Why Not to be a Chef
Some Random Thoughts
This month I am winding down my career. I have been working in bakeries and restaurants since the year I started college. That year was 1980 and it was the year that Jimmy Carter handed the presidency off to Ronald Reagan. Well, that actually happened in January 1981.
Anyway…the point I want to make is that I have been doing this for a while. And every year it gets harder. For a lot of reasons.
As an old guy (51…which is ancient in kitchen years) working seventy or eighty hour weeks is a bit problematic. I have had one knee fixed arthroscopically and I need to get the other one done sooner rather than later. My right elbow has been in a state of constant inflamation for three years. My back hurts. All of the time.
There is more to consider than the physical pain. There is the time issue. What is that? The time issue revolves around the fact that your life schedule will be the exact opposite of everyone else you know in your life. Except the people you work with. Holidays? You work. A friend’s wedding or funeral or birthday? You won’t be going. Why? You will be working. You will be working because you’re short of people. You will be working because you have some important people coming in for lunch or dinner. You will be working because as a chef, you work. Even when you’re not working you’re working. Day off? Phone calls and emails and text messages. As a chef, on your day off, your phone blows up big time. A cooler has stopped working. Someone yelled at a cook or sous chef and they quit. The scallops you wanted for tonight’s special are suddenly not available.I could go on for two years.
I am a chef. Not a chef who has become a restaurateur. Not a chef who plays a chef on The Food Network. I curate my ingredients, I prep the food, I wash my own dishes sometimes and sharpen my own knives and I cook or expedite the kitchen during service. And I have done this part of the job for twenty two seasons in the Hamptons. I have also appeared on the Food Network from time to time with Ina Garten and Bobby Flay a few times so I don’t want to seem like a disparaging malcontent. I have enjoyed my time there…but the life of a chef is quite different from what you see on television. Even Anthony Bourdain knows this in his heart of hearts.
Another reason it gets harder because the agriculture in the United States has been in a downward spiral since the 1970s. In my opinion. It is tough to cook when you don’t have great agricultural products to work with on a daily basis. You have to “cook against” the products that should make cooking the really simple task that it is. While the EU has sought to safeguard the farming and production practices of their member nations here in the United States our government seeks to safeguard the food manufacturing rights of Big Agriculture and Big Food. Good, healthy and nutrionally sound food should always be cheap and readily available to everyone. I agree with that. But the reality is that cheap food is garbage.
So how does this relate to someone like you who wants to be a chef? In almost every way imaginable. You owe it to yourself to find the best of everything you want to use when you cook food for people to eat. In fact you want to have at your disposal stuff that is so good and so sound that it blows your mind.And the minds of your customers. Be in awe of your ingredients! Worship them because they define you as a cook. They determine your destiny as a cook or as a chef.
I have spent my career doing this very thing and I interject a bit of technique. That is the simple part in my opinion. But in the United States, as chefs, we need to dedicate a lot of time to curating the products we use. We need to get back in touch with the land.
I suspect that will lead to another post. Or two.
