On being a chef today, after you buy your local, seasonal produce

Not too long ago Tony Bourdain did a guest bit on Michael Ruhlman's blog.  I was excited to see the first question he was asked was "What issues do you see facing chefs today?" I wasn't happy with his answer.

Not because it was wrong; the points he made were fine.  I just feel there is a whole massive area that was completely ignored.  The question I wanted to see answered was "What staff related issues do you see facing chefs today?"  I wanted to see how those of us who wrangle the next generation of cooks, bakers, servers, dishwashers, minor criminals and pirates are seeing the shape of the future.

Since I didn't get his answer, I wanted to share some of my own observations.  These are the things I see, the things I try to handle as best I can, the things that I cope with to varying degrees of success.

First off, my staff doesn't expect to make a lot of money right away.  Contrary to the stories people tell about kids these days, these are cooks who even if they did go to culinary school aren't expecting to be the cock of the walk right out the door - there just hasn't been the employment market for that for years now.  They are happy to have a job. And, while they are making or just barely above minimum wage, they hope they have a chef that remembers what it is like to live on that kind of paycheck, when $600 equals two weeks pay, or when that Christmas bonus meant you could pay your bills and buy a few presents.  This matters. A lot. It's why they will scrabble for hours, take extra shifts, hope for a sliver of OT, get that second or third job. Luckily for them, there are plenty of us out there that do remember, because it wasn't so long ago when we were doing the exact same thing.  And as a manager who remembers that feeling, there comes the desire, especially with your best staff members, to wish you could change that, really pay a "living wage" whatever the hell that's supposed to be.  There's a big issue right there, and it doesn't even start to cover things like health care, paid time off or, the crucial one, where the money comes from to do these things.

OK, fine, the staff doesn't expect a lot of money - hopes for it, but doesn't expect it.  So what do they expect from their chefs?  Inspiration in one form or another.  To be taught, and have the chance to learn.  To be given the chance to try new things, to have their ideas taken seriously and with open mindedness.  In a perfect situation, to have the mentor that they will remember long after they have left the place.  Notice, I didn't say they "hope for" all of this, they EXPECT it.  This part is hard.  Every chef I know has days where all they want is a team that works with robotic precision exactly to their specifications day in and day out. Those are the days where baking powder gets used instead of baking soda in the brownies, where the tray of wineglasses gets dropped, and then, at the worst possible time, someone looks up and says, "But WHY do we do it this way?".  There was a time (and some kitchens still work this way, just none that I want to be in) where just looking up could get you fired, berated, a sheet pan thrown at you, all three.  Now, chefs need to anticipate that question.  To answer it before it comes at the worst possible time.  That's the only way to get the real hustle handled with the next generation - to equip your staff with everything they need to know, including the knowledge of when to ask, and when to put your head down and do the job.   And if they learn that, and do that for you, you need to make sure it gets acknowledged. Like I said, this is hard, but more and more, it's expected.

I'm sure some lament the loss of a military like obedience in the kitchen.  But really, I think the biggest issue facing chefs today is one that has always been there - how do we get done what needs doing?  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is the definition of what it means to be a chef from the perspective of your staff.  It doesn't matter what you think it means that someone slapped a four letter word next to your name on a menu. It matters what the people you hire, the people you train, and ultimately, the people you rely on to represent you think it means.

Sorry, chef, but without them, there's only so much you can get done, and we all know there's a lot that needs doing.

On the invisibility of bakers

revel in the glamour

I made a joke not to long ago about how bakers are invisible until they try and take a day off.  This was my barely clever attempt to comment at my own shortsightedness while providing national commentary about how most people feel about bread. Like many barely clever things I didn't think about it until after I said it, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it - at least the second half.

Bakers tend to get lumped together with pastry chefs, and when compared with delicate sugar showpieces and towering wedding cakes, beautiful bread seems, well, like a whole lot of brown.  Nancy Silverton, who with her ex-husband Mark Peel,  helped pave the way for a revitalization of small bakeries in the US, was honored with a James Beard award for best Pastry Chef in 1990. Pastry chef.  I don't know how well she can quenelle sorbet, pull a perfect sugar curl, compose a plated dessert that follows the vision of the savory side.  I do know she can make amazing sourdoughs, killer pizza, and yes, pastries that sell in her bakery. She is a Baker! Huzzah! Her cookbooks have received James Beard awards for Baking, because unlike the chef categories, baking gets its own place in print. Why do we acknowledge the books in a distinct category but not the craftsmen who created them?

