the chefs, but if someone gains kitchen access, they can quickly gain a very deadly weapon. Don't be afraid to call Security if there is a trespasser, or complain to the Head of Personnel if they are giving out unneeded access.
- Your ingredient dispenser will help you get started while Botany is getting in gear.
- When holding a container such as a bucket or beaker, you can Alt+Click on a Cow in order to fill it with milk.
- A lot of recipes require Flour. You can craft it by grinding Wheat in your Grinder.
- The meat spike in your freeze can be used to easily turn humanoid corpses into meat. To do so, drag-and-drop the body onto the spike, then slice meat off the body with your knife. Note that the meat will be automatically labeled with the original creature's name, but this can be removed with a labeler or by cooking with it if needed.
- If you plan to work in your freezer, whether because you need to store corpses or butcher animals, you should wear a winter coat to avoid cold damage, especially if you are reptilian as you will freeze much faster. Your ChefDrobe can provide you with one such coat. If you do end up freezing, you can treat the damage with Dermaline at Medbay (chemists usually stock up on those and leave them on the front counter).
- While not strictly Antagonists, mice are your greatest enemy. They are small, nimble, and they will gobble any available piece of food in a matter of seconds. You are provided with mousetraps which will instantly kill the pesky critters if they step on them, so feel free to trap every door and table in the kitchen. Alternatively, you can just keep your ingredients secure in a closed fridge, as mice are unable to open containers.
- Your Cleaver is extremely deadly, and should be treated as such. Keep it in your pocket or backpack when not in use to prevent stealing, and only use as a last resort or in extreme circumstances, such as assault.
- If you are not an Antagonist, you are not supposed to claim trespassing Clowns as ingredients no matter how funny it would be. If you are short on meat, you can use a Monkey Cube.
- Your microwave does not like metal items. Do not put your knife in there by accident when cooking something.
- Plain bread is the hallmark of the unimaginative Chef. Don't be that Chef.
- Close your door behind you when you enter the kitchen. If you leave your door open when you come in, a murderer can run in and quickly stab you, take your ID, and throw you in disposal before you can say "BORK BORK BORK!"