Sometimes What You Need...

It’s been a rough couple of months…. on top of the 6 months of COVID recently. I’ve found myself doubting what I have been doing with my life and how appropriately to pivot to something new. I used to tell myself and other people that those who left the industry simply didn’t have the heart or the mind for it. As I thought about pivoting, I projected that onto myself. Could it be that I don’t have the heart to be in this industry? Could it be that I don’t have the mind to be in this industry? It killed me inside, thinking about this.

From the time I was a child, I have always been second best… at everything. Academics, hobbies, average height…. It was to the point that I just couldn’t enjoy anything. I think to that point, sometimes I still don’t think that I can fully enjoy anything, because I know in the back of my mind, that I wasn’t truly great… in any way.

Back when I was at Night Market, part of me was able to let that go and just enjoy what I was doing with the people I was working with and the guests I was doing it for. The other part of me had a massive chip on his shoulder that gave everyone the middle finger and shouted at the top of his lungs, “GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU BASIC ASS MOTHERFUCKERS! I DON’T COOK FOR THE UNINITIATED! I COOK FOR THOSE WHO GET IT!”

I think that without the ability to create a space or an atmosphere, a feeling or a moment, I’m finding it really hard to find a direction to go in where maybe I might enjoy what I’m doing, what I’m capable of, or what I’m good at.

With all of that being said, a month and a half ago, an old friend of mine suggested that I consider taking the Foreign Service Officer Exam. He said that he thought that I would make a great diplomat on the public diplomacy side of things. When he first brought it up, I laughed out loud while I was at work. Who would ever think that I would be a good representative for this country? I’m not especially main stream. I think our political system is dumb. I love the idea that someone can work their ass off to get what they want out of life, but I hate rich people and I hate lazy people, two things that this country has too many of.

I thought about it for a minute though. It would be a way for me to live abroad, something that I have wanted to do since I was in college and never figured out a way to. Sure, I would be a huckster for the government, but maybe I could get a post where I would do things like cultural exchanges involving food or art.

Anyhow, I got really dark one day in my head. I just felt like I was in an endless tunnel. Nowhere to go, nothing else to do, but keep trudging. I found myself doubting the value that I hold in the hospitality industry. I found myself asking, “Does anyone even give a shit about what I’ve done, what I’m doing, or what I can do?” But, I wasn’t asking this question hoping to fulfill delusions of grandeur. This was in the small microcosm of my life. Was what I have done important to anyone? Have I affected anything or anyone in 15 plus years of cooking? Has what I have done mattered to anything or anyone? Does anyone actually give a fuck about me?

Let me break down that question for a second… “Does anyone actually give a fuck about me?” It sounds incredible self-centered, which it is, but I think it’s a question a lot of people ask themselves, and an equal number of people have the luxury of never wondering. I don’t think that everyone should be constantly or even periodically thinking about me, because there are a lot of people out there that, honestly, I never give a second thought to. There are a large number of people that I think about constantly, but I maybe reach out one time out of maybe five hundred. So that “Does anyone actually give a fuck about me?” is much more of a “If I disappeared, would it matter to anyone?” Would I exist in often told stories at friends’ parties? Would people, say to themselves, “I wonder what happened to that guy?” and shrug it off, or would people lament the good times that they spent with me, thinking the worst had happened. Did I matter? Do I matter? Will I matter? In a small way? In a large way? To a small circle? To people who never met me? So that’s what “Does anyone actually give a fuck about me?” means. Let’s be honest…. There are a fair number of people in this country, who, if they were to ask this question, the answer would unfortunately be no.

So I was in this dark place, and I get a ping from my website. It’s the email pictured at the top of the post. Sure, I had regulars at Night Market. A number of them, I have grown to call actual friends. There was something special about this email though. I never thought that I had really made that big of an impression on anyone to the point where a year and a half, I would get an email from someone who really enjoyed what we did at Night Market enough to try to recreate it at home for their birthday. Wow. I mean, WOW.

It was incredibly humbling that what we did meant that much to anyone. In a moment when I was doubting what anything I did mattered at all to anyone, I get an email telling me it did, maybe it still does, and maybe it will again.

Just a few days later, I got a call from an old co-worker. We met as managers of a burger joint, she then moved on to work with me at Night Market in both a front of the house and back of the house capacity before moving to Virgina, where she became a beverage manager. She is now in Denver working as an assistant general manager for a rather large restaurant company. She called me out of nowhere to catch up. And in that conversation, I told her my thoughts about leaving the industry and maybe trying to become a diplomat. After telling her, she essentially ran me through her career and how I taught her, sometimes in a pushy way, the ways of hospitality, and that one of the biggest reasons that she has gotten as far as she has gotten is because I taught her (sometimes in not the nicest ways) the hospitality business.

The interesting thing about that conversation was that, I constantly think of myself as a cook and as a chef, not necessarily as a hospitality worker, or hospitality professional. Looking back, I think that some of my best achievements at Night Market involved me stepping away from production and really being the hospitality professional who maintained relationships with guests, co-workers, and vendors. So I feel like I need to stop just looking at myself as someone who cooks and who can create menus.

When I did the pig roasts on Fridays in Harvard Square, it wasn’t just that the pig was delicious. I mean, it was. But that’s not the point. It was the social interaction that I had with the passers by that made the event successful. It was the fun, out-there, attitude that I fostered in the team that we brought to events, that made us awesome and who we were.

So, I think I need to start trying to take more value from what I have done in the past. There is a saying that “you’re only as good as your last plate” that has been said around the industry for a long time. I think I need to stop looking at life that way. I think I need to not only ask myself, “Am I having fun making this plate,” but I also need to ask myself to look at and remember all of the people that I have made smile, yum, and rave over the past 15 plus years. I need to look at and remember all of the people that I have worked with and who I have pushed to do better and achieve more, whether it be in the industry or not.

I have to remember, that I gave kids who never cooked before the opportunity to cook in a professional kitchen. I rearranged schedules so that workers could continue to work while pursuing their college degree. I have brought hard working cooks to enriching tasting menu meals. I have to remember that I have done good things. I have made impressions. I am important. I feel like I will continue to do all of these things, I just don’t quite know how.

For right now, I’m in a holding pattern, cooking with some pals. When the season ends, I have no idea what will happen. I am pretty sure that I won’t have the cash to open up my own joint, and I don’t even know if the industry will even be able to recover from this pandemic. It could end up like the movie Demolition Man, where every restaurant is Taco Bell…. but I think in this modern America, it would be Panera or Chipotle…. The idea of that sickens me. That would be the darkest of all tunnels.