Chef

Overview
As a Chef it's your primary job to keep customers fed. You have free reign over managing your menus and styling your kitchen and restaurant to your liking. You should have a fellow Chef to share the kitchen, or a cook. You share the dining area outside of the bar and should coordinate with the bartender to keep the whole place running well. It is important to also get your menu set up and handed out so the crew has both advertising, and an idea of the theme you've set up for food this shift!

You should also make sure you are setting up proper prices for your meals. Cash or card, it's important to get a revenue coming in so you are always able to afford Cargo orders or, if there's no botany, growing your own produce in the public garden!

Equipment
You get a lot of cool kitchen related things, like these:


 * 1 Meat Spike. You can use these to butcher monkeys for a high volume of meat.
 * A gibber. You can throw almost anything in the gibber (except people when it's functioning properly!) and get meat. It's only cost effective for large mobs such as cows. Is this ethical...?
 * 2 Dinnerware vendors that can dispense trays, plates, cups, and knives. One is for you, the other is for customers.
 * 2 stoves which will form the backbone of your meal preparation and cooking.
 * An oven for baked goods.
 * A fryer that will drive you insane deep-fries any food you put in it.
 * A candy machine that makes candy.
 * A Smart Fridge to hold produce.
 * A SmartHeater to hold finished meals.
 * A CondiMaster that allows you to separate and bottle liquid ingredients.
 * An All-In-One Grinder to create liquids or powders.
 * Drinks dispenser that services the customers or yourself
 * In absence of a gardener, you start with a box filled with 8 random commonly used vegetables and fruit.
 * Shutters to close you in for privacy or other things.

Menu Making
A menu can help set up the theme for your restraunt. When you get one prepared, copy off about 40 of them and get a few assistants to hand them out and set them on every table. Alternatively, you can use the holo-menu. The future is now!

There are many ways to format your menu. Be sure to be creative! The only things you need are the meals and their prices. Everything else is up to you!

Some examples are below.

Menu formats
Menu 1

Menu 1



[u][large][center]Horizon Restaurants[/center][/large][/u]

[b]Breakfast Specials[/b] - [meal] - [credits]

[b]Lunch Specials[/b] - [meal] - [credits]

[b]Dinner Specials[/b] - [meal] - [credits]

Menu 2 Menu 2



The Kitchen menu!

Breakfast Specials - [meal] - [credits] Drink Options - [x]

Lunch Specials - [meal] - [credits] Drink Options - [x]

Dinner Specials - [meal] - [credits] Drink Options - [x]

Recipes
Main Article: Guide to Food.

Money Making and Budgeting
Since you are part of the service department an important part of your job is to make money. You have three primary methods of gaining payments:

EFTPOS, cash, and the Ordering Terminal.

EFTPOS is like a portable cash register. After you get the account details for the Service Department from the Executive Officer, you can start charging with funds going directly to the account. You should also ask about being given an ID card with access to the department account for making cargo purchases. It's like a company debit card!

EFTPOS
First EFTPOS setup: 1. Memorize your EFTPOS command code (provided with all EFTPOS devices). 2. Connect the EFTPOS to the account in which you want to receive the funds.

When starting a new transaction: 1. Enter the amount of money you want to charge and a purpose message for the new transaction. 2. Lock the new transaction. If you want to modify or cancel the transaction, you simply have to reset your EFTPOS device. 3. Give the EFTPOS device to your customer, he/she must finish the transaction by swiping their ID card or a charge card with enough funds. 4. If everything is done correctly, the money will be transferred. You will hear a ping if the payment was successful. To unlock the device you will have to reset the EFTPOS device.

Ordering Terminal
The Idris Ordering Terminal is very similar to the EFTPOS except it is already linked to the Civilian account and allows for prices to be attached to items. The terminal is in the hallway outside of the kitchen, right next to the ATM.

To modify the terminal options: 1. Open the terminal interface. 2. Toggle the terminal lock. 3. Swipe your ID. 4. Add any items and their prices. 5. Toggle the lock again to stop editing the available items.

When someone buys an item or items from the terminal, it prints a receipt and ticket which they can then present to you.

Cash
If you have no Executive Officer, or they don't want to give you any account details for some reason, or EFTPOS is too complicated for you, then there is the tried and true method of having people pay with cash. This is a far simpler method:

1. Have the customer use the nearby ATM to withdraw the necessary funds. 2. Accept the funds. 3. Put the funds somewhere safe, like the tip jar. 4. Wait for a Executive Officer or Captain to show up to deposit the money in the department account, or use it for department purchases as-is.

Department Finances: Paying For Stuff With Your Own Hard Earned Revenue
Sometimes you need to buy things for your kitchen. Cargo provides many unique items that are not immediately available in the kitchen that can help you make new recipes. You need to use department funds to pay for department purchases - it would be very unfair for you to pay out of pocket for kitchen expenses!

It is also helpful when there is no botanist. There is a garden on the surface level where you can spend money to buy and grow seeds into various produce. Taking money for your starting menu, and using the money to pay for seeds to grow into produce that you then make into food to sell to crew for a profit, is already creating a whole mini-game that you can do even without your botanist ally.

Try to see what other things you can do with your funds! As long as you try to stay in the black...

Cooking and You
You can cook any meal with the vast array of machines available to you. Just be careful, if you leave food and ingredients cooking for too long they'll become burned messes and could even catch fire!

Some ingredients need to be processed before they can be used in recipes. The grinder and condimaster make this easy for liquid ingredients, however others may have their own process. Make sure you have enough dough and cheese! For details on recipes and how to make certain ingredients, look through the Guide_to_Food.

If you want to personalize a meal, or perhaps you want to make a dish that isn't possible, just use your pen on a finished meal. You can change the name and description to whatever you want, although this won't change the taste of the food. Similarly, sandwiches can contain whatever you want. Go wild!

You can cut various dishes with the knife you have, such as cheese wheels and pizzas.

Hydroponics
Your neighbor, hydroponics, is tasked mainly with growing vegetables and fruits for you to use in your dishes. They will dump what they produce into the smart fridge that is located in both of your walls. Be sure to tell them what to grow, as they are currently incapable of reading your mind. A good starting task to tell them is to grow wheat, tomatoes, and potatoes, as these plants are used most in your recipes. After they have those, just request plants as needed. They are also capable of producing milk and meat with biomass, which can become very useful if you do not have cargo staff to order cattle from.

If you have no gardener, you can access the public garden just below the library.

Ordering chickens for the gardener is a good step to take if you know you'll be needing more eggs than the ones you start with. Feed them with wheat to get them to lay eggs. Unattended eggs may hatch into more chickens. Chickens can also be put into the meat grinder to make chicken meat.

Blending
All food contains the universal ingredient called "Nutriment." It's what nourishes you and heals your injuries when you eat. Although food might not heal you as quickly as the doctor can, and won't heal the more unusual types of damage, it can often heal for more over time.

You can blend anything that comes from botany, and pretty much all food. Nutriment can be added to your dishes to make them more filling. Some plants contain other liquids that can be used as condiments or as ingredients in food.

Traitoring
Traitor Chef is an interesting position. You can take syringes full of nasty chemicals and inject it into food items. If you have a compatriot in Hydroponics, they can grow you some poisonous shrooms which you can then refine with the Blender and ChemMaster. Don't forget your knife and rolling pin, the pin causes partial blindness, and the knife has pretty good damage, which can be useful in a pinch.

Remember, the gibber only accepts humans when emagged, so decide if it's worth the telecrystals.