I think it's something like this: The stories say your Foremothers made bread at home.  Therefore it is 1. women's work and 2. best acknowledged in a home setting, like a cookbook.  The problem is the initial faulty hypothesis - all the baking happens by women at home.  That wasn't true in Egypt, or Rome, where men ran the bakeries.  In feudal France it was illegal to even have a personal oven - minimizing the risk of fire while reinforcing the power of the feudal lord. The baking guilds in history often specified male members only (although family was usually exempted in the name of all hands on deck). Hell, even now you are more likely to find men baking your bread, because of that whole crazy hours and ladies have babies thing.  Yes, there is the pioneer/farm/idyllic media image wife at home baking for the family - but there are still bakeries in town.  Were the people baking for the community somehow less valuable?  Or maybe you just didn't see them, because they were having dinner when you had breakfast, and in bed when you were up and about on your day.

Then there is the bread itself.  A basic, a staple.  It's the thing everyone is supposed to have (even though not everyone does) and because everyone is supposed to have it, no one should have to pay very much for it.  A talented chef makes national news when he explains why rice shouldn't be free at Asian restaurants. Yet, the American public still expects free bread at restaurants. Guess what? That hunk o' baguette you didn't eat actually required as much if not more labor than the free rice.  Ever have a good sandwich on bad bread? Was it still a good sandwich, or did you think "This would have been a good sandwich if..."?  Ever have a soup that was made just that much better because of the crackers, croutons, or hunk of bread on the side? We see these elements as garnishes, an afterthought, not a foundation you don't pay attention to until it cracks.

The truth is, we don't do much scratch baking at home. It takes time most people don't have. I find more and more that my building blocks like bread flour are available in only small quantities at the store, replaced by instant mixes and ever more freezer space for microwaveable ready to eat items.  So why don't we begin to celebrate the people who take the time to make beautiful breads where we can't?  I know this will seem like blasphemy here in the US, but how about being willing to pay more for bread that is actually worth buying?

How about simply learning the names of a few bakers? Not the shops, the people. That shouldn't be too difficult, right?

Demon's Farts and Other Legacies

So, I have a new job. Actually I've had this job for a smidge over a month now, but I'm just starting to get a finger and toe hold of an idea of what my life will be like on this train I am currently riding. It's been a fun, crazy, breathless time, and somehow in there I managed to learn something about pumpernickel.

 Me and pumpernickel, we go way back. I know it appeared for sandwiches (pastrami was probably my gateway to pumpernickel) but mostly I remember the bread dip. It was a recipe from my aunt, and it was creamy and full of dill and always served in a bowl of pumpernickel bread. On such occasions as this dip would appear, I would happily eat what was left of the bowl, with its thin layer of remaining dip, delighting in the flavors and textures. Those loaves even had the occasional raisin in them. I have no idea what made that baker put raisins in the pumpernickel, but it's probably the reason I like raisins, especially in savory items.

When faced with the prospect of making my own pumpernickel, it was that pumpernickel of my memories I wanted to recreate. Like so many other cooks before me, I found the task daunting, frustrating and perplexing. True pumpernickel is not what most Americans eat. The name refers to a sourdough rye bread that was baked low and long to get its dark color and was considered so indigestible that the name describes what the consumer was to experience later as a result of eating it. I'm not quite sure what demon's farts are supposed to be like, but it sounds really awful. So I'm mostly glad that the recipe in America was lightened up and enhanced, even if the name stuck. My sticking point was the enhancements. Pumpernickel color makes a nice dark loaf, but it is really just food coloring. Bleh. Pumpernickel flour, when checking the label, turns out to be dark rye flour with a variation that existed only on the price tag. Phooey. And everyone who loves pumpernickel has their own absolute list of what can and cannot appear: caraway or no, onions or no, coffee, chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my own list, and did what anyone experimenting with food should do - I played until it tasted right. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are those who will tell me how wrong I am doing it, but this is mine. Yes, dammit, there is caraway.  And despite the naysayers, there are those out there who have told me, "Hey, this is really good pumpernickel." I'm glad they like my memories.

A love letter to my kitchen

I went to fill the bird feeder yesterday and somehow, an hour later, I was standing in front of my stove with a toothpick cleaning out crevices and muttering darkly about ill fitting drip pans. I'm not quite sure how that came to happen, but the bird feeder did get filled. Eventually.

What I realized while I was doing this mad cleaning was that I spend more time cleaning my kitchen than any other room in my house. More time wiping, soaping, sweeping and clearing space in a room that has the same footprint as one armchair from the living room.

