In her kitchen Linda O'Sullivan works like a dervish, lost in a world of her own. From early in the morning, dressed in a white jacket and check trousers, she rushes back and forth from sink to work-top, peeling, whipping, chopping, kneading, dicing, slicing and mashing. After prepping the vegetables, meat and sauces, she goes on to create mouth-watering desserts such as red currant meringue pie, blueberry crepes, lemon curd brulee and peppermint meringue filled with strawberries. Each dish is lovingly created.
Working on her own brings her back to an earlier time in her life, she says. The smells, the activity, it all triggers off memories of the time she spent working in The Donut Cafe, a seaside cafe where she worked alongside her mother and her sister in Tramore, Co Waterford.
Her love of cooking comes from those busy days when she worked over three summers in the kitchen, preparing the food and then helping to serve it as well. She was on holidays from school. "I was always interested just from pottering around in the kitchen," she says. She learned all sorts of things at home about cooking and baking from her mother but it was the summer cafe which her mother ran that gave her a real taste for the business.
They made sandwiches, lasagne, quiches, salads and of course, donuts. "It was very busy," she recalls. "The more I got into it, the more I enjoyed it." She says her mother "got on well with the staff and the customers as well as being very organised". It all helped to make the cafe a great place to work.
Today Linda O'Sullivan is head chef at The Old Rectory Country House and Restaurant in Wicklow.
To be a good chef you have to be "very organised, very clean, skillful, creative and very patient", she explains. "Some of the dishes need a lot of attention and prepping. You have to be prepared to have patience. If you don't have the patience you won't enjoy it."
She went to Star of the Sea Primary School in Tramore and then on to Stella Maris Secondary School. After completing the Leaving Cert she was too young to apply for a CERT course so she applied for a pre-CERT course in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny. "That covered all the aspects of catering - dining room skills, hospitality, chefing, waitressing, bar work - in one year." After this course she went to Rosslare to study for a certificate in professional cookery. This two-year residential course, which included "about 40 of us", was "tough". It included "supervised study" but the whole experience was "enjoyable, you met people and we worked as a team".
She knew at the outset about the long hours in the chefing business but she was so committed that this didn't matter, she says. "You'll put your heart into it no matter how long the hours are.". Anyway, the long hours in the business have improved since then, she says.
Part of the training involved work placements. She spent six months working in the Grand Hotel in Wicklow. "I got my first real cooking experience in a big hotel," she recalls. "I got to see all the various aspects, how everything works." There were six of them in the kitchen. They did a lot of weddings and functions. "It was rewarding work," she recalls.
Her experience to date includes a year at the nearby Tinakilly House and Restaurant, Co Wicklow. After this she went to Waterford city to work in Jury's Hotel and she stayed there for six years. Then she went on to run a bar and restaurant in Kilmeaden. She moved to The Bakery Restaurant in Wicklow town for one year before changing to her new job at the Old Rectory, where she's been for the past year.
Working in the hotel and catering sector is a job you can literally bring anywhere in the world, she says. "It opens up immense opportunities for young people."
