By MEGAN MACKANDER
What’s a good-old-fashioned recipe for a bitter, passive-aggressive waitress?
Take a bowl of frustration, add some pessimism and just a dash of finger-clicking customer rudeness before garnishing with revenge. Serve immediately or until otherwise fired.
Larissa Dubecki is the first to admit she was never a good waitress. In fact, she says she was downright terrible.
And after more than a decade facing demanding customers and filthy kitchens, she has moved to the other side of the dinner table to become a sought-after food critic.
The 43-year-old has put down the napkin and put pen to paper to spill the beans on the hospitality industry in her memoir Prick with a Fork.
From dingy internet cafes, to her first job at a restaurant she affectionately dubbed the ‘Il Crappo Italiano’, Dubecki has experienced it all.
The Melbourne-based writer says if her bad attitude could be subject to copyright, her 12 years as a waitress would have left her “obscenely wealthy”.
“Sullen insolence was my personal trademark, diligently honed and perfected over time,” Dubecki says.
Prick with a Fork explores the ins and outs of what she says it’s really like in the restaurant kitchen. Dubecki dishes up the dirty secrets of the hospitality industry, and not everything comes up as sweet as chocolate cake.
If you have ever considered ordering the steak, think again.
“If a chef is asked to cook a steak more, I have seen them throw the steak on the floor first, then put it back on the grill. I don’t know why they do it,” Dubecki says.
“Steaks are the most common thing to come back to the kitchen – everyone thinks they are an expert and that they know better.