If I had to describe the kitchen, I would say small. My sweetheart goes to get a drink from the fridge and I stop moving because otherwise something will go horribly awry. I would then add comments about cabinet doors that don't close true anymore, especially in the rain. The single cabinet wide enough to hold my pans. Burner coils that only half work, and don't stay level. The fridge light has never worked properly. Two oddly placed outlets, total.

And yet, that tiny space is home. When I need comfort, I go there. When I want to celebrate, I go there. To bring together friends and neighbors, to find peace in solitude, that is the part of our house where I can make the world, for a little while, be what I wish it to be.

And really, that is why I cook for a living. Not because I love the craft of it, which I do. Not because I love the result, which without question is true. It's because that world that exists in my kitchen is a good world. If I move to a larger kitchen, then that good world I've created becomes larger, as well. If the people in that larger kitchen share their good world with mine, that good world becomes even larger. "Trying to make the world a better place" is trite and cliche to me. There is no try. When I cook, the world is better to me. I just want to get everyone else in on the action.

Putting myself out there

There is a comfort in working for someone else. The power goes out, and I just take care of what I know I need to, and call the Powers That Be. The Powers That Be handle the bills, the payroll, the order that didn't get placed and we need right now, screaming children, screaming adults. You know, all the fun stuff. But it also means that I am, basically, anonymous. The work I do is rightfully attributed to the place where I work. Unless someone recognizes me (it took the guy who runs the farmer's market, a regular customer, two years to make the connection) or I volunteer the information then I could be anybody or nobody. Now, I am not the kind of person to take advantage of that and slack off. This industry is way too small and I have too much respect for myself and those who I work with to not want to produce consistently great stuff. If I do make an error I am more critical of myself and my work than even my bosses, even if the customers don't know the mistake was mine.

Still, sometimes I want the whole package. I want to be known for the work I do, to have that work recognized as mine. But that whole package is scary, and fraught with, well, other people. Other people are a chaos factor, an unknown variable. One of the things I love about pastry is the organization of it all, the ritualized predictability. If you cook sugar to this temperature, it is soft ball stage, this temperature is hard crack. People don't work that way. Joy, sorrow, allergy attacks, euphoria. Completely unpredictable.

And yet, if I want people to know my work (which I do) I have to get it out there to people. So I'm trying. Here and there, I've been offering things up. Gentle, timid sacrifices to the mob.

We'll see where it takes me.

Fat

It comes up, inevitably.

Something along the lines of, "For the love of all that is good and glorious in the world how can you work with all of this stuff and not weigh a gazillion tons!"

Here's two secrets: 1. When you work with something every day it becomes just stuff, a "product", less of a consummation devoutly to be wished. Even if that something is well and truly beloved. 2. I ain't skinny.

I'm not bad off. In fact, if you look around my place of employment, you would see a bunch of people up to their elbows in butter, sugar and dough all appearing to be relatively healthy. But truth is, last time I saw the doctor I was told to lose a few pounds. Like at least 10. Seriously. And that was the first time a doctor has ever flat out told me that.

And of course, that was the day before making some 400 rhubarb mini pies with a ginger crumb topping. I really love rhubarb. And ginger. And pies. Especially small ones.

Since then I have given up nothing (except eating my fill of rhubarb mini pies). But I am walking to work more. I am watching portions as much as I can without making myself crazy, adding a bit more exercise. I bought a scale that was big enough for me. So far it is ok. I am losing weight, at a reasonably healthy rate. It isn't fun, it isn't my favorite thing, and I certainly hope it will be worth it in the long run.

But I'm not going to let it stop me from finding inspiration for a chocolate tart in a twix bar.

the giant annoying brick wall that is looking ahead

The first kitchen I worked in, I was paired up with Bill, who, in addition to being the oldest guy in our kitchen, was a career prep cook. Not a sous, not a chef, but certainly a prep guy that could be relied upon to cover for an overly enthusiastic kitchen puppy like I was. I never asked him, then, why he stayed at the level he did, I was too busy trying to learn, trying to keep up. I didn't know that was the kind of thing I should be trying to learn, too.

I imagine that military folks, coming to the end of their enlisted time and suddenly considering they may want to go career may go through something similar, but I could just be making this up.

So the question of the day is "Where is this taking me?" or, better perhaps, "Where do I want to go with this?" (See, passive vs active voice, I get it.)

