Saturday Service

Text 1: The Hot Side, by Tamsin Okoro

An original novel extract.

‘Two lamb, one bass, three risotto, away!’ Chef’s voice cut through the kitchen like a cleaver, and the tickets kept coming, chattering out of the machine in a long white tongue that curled onto the floor. Leon had been on the pass for three weeks. Tonight was the first Saturday they had let him near the hot side.

Heat rolled off the stoves in waves. Pans hissed and spat. Somebody was shouting ‘Behind! Behind!’ and somebody else was swearing, and the extractor fans roared overhead like a plane that never took off. Leon’s risotto needed stirring. His bass needed turning. His hands were doing two things and his head was trying to do five.

‘Leon! Where’s my risotto?’ ‘Thirty seconds, Chef!’ It was not thirty seconds. He knew it was not thirty seconds. Sweat ran down his spine and into the waistband of his whites. He reached for the salt and knocked the oil, and the oil hit the flame, and for one bright second the pan was a column of fire in front of his face. Nobody even looked round. ‘Plate it,’ said Chef, ‘and stop playing with matches.’

How does Tamsin Okoro use language and structure to show the pressure Leon is under in the kitchen?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.