The End

The restaurant industry is not known for its cheeriness.  The image of the downtrodden, jaded, veteran scars cook is a popular one.  Some seem to embrace it by accelerating their spiral around the drain with drugs, alcohol, and generally poor lifestyle choices.  They give in to their negative emotions, they yell, they slam tables, they throw plates and they fall in to a pattern of abuse, both physical and emotional, because the job is too damned hard.  Not only is it too damned hard but it's too damned hard to remain optimistic while doing it.  So they practice catharsis through rage because it's easier and it feels good, and they portray themselves on the cross; a modern day martyr who takes a $12/hour job because no one else will do it, no one else can do it.

There's some kind of sick satisfaction people take from that.

People don't understand why chefs get angry, why they seem to have comically infantile tempers.  They think it's the artist's ego.  That somehow the chef is an artist and that his incorrigible attitude can be justified by his own pride and genius.  People watch Hell's Kitchen to see Gordon lose his shit, to see the master at work. For some reason we tolerate insufferable personalities so long as it is coupled with equally juxtaposed talent. I don't necessarily disagree, I think how "good" a person is is largely irrelevant in the perspective of their ability to produce.  Michael Jordan?  Pathological asshole, but the greatest of all time.  Who cares if he was a vicious, gambling, borderline-murderous person?  He was not being paid to be a nice guy.  He was paid to win championships.  He is remembered as the greatest basketball player of all time, his legacy so untouchable that people are still unwilling to consider the most freakish genetic abomination ever to play the game as comparable.  Tiger Woods fucking wins.  He is the most recognized golfer in the world and he brings home Cups and Jackets.  I don't give a shit if he dipped his cone in to every-colored sprinkle in the shop, I don't watch Tiger because I need a role model for modern-day monogamy, I watch Tiger because he transcends golf.

And that's what a chef is expected to do.  His responsibility is not to be nice to you.  His responsibility is to make the owners money, to return their investment.  It's to keep the doors open, to keep butts in seats, to cook edible food, there is no fucking time for your feelings.  And there's little real concern for them also because time and time again people prove they don't respond to positive motivation, but they really fucking listen when people start yelling and throwing.

This, I believe.  I know it to be true, I've seen it too much.  People get hurt when chefs "attack" them but they're always concerned about themselves first.

"Why did he yell at me like that, that's not fair."
"He doesn't know how hard I am trying."
"I didn't mean to make that mistake, why can't he understand."

Because it's not his fucking job.  His job is to get you to perform, and if you let him, he's going to make you better.  You just have to stop being so butthurt and put aside your feelings for ten goddamn seconds.  It's too hard.

It's too many hours.
It takes too much passion, concentration and hustle.
It's too little pay.
It takes so much emotion, so much resilience.
It takes so much patience.

After all of that it's almost unfair of you to expect the chef to have anything left in the tank for your feelings.

So yes.  This, I believe.  Typical bitter, jaded-at-twenty-six Eric.  Falling in to the same pitfalls as everyone else, letting anger go on autopilot because it's easier and it vents the frustration better, especially when paired with alcohol.  In short, giving in to the dark side.

But of all places to change my mind, I never expected it to be culinary school.

Don't get me wrong.  People are shit heads.  The majority of young cooks, fresh culinary school graduates are complete ass hats lacking in maturity, dedication and a realistic perspective on just what they are about to embark on; a long, long journey of "fuck your life."

But there is hope.  It's not completely their fault.  Humans, by programming, tend to be faulty at age twenty.  They have too much cock'n'balls and not enough brains.  It's exhilarating to have that kind of confidence, to leap before looking, that blind and utterly unjustified reassurance that you're going to land on your feet.  But it doesn't serve you in a kitchen.  You have to be broken first.  You have to learn discipline.

I'm not sure what did it.  I guess watching the 18-year-old's actually grow up before your eyes is fairly remarkable.  As hard as I am on them, they would love to have seen me at their age and flip the tables.  I was completely incapable of working in a professional kitchen, as immature as I was unrealistic.  So I am proud of them even though I am not sure I should be.  I'm not their father nor brother nor superior.  But yet to see the work change someone is an impressive thing, something that can't help but give you hope.