This would be easier if I were younger. I could take the time to work some really terrific places, enduring less than ideal living situations. I could work a lot, 36/8. Really build up a resume, a repuation and then take it to wherever. The reality is, I'm not. I don't want to dorm up with three other people. Yes, as odd and far reaching a dream as my $14 saving account may suggest, I would like to own rather than rent. Of course, I have some aches and pains and things that tell me that physically 36/8 just isn't an option (or at least not one for the long term) I have more than just me to consider, too; my sweetheart has endured two multiple time zone moves now, I think I've used up that get out of jail free card.

Stability is not what you come for in this industry. Sure, there are varying degrees of slippery slope but things can slide at any time. All tied up in the question of what do you want in your career is the bigger question of what are you willing to risk? And don't kid yourself that it's just professional risk. How important is that house to me? Important enough that I should give up the idea of my own shop? What do I save up for?

Stepping up my game at work is all well and good, but I'd like to know what I am stepping up to do.

Five years in

Five years ago this month, I changed careers.

How do you articulate a life changing event? An incident so personal, so entwined with the person you become, regardless of success or failure?

My first day I was delirious. Giddy. High as a kite and soared on that emotion for hours afterward. I have a record of it somewhere in the bowels of the internet and reading it this week, I smiled.

Someone asked me last weekend what it was like, to work in the business. He wasn't sure if he could handle the work. Was it really like what they show on tv? Could it really be that bad?

No, I said. It could be a helluva lot worse. It could be sitting on the side of a major city road during rush hour repairing a cake the fell over inside of the car on the way to an event. It could be going to work at midnight to be ready for a six am shop opening on the day of Christmas Eve. Discreetly ignoring the boss's drug use. Putting your feet up during the train ride home in hopes that you will still be able to walk on them when your stop arrives, if you don't fall asleep and miss your stop. The sinking feeling when you find out that because of business your hours are going to be cut, again. Keeping your head down, continuing to work and saying absolutely nothing while someone has a complete meltdown next to you. Days where you see no daylight. Nights that seem inhumanly hot, humid and endless. Equipment failures that happen at all the wrong times and menial, repetitive tasks that you perform (hopefully) perfectly, endlessly, day in and day out. Having that insane compulsion to push longer, harder, no matter the circumstances, for no good reason other than personal pride.

So, he said, after I wound down, Do you like it?

No. I love it.

Still.

sustenance without food

I admit it, I can be single minded. I can bore my coworkers with the history of rhubarb, cure my sweetheart's insomnia with possible dinner menus and even make myself crazy thinking about food.

It's easy to get caught up. There are so many tools available to connect us with other cooks the world over, even with the odd hours we keep, and hash out recipes for the perfect lemon tart. At any given moment, there is someone ready to discuss whether that amuse bouche really did set the tone for the meal or the tragedy of an unappreciated dessert item. Scientific evaluations on the roasting of potatoes and snarky gossip. Thoughtful poetry on a chef's inspirations and useful hints on a home garden. And I am so so tempted, if not to chime in, then to at least observe the diatribes. Information junkie that I am, I want to sample it all. I have to force myself to walk away.

The world does not exist solely within the rim of a plate.

In fact, some of the best parts don't involve plates at all. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, they can serve to inspire anyway. The cooks I most admire talk about sculpture and nature, science, architecture, literature, politics, art, philosophy and make hardcore use of their free time. Sure, they can talk food at length but that conversation is layered with everything else they know. More importantly, they bring everything else into their food, enriching it in a way that can't be taught. There is value not only in devoted study but in the exploration of other disciplines.

I guess even cooks need hobbies.

10,000 Hours

That's the magic number, as far as brains are concerned.

Even before diving in to Outliers, I'd heard the number before. It goes something like this: in order to master something (and I mean You are the Shit, the Bee's Knees, recognized for what you can do) you need to practice it for ten thousand hours. That's when the brain flips a switch and says "Ok, this? We've got it." The difference between good and great isn't just practice. It's many, many hours of practice.

Ten thousand hours works out to be about eight hours a day, seven days a week for four and a half years. Without a vacation. For most people, though, it works out to doing something for about ten years. Nine, if it's chess and you're Bobby Fisher. I wonder how it falls out with chefs, though. And I do mean Chefs - the real thing. Because yes, I imagine that if I am still at this job after four more years, I will be pretty well set in my laminated dough skill set. Less that that, even, because well, the crazy hours cooks can keep. But what about the rest of the products? Menu creation? How does 10000 hours translate into the development of one's palate? Do you need to taste things for ten thousand hours before you can really tell what is sublime? And then do you need ten thousand hours of plating techniques?

