M: Hello English learners! Welcome to EnglishPod! My name is Marco.

E: And I’m Erica.

M: And today we’re back bringing you another great lesson, ah, an intermediate lesson.

E: That’s right, about one of my favorite subjects.

M: We’re talking about food.

E: Exactly.

M: Hehe. So, on this occasion we’re gonna be talking about food, so, let’s preview some words on “vocabulary preview”.

Voice: Vocabulary preview.

E: Alright, we have three words for you today. Um, and the first word is head chef.

M: Head chef.

E: Head chef.

M: So, what is a head chef?

E: Well, in a professional kitchen, um, this is the boss of the kitchen or the leader of the kitchen.

M: Okay, so, the head chief is the… the main cook…

E: Yes, but…

M: Sort of saying.

E: He doesn’t cook

M: He… but he doesn’t cook.

E: Okay.

M: Alright, so if he doesn’t cook, who’s the one that… does the cooking?

E: Um, that brings us to our second word, sous chef.

M: Sous chef.

E: Sous chef.

M: Sous chef.

E: S-O-U-S.

M: So, the S is silent.

E: Uhu.

M: Because it’s like a French word.

E: Yeah, something like that.

M: Okay. So, the sous chef is the second in line to the head chef.

E: Yea, he’s the number two.

M: Number two.

E: Uhu.

M: So, he’s basically the one that’s doing some of the work.

E: Yeah.

M: In the kitchen.

E: Yep.

M: Now, let’s take a look at our last word, cuisine.

E: Cuisine.

M: Cuisine.

E: Cuisine.

M: So, this is an interesting word. What exactly does it mean?

E: Well, it basically means, um, cooking, right?

M: Okay.

E: Like the art of cooking.

M: So, for example, I can say French food.

E: Yeah, or French cuisine.

M: French cuisine, which includes all the food.

E: Yep.

M: And this also the major that people study in college…

E: Yes.

M: To become a chief.

E: Yep.

M: They study cuisine.

E: Uhu. And cuisine is a noun, right?

M: It’s a noun. Okay, so I think we’re ready to dive into our dialogue. What exactly is going on?

E: Well, um, we’re in a restaurant, um, and it’s a really busy night and so, we’re going to listen to what is happening in the kitchen.

DIALOGUE, FIRST TIME

M: Okay, so, a busy night here at this restaurant.

E: I know, it sounds like, ah, there’s a lot of pressure on this chief ??? [02m:56s]

M: Yeah. Hehe. Yeah, you can… you can tell in his voice that he’s really stressed out.

E: Yeah.

M: Okay, let’s take a look at some of this kitchen vocabulary that we found, ah, in “language takeaway”.

Voice: Language takeaway.

E: Alright, well, we’ve got five words for you today, ah, and the first one is peel.

M: Peel.

E: Peel.

M: Peel.

E: P-E-E-L.

M: So, this is a verb.

E: Uhu.

M: And it means to…

E: Remove the outside skin.

M: Okay, so, for example, when you’re gonna eat a banana.

E: You must peel it first.

M: You must peel it.

E: Yep.

M: You gotta take away the yellow skin.

E: Uhu.

M: What else do you peel? Oranges, potatoes.

E: Potatoes, like in the dialogue. Ah, what else can you peel? I don’t know, carrots.

M: Carrots.

E: Yeah.

M: Some people peel their tomatoes I don’t know why.

E: Yeah, it is kind of weird.

M: Alright, now let’s take a look at our next word, chop.

E: Chop.

M: Chop.

E: Chop.

M: So, again another verb and it means to…

E: It means to cut food in to pieces.

M: Oh… so if you’re gonna eat carrots, first you gotta chop them.

E: Exactly.

M: Right, you can’t put a whole carrot in…

E: In you soup.

M: In your soup…

E: No

M: Or in your rice.

E: Yep.

M: Okay, chop.

E: M…

M: Okay our next word, stirred.

E: Yeah, this is the past participle of the word stir.

M: Okay, so the verb stir.

E: Stir.

M: So, when you stir something…

E: Imagine you have a big pot.

M: Uhu.

E: Um, and you’ve got a long spoon, you move the spoon around in circles.

M: Okay.

E: So, you’re stirring the pot.

M: You’re mixing.