And I guess it was falling in love again with the chaos.  The moment is painful.  That panicked sweat that burns like ice, that stressed adrenaline that sets your heart aflutter is a terrible, terrible feeling.  You try to think straight and plan your next move but your brain is blaring an alarm that screams "You're not going to make it! You're not going to make it!"  It takes a serious amount of courage to say "FUCK YOU!" and fight back.  I dare anyone to try it.  It'll make you shit your pants.

I love the work.  I like busting ass, I like polishing plates, I like pouring my life out on to a grill.  I like cutting meat, I like cooking meat and I like the satisfaction of making the show run.

I like it all so much that I came to another important realization.  Stars, reviews don't matter anymore, this is not a trek to be the best in the critic's eye.  They control a great deal of success, yes, I am not unaware of reality.  But at the end of the day, what do they know?  Food is so subjective and personal to all of us, success is not measured in stars, it's measured in happiness.  Something that is inherently immeasurable.

So, what about culinary school?

The aforementioned embittered, salty cooks love to shit on culinary school.  They forget when they were unripe saplings who were unfit for the industry.  They are only capable of looking at themselves now, people who have survived trial by fire and realized how much a chef can teach you in two hours, while paying you no less.  They look back on student loans and then they really question the value of school.  And then they get thrown fresh graduates and interns every day and are reminded of how watered-down the system has become, and how terrible green cooks can be.

Of course they hate culinary school.

But me, of all people, a once-and-future champion of angry cooks everywhere, someone who had little to no faith in the inherent goodness of the human spirit, must disagree.

Culinary school is worth it.  You just have to make it worth it.

Line cooks will tell you that.  Use the resources, you get what you put in to the school.  That advice doesn't really hit home until it's almost too late.  It's all here for you.  You can continue to moan about how the school is turning a massive profit on your free labor, or you can just shut the fuck up already and clean the walk-in.  Culinary school is not about teaching you techniques.  It's not about abusing your labor.  It's about teaching you all the intangibles, and if you missed that then you missed the whole point.  Then you really fucking wasted your money.

It's about communication.

Something as simple as "Hot! Coming down the line!" so you don't burn your coworkers, stop a crazy service and piss everyone the fuck off, to something as complex as getting four stations, four cooks with four different proteins with four different cooking techniques to put finished plates up in the window within 30 seconds of each other.

It's about discipline.

Chef-instructors don't make you clean the walk-in because the health department is going to shut you down and you're going to waste product (well, that's all secondary).  They do it to teach you what's right.  It is so painfully black and white in a kitchen, it's either right or it's wrong, and a fucked-up walk-in is so wrong it's goddamn blasphemy to your religion.  You're a goddamn heretic if you can't keep a walk-in clean and organized.  You should be burned at the motherfucking stake.  You don't clean because somebody tells you to or because that's what you're paid to do, you clean because it's the right thing to do.  Doing the right thing, at least in the restaurant industry, almost always means doing it the hard way.  The painful, dirty, unpleasant way.  Cleaning the walk-in when you're working for zero dollars an hour and you just want to go home is to remind you of that.

It's about integrity.

Unfortunately, chef-instructors inevitably put up some shitty food.  Then someone gets a mediocre plate and has the audacity to say "this chef sucks," or "this school sucks."  Don't knock it til you've tried it, and by tried it I mean take worthless rookie cooks, people who couldn't earn a dime in a real kitchen, and have them put out food on time and on temp.  Now switch out your roster every 3 weeks.  I respect the system and I try to make it so I never have to be abused by it.  Because while chefs have to put out your dog shit plate on occasion, because the situation demands it, they'll let you know.  They'll let you know that that is really not worth serving and if you can't do this right, then you shouldn't do it at all.  You want praise?!  You want me to tell you when you're doing a good job?  As a cook, you are paid to put out food at a certain standard, having a perfect service is completely expected of you.  Being the best, being on point is only doing what you were asked to do in the first place.  Suck it up, no ones giving out Milk Bones because you hit medium rare, little doggy.  Congratu-fucking-lations, give it to me again and faster, the tickets are coming in.

And it's about pride.