All I know for sure is I've been cooking professionally for five years now. I still have a lot to learn. But I think I've got scooping cookies down.

drive

Some days, I find myself at work thinking about the cool things I can cook when I get home. Some days I find myself exhausted at the prospect of cooking at home, but do it anyway.

This industry is filled with crazed alphas who devote seemingly every pore of their body to the food they make. That's what it says in the magazines anyway. In the face of this, I don't see myself as particularly ambitious. I don't have the zeal to go work at another restaurant on my days off just to stay in the game. I may think about spending a vacation by staging at some great restaurant, but that would require me taking time off. Hell, I can't even give myself the freedom to collect debt by eating at the best restaurants around because I'd rather cook out of a cookbook at home and save the money. Maybe its an age thing. Maybe I started too late in this game.

I've been getting myself worked up over someone else's recipes. I've been pushing myself to come home and do a lot of baking after baking all day. My sweetheart has pointed out, somewhat rightfully, that I can take a break, that it isn't my recipes I'm working so hard on. I countered that these recipes are the work of a baker that has influenced me, and now I have the chance to help him inspire others. That its worth it because I'm getting a glimpse at a process I wouldn't otherwise see. I say all these things, but I'm not sure that's really what I'm feeling.

It's much more personal.

It's about promises I have made to myself about finishing things I start. It is about knowing that I can damn well do better than THAT and I'm going to keep trying until it comes out the way I want. You learn something from even the idiots out there, and sometimes the idiot is you. There is always room for improvement. You're only as good as the last work you did.

You're only as good as the last work you did. And you know that could be better.

Holiday Spirits for Bakers

No, no, I'm not talking about alcohol, although I do have an idea for a Christmas punch recipe that would kick. In every job, there is that same meeting every year. "This is it don't screw it up we make all our money now and you like getting a paycheck, right?"

Something to that effect.

It's the most wonderful time of the year; where clients get even more crazy and the work gets even more hectic. Suddenly you look up and see you have stood on your feet for something like 13 hours and didn't even notice even though you have been checking timers in twenty minute intervals at least forty times. Online shopping is the only thing that is saving you from disinheritance if you remember to shop at all. Your house appears to be festively decorated with fake snow, but you know that's just flour you've brought home with you.

Embrace the spirit.

I look at it this way; eventually, the endorphins will save me. I can dread it, prepare for a month of misery and exhaustion, or I can make chemistry work for me. I will come home and bake cookies after spending all day baking cookies. I will fill the house with the scents of the season - citrus, cinnamon, clove. I will think of new ideas for festiving up our regular products while churning out what I need to. I will NOT sing carols to my coworkers every day because they have limits, and I don't know who owns a gun. I will, however, try and remember pleases and thank yous because after 15 hours that can go a long way.

I will probably crochet up a few festive hats. sorry.

And then, when all is said and done, I'll rest, and let my brain do it's thing, flooding me with chemicals that will make me say, "Hey, that wasn't so bad. It was actually kind of fun. How long until next holiday season?"

And then I will duck so nothing that got thrown at me will hit me in the face.

Branding myself

So, what do I want to be when I grow up? Going to pastry school, I had to reevaluate what that meant for me. I came to a conclusive, absolute decision.

I am never going to know what I want to be when I grow up.

(My friends are laughing at me right now, because of how true to me this statement is.) I can make a list of things that I would like NOT to do, and some of them even relate to the food industry. The thing is lately, I'm starting to formulate an idea of what I would like to do. Or at least, aspects that I would like to incorporate into something that could become the thing that eventually is what I do.

Um, does that make sense?

It starts, of course, with the food. That is the easy part. A list is forming, recipes being played with, tested. In many ways, this is the fun part; I'm covered in terms of my living expenses, this is just time to fail, retry, succeed and just come up with wacky schemes without risk. Time to define and refine what I'm looking for.

It is a deeply personal thing, these products. They are, more than any words, a direct reflection of my heart. My spirit in sugared form. It's funny, I'm sure there are cooks out there, chefs even, who could come to this point and not see this as so deeply their own. Me, I don't know any other way to do it and have a chance for it working.

And maybe that is why this work can be so heartbreaking.

For now though, I'm still having my first crush.
(pandan ginger and lemon saffron lollipops)

Exit wounds.

I read something somewhere that when it comes to kitchen injuries, burns are sexy, cuts are when something stupid goes wrong. It was probably Tony Bourdain.

I was sitting in front of an endless pot of chocolate pastry cream one day (guest chef insisted that the recipe could not be increased and so to feed the event I had to make the same batch 16 times). Event cook of reasonable aptitude totally gets me with the oil he's using to pan sear his tuna. I flinch (I've named the scar after him) and keep stirring. "Oh did I get you?" he inquires. I flash the blistered skin. "Yeah, you pastry cooks don't know about burns."

Ahem, what?

When I interviewed for this job, as things were winding down we noticed that all three of us - owner, manager, and me, had identical marks. I told them of the wisdom of hot side event cooks. There was laughter. Sheet pans are hot. Pastry cream is hot. Water baths suck and I hate them. Anyone who suggests that pastry cooks don't know from injuries can go suck an egg. Just not the farm ones because those are expensive and better for the custards and Oh you don't know how to tell them apart? Snort.

I have a knife cut on my hand. Our butter comes in beautiful 44 pound blocks and my croissant detrempe does not need quite that much. So in cutting it down with the machete my hand slipped across the top edge the wrong way. Yes that is right I cut myself cutting butter, and I did it with the non-sharp side of a machete.

Tony Bourdain may have been right.

New

Auto-complete is a funny thing. You start typing a title and get a little jolt from the past. I typed with word "new" in this title and my computer wanted it to be "New Beginnings, Same old mistakes."

What the hell is that??

I have no idea when I said that. It wasn't, in fact, here ( I checked). It is also, for me, ridiculously pessimistic and negative. Change may not be my favorite thing to cope with, but it has to happen. Make it the best possible, try and get something new from it. Or at least, that is how I think I think I am. Stuff like auto-complete tends to bash my head about a little.

So I got a new job. We're moving away from our life with this step. I am, in fact, scared. Not as to whether or not I can do the job - I am confident that I can. I am scared about my judgment. And that is a devastating thing to be scared about. I have been told many times that my judgment is flawed. It was always in the context of doing exactly what someone else told me to do, rather than following my own instincts, so you would think that would make me want to stick to my guns more. Apparently not. And it gets tangled up with authority figures and roles of responsibility. Basically, it makes the people who said I have crappy judgment correct. Screw that.

This is a different kind of job for me. Not in terms of work, but in terms of structure, culture. Attitude. I can learn all the things I was hoping to learn from my last position and more I would never be able to learn here. New things. New Beginnings. Maybe some new mistakes, sure, but new mistakes are a lot more interesting than the same old ones. And if I do make old mistakes, well, maybe they will look different in the new place, and I can learn to stop making them.

All the wonderfulness of an apricot, just with a new skin.

What you take with you.

I hate last days. I've moved around a lot, had a number of last days and given my general state of mind, I give those last hugs listening to the little voice in my head say, "I won't remember your name in two months."

Well, I am kinda bad with names.

I'm good with personalities, though. This team will set types in my head for many moons to come - the ambitious production guy, the batshit bipolar cook, the seriously mellow dishpit king, the cake girl. Some people will be beyond recasting, like the handicapped drug dealer prep cook who wants to get it on with my little sister. I won't find another one like him. But those roles will be how they live on in my head.

There's some practical lessons gained, too. Some, I will work hard to overcome almost immediately. Others I will write down, or don't even need to write down, because they are mine now, incorporated into the whole. A few recipes, too. Like that flan. Without the cockroach. Don't ask.

There is still a little part that wonders what would be if I stayed. And what all of those people would become. But they will, in their own time and place, leave as well. I'm going on my terms, and that makes it worth the wondering.

Next!

You're Laborers; you should be laboring.

I'm smart, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

I spent years working though all the psychological baggage that led me to believe this was a bad thing and I know that, in fact, it's a damn good thing. It's not that I am a prodigy of any sort. I'm not a wizard or some superhuman thingamabob. Just good and smart. And yes, I have an education.

You would think this would make my life easier.

Instead I chose to work in an industry that has a highly skeptical if not cynical view of the value of classwork. And why shouldn't they? They have earned their education in a very real and practical sense - apprentices were around long before the idea of a professor - and have all seen some of the lesser examples of education without practical knowledge. And it is not simply my job that has this viewpoint. Some of the best chefs out there scoff at the skills of the culinary school graduate.

I am very conscious of not waving my brains about at work. In particular, my immediate supervisor is not educated and is very sensitive about it. I have actually had to ask him to stop dismissing the skills of the instructors at my school because of things he felt I should know. I have never corrected his science when it is flat out wrong, because he is not