E: Uhu.

M: To stir is very similar to mix.

E: Yes.

M: Okay.

E: So you just move the food around.

M: Move the food around.

E: Yep.

M: Okay, our next word, butchered.

E: Again the past participle of the word butcher.

M: Okay, butcher.

E: Butcher.

M: Now, this is a verb to butcher something.

E: Uhu.

M: It’s when you remove all the bones and all the organs from the meat.

E: Exactly, so you cut up the meat.

M: And this is interesting because that’s also a noun.

E: Right, a butcher is the person who cuts up meat.

M: Okay, so… so it’s really easy, a butcher butchers meat.

E: Yes.

M: Hehe. Alright, our last word, buttered.

E: Buttered.

M: Buttered.

E: Buttered.

M: Okay, so buttered, this is weird.

E: I know, um, normally we all know the… the noun, butter.

M: Uhu.

E: But here it’s acting as a verb.

M: Okay.

E: So, when you butter something, you spread or put butter on it.

M: Okay.

E: Simple.

M: So, to put butter on something.

E: Yep.

M: So you can butter a piece of bread.

E: Exactly.

M: Or in this case the fish is being buttered.

E: Uhu.

M: Sounds delicious.

E: Yes.

M: Okay, now we’re ready to listen to our dialogue for the second time, we’re gonna slow it down a little bit so it’s easier to understand.

DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (Slow pace)

M: Okay, so that seems to be a little bit better.

E: Uhu. And, hey, I noticed that there’s a lot of really great kitchen words in here like words that you commonly hear in a professional kitchen.

M: Okay. So let’s take a look at these kitchen words in “fluency builder”.

Voice: Fluency builder.

E: Alright, we’ve got three phrases, ah, and the first one is in the weeds.

M: In the weeds.

E: In the weeds.

M: In the weeds.

E: So, when you in the weeds, you’re so so busy and you can’t do all the work you need to do on time.

M: Okay, so, in the weeds, it means that you’re really busy.

E: Yes.

M: And…

E: You can’t finish everything.

M: And you can’t… you have too much to do.

E: Yep.

M: Okay, in the weeds.

E: Uhu.

M: Okay, our next word, running low on.

E: Running low on.

M: Running low on.

E: Running low on.

M: Okay, so before we get into explaining what running lo on means, let’s listen to some examples.

Voice: Example one.

A: It better look for a gas station, we’re running low on fuel.

Voice: Example two.

B: We’re running low on beers. Can you go out and get some?

Voice: Example three.

C: My flashlight is running low on battery, hurry up before gets dark.

M: So basically running low means…

E: Um, you don’t have much of this left.

M: You don’t have much of something left.

E: Yep, so here the running low on wine, so basically…

M: There’s no much wine left.

E: Right.

M: So as we’ve heard in the examples you could also be running low on fuel, for example.

E: Uhu.

M: On your car…

E: Yep.

M: Etcetera. Running low on. Alright and now let’s take a look at our last word. Doing really well.

E: Doing really well.

M: We are doing really well.

E: Doing really well. So, that seems to be like a pretty simple structure, I mean we know all this words, right?

M: Uhu.

E: So, why is it special?

M: Well, basically, if you say I’m doing really well, maybe it sounds a little bit difficult to understand, what are you doing really well?

E: Uh.

M: So, this is a great way of answering a question when somebody says, how are you? or how are you doing? you can say, oh, I’m doing really well.

E: So…

M: Or I’m doing well.

E: In your life everything is good.

M: In your life thing are good and you’re happy basically.

E: Yeah, but in this situation, in the dialogue, what’s doing really well?

M: Well, the restaurant is doing really well, the business is doing really well.

E: So when he says we’re doing really well, um, business is…

M: Good.

E: Good, they’re making lots of money.

M: Exactly.

E: Uhu.

M: So you can use it with people, you can use it with businesses, you can say, oh, I’m doing really well in my new job.

E: Yep.

M: Or my son is doing really well in school.

E: Yep.

M: Okay, so, you can use in… in those different ways.

E: Alright, well, let’s listen to the dialogue, ah, one last time and we’ll be able to hear all of these great words and phrases we’ve just talked about.

DIALOGUE, THIRD TIME

E: So, Marco, do you think this chief had a rat under his hat?