“A waste of time, because doesn’t everyone rummage at the
back to get the freshest stock? I know I always do.” The following
week, she was appointed deputy head of fruit and vegetables:
“I thought that was quite major, but you have to carry potatoes;
that was heavy, hard manual labour. I didn’t like that one.”
At this point, her interest in food didn’t extend much
beyond eating it (her appetite and lithe frame earned her the
moniker Hollow Legs), so she wasn’t busy concocting recipes
in her head. Her Waitrose “dream” was to move away from
the produce altogether and on to the tills, and the prestigious
position of being able to say, “That’s £60.50, please.” Her
manager told her that she had to work her way up to the
prized post. (Her brother had reached the Waitrose zenith,
having cut his teeth stacking the cereal shelves.)To say that television chef and former model Lorraine Pascale’s
first day working at an Oxfordshire Waitrose was a less-than-
glamorous affair is an understatement. She calls it “turkey
patrol”. The then 16-year-old schoolgirl was tasked with
safeguarding the frozen turkeys all day, every day, for an entire
week. Animal rights activists had recently been roaming grocery
stores, injecting the turkeys with poison, so it was her job to
ensure they weren’t tampered with. “I just stood there until
it was time to go home,” she laughs. “Those days were long.”
Her diligence was enough to make her manager promote
her to “dairy” the week after, a role that involved rotating the
yoghurt pots to ensure the fresher ones were kept at the back. > 328Hair: Neil
Moodie. Make-up:
Laura Dominique.
Nails: Zarra Celik.
Digital artwork:
Rabbit Retouch.
With thanks to
Fortnum & MasonLORRAINE PASCALE^
Waitrose employeeLORRAINE WEARS SHIRT AND SKIRT, BOTH PRADA. SHOES, MANOLO BLAHNIK. EARRINGS, MERCEDES SALAZAR, AT KOIBIRD.COM28309-19-Well-FirstJob.indd 283 04/07/2019 11:11