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. 
A: ...Right away sir, your order will be ready shortly.
Jean Pierre, we have another special for table
seven!
B: I’m working as fast as I can! We’re really in the
weeds! Where is my sous chef? Luc! I need you
to peel more potatoes. Marie, chop some onions
and carrots for the stew.
A: Jean Pierre another special! We’re really packed
tonight! We’re running low on wine. Is there any
left in the cellar?
C: Sorry I’m late, everyone. Wow, we are doing really
well tonight!
B: Harry, stop talking and get over here I need this
sauce stirred and the fish needs to be butchered
and buttered.
C: Ok, I’m on it!
A: Jean Pierre, table seven has requested to see the
chef! I think they are food critics from Cuisine
Magazine
 
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, Jean Pierre. 
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. 
A: ...Right away sir, your order will be ready shortly.
Jean Pierre, we have another special for table
seven!
B: I’m working as fast as I can! We’re really in the
weeds! Where is my sous chef? Luc! I need you
to peel more potatoes. Marie, chop some onions
and carrots for the stew.
A: Jean Pierre another special! We’re really packed
tonight! We’re running low on wine. Is there any
left in the cellar?
C: Sorry I’m late, everyone. Wow, we are doing really
well tonight!
B: Harry, stop talking and get over here I need this
sauce stirred and the fish needs to be butchered
and buttered.
C: Ok, I’m on it!
A: Jean Pierre, table seven has requested to see the
chef! I think they are food critics from Cuisine
Magazine
 
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: You'd 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 they're 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. 
A: ...Right away sir, your order will be ready shortly.
Jean Pierre, we have another special for table
seven!
B: I’m working as fast as I can! We’re really in the
weeds! Where is my sous chef? Luc! I need you
to peel more potatoes. Marie, chop some onions
and carrots for the stew.
A: Jean Pierre another special! We’re really packed
tonight! We’re running low on wine. Is there any
left in the cellar?
C: Sorry I’m late, everyone. Wow, we are doing really
well tonight!
B: Harry, stop talking and get over here I need this
sauce stirred and the fish needs to be butchered
and buttered.
C: Ok, I’m on it!
A: Jean Pierre, table seven has requested to see the
chef! I think they are food critics from Cuisine
Magazine
 
E: So, Marco, do you think this chief had a rat under his hat? 
M: Hehe. That was a really good movie. 
E: Yeah. 
M: Ratatouille. 
E: Yeah. 
M: Disney-Pixar. 
E: Uh. 
M: Where the rat is a cook. 
E: Yes. 
M: It’s interesting I love to cook but I’m not very good at cooking. 
E: Really? 
M: But it’s good because for me… it helps me relieve stress. 
E: Me too, actually, you know, if I’m in a bad mood I go home and cook something to eat 
and… the world seems a happier place. 
M: Hehe. And people don’t understand because they think cooking is work. 
E: Yep. 
M: But, you know, for some people it’s fun. 
E: Yeah. 
M: So what about you guys? What did you like to cook? Do you have any particular dish 
that you prepare very well? 
E: And if you do, please send us the recipes. 
M: Hehe. Exactly, because we know that we have listeners from all over the world and, of 
course, we want to know what type of food you prefer. 
E: Uhu. 
M: So come to englishpod.com and post your questions, your comments and your recipes. 
E: Yes. 
M: In our community section and Erica and I will always be there. 
E: Yes, um, to test all your recipes as well as answer the questions. 
M: Hehe. For sure if, ah, good recipe comes along we’ll prepare it and, ah, we’ll let you 
know how it turned out. 
E: Yep. 
M: Alright guys, we’re out of time but we’ll see you next time. 
E: Until then… good bye! 
M: Bye!