"Take pride in your work" is so cliche and overused that I'm not even really sure what it means anymore.  I'm not even totally aware of what the concept of pride means and how it fits in to the context of a restaurant.  I know it means swallowing it sometimes.  That even if you are being unjustly dressed down, to take it like a man and respect the chain of command.  I know it means knowing your limits.  You will come to a point where you will need help and you cannot drag yourself out of the weeds by yourself.  While the idea of going down in flames as captain of your ship is appealing, your martyrdom is not appreciated.  There are paying customers out there, you have to know how to ask for help.  I know it means being proud of the little things. Having a shelf so painfully meticulous that the plastic wrap on your food has no crinkles, it looks like a window.  All the labels are cut at 90 degree angles, are level with each other and face the same way.  The food is lined up like Nazis on parade, the rims clean and the containers unblemished.

And I know it's about being aware of when it's over.

Every chef-instructor in there will catch flak, maybe behind doors, by some hot-shot cook at a Michelin-star restaurant who thinks, "He's a sell out.  He bought the farm because he couldn't handle the grind and now he's doing his 9-5, Monday to Fridays because he couldn't cut it.  He's a hack."

When you turn 35, when your alimony checks get bigger and your kids start calling you by your first name, reassess your priorities and tell me who you think is a hack.

Of course they cashed out. Of course every single one of them had dreams.  Dreams to go big, to be the next big thing, to have stars, reviews, newspapers, all of it.  But very few make it.  It's so much less about talent or skill or "genius."  It's just all about dedication and everybody's got a limited tank.  Yeah, everybody can cook but nobody can cook forever.  It's just about hanging on, the people who make it are the ones who are most willing to abuse themselves and to sacrifice the healthier parts of their lives.  They're the ones who are so addicted to the adrenaline that they can't wean themselves off the drug.  The ones who make it are truly sick fucks indeed.

So, while you think you're great, and that hangovers don't affect you, and trying to bang out hoes is really fun, coke does more good than bad, and you're such a badass because you can cook chicken to a safe level of consumption, talk to me in 10 years.  When the battery's sputtering and your body hates you for what you did to it all those years ago.  When the girls don't care anymore because you're fat and your brain is like Swiss cheese, barely able to keep track of tickets on a given night.  Talk to me then about who's the hack and who can't cut it.

I grew a lot here and it's almost embarrassing because I started here at the age of twenty four, years ahead of the pack.  I worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant, I got my ass handed to me, forced down my throat, out and back in.  I cooked with some really great people, developed friendships that don't really work in the civilized world but work so well in a kitchen.  People with whom the conversation runs dry after you stop talking about food, but yet you know each other almost better than their girlfriend does because something about the kitchen reveals you.  There is no hiding, your character and your actions are the same.  Cooking shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, surviving that chef or that 25-head PDR banquet, burning each other on occasion... it's the simplest and yet most intangible relationship you could ever hope for, and I will cherish those moments forever.

So I am sad to see it go.  I have a tendency to mature very slowly, taking time to make my life realizations, but when it's set it's stone.  It's not efficient, money or time-wise, and it's not impressive but it was enlightening.  And while I am sad to say good-bye, I at least have the confidence to say I am better than when I came.

Chef S., thank you for teaching me that not all lessons are happy, that time is indeed inescapable.  I bet you were lights-out back in the day, your pleasantness will not be forgotten.

Chef C., thank you for teaching me that anything we eat and put in our bodies inherently results in a whole host of complex issues, ranging from the ethical to the nutritional.  Thank you for reminding me to think when I seemed so desperate to avoid it.

Chef E., thank you for showing me what mastery means.  That skills are hard-earned and long-fought, but so incredibly worth the effort.  Thank you for showing me how impressive it is to cut meat.  You are the last of your kind and the world will miss you.

Chef R., thank you for teaching me how to teach others.  That all things in life are in balance and that we, as chefs, must always strive to negotiate our standards of toughness and compassion.

Chef P., thank you for reminding me of the more erudite nature of cooking, of how academics and theory apply to our craft.

Chef E., thank you for reawakening me.  You recognized my stupor and how my potential did not match my motivation.  Thank you for teaching how far a little terror can go.  The locked stare of your ice-blue eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Chef N., thank you for teaching me how far-reaching compassion can be, that kitchens aren't all about yelling and slamming and cursing, that you can get a lot out of someone with heart, you just have to give a shit.

Chef R., thank you for teaching me that life is about balance, that if your mind always wants to be at home, then you can't truly be at work.  I hope everything smooths out for you.

Chef P., thank you for reminding me of what it takes to run the show.  How hard it is, how rewarding it is, and how life-changing it is.

The end of one chapter and the start of another.

To the real world,

EP6