Hospitality: Why I Cook

Cooking is a hard business. Anyone who tells you that it isn’t is a liar. A big, fat liar.

Sure, there are plenty of people who “fell into it,” but it’s just as easy to leave it. There are cooks and chefs leaving the industry every day for easier jobs with more work/life balance. I’ve heard of cooks leaving the industry to be anything from purveyor reps to electricians to fishing equipment salesmen. I get it. I understand.

Sometimes working as a cook or a chef can make you doubt what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Sometimes it’s a chef riding you too hard. Sometimes it’s a guest that’s particularly difficult. Sometimes you just feel like you’re all alone on an island doing it all yourself.

There are many, like me, who glamorized the industry back in the early days of the Food Network and Top Chef. We read books, followed famous restaurants, became starfuckers, willing to praise anyone who had stars, or a name. We wanted to be those people, so we started working from the bottom up.

This is something that I think wears off after a while. Once you’ve worked with enough Michelin starred or Top Chef contestants or winners, you realize… they’re human too. Just like everyone else, they have flaws and they’re just trying to get through the day like any of us.

That’s not to say that they aren’t talented or are highly skilled. Of course, talent is something you’re born with or you’re not. Being highly skilled, on the other hand is just a function of putting in the time and the attention to detail. It’s the time and attention to detail that allows the imagination of a cook to present an idea in a new way. It’s the hours of acquiring and internalizing knowledge that allows a cook to be great.

It would be one thing to be able to sit an experiment in a lab, but most cooks don’t have that luxury. They spend 90% of their time prepping someone else’s menu, banging pans on the line, making on-the-fly adjustments to meals to accommodate someone else’s dietary restrictions, and trying to make ends meet. It’s all a lot. It’s enough to make so many cooks I’ve met say uncle, pack their shit, and live a different life.

I think in order to be someone who sticks around in this business, you can’t be solely focused on being someone of that top tier. For me, sure, I love cooking, but I could be doing that at home like I did 15 years ago for friends. What this industry gave me was the ability to be who I am.

When I was an accountant, I couldn’t curse loudly in the office or make crass jokes. There was nothing creative or fun about the numbers I was working with. The highlights of my days as an accountant were the times I got to interact with the clients and provide good customer service.

That was something that followed me to the restaurant industry. A lot of the highlights of my career thus far revolve around my guests and my regulars, getting to know them, feeding them, seeing them over and over. I’ve cooked private dinners for regulars, as well as rehearsal dinners, and for engagements. I’ve followed their lives from first dates to buying their first home.

For a guy who admittedly doesn’t date much, goes home to an empty apartment, sleeps very little, and who works all of the time, I manage to create connection in my life through my relationship with my guests, regulars, and my coworkers.

I absolutely love cooking. I love rockin’ out on a busy night banging pans. I love experimenting with techniques and ingredients. I love feeding people. I love meeting people, and the food allows me to do that. I love the relationships that I have fostered through cooking for and with people. It makes me wonder what really is next for my career. I know the answer won’t come to me tomorrow, so I’ll just keep on keepin’ on. I’ll keep on cooking, tasting, learning, having fun, banging pans, making crass jokes, and making connections with people through food. Maybe someday I’ll have a stable place where people can find me that exists in physical space, not just here on the interwebs. Until then, I wander.

What makes it hardest for me these days is that I am a ronin chef. I don’t have a home. There’s nowhere that the people that I have made these chef/guest relationships with can find me. I’m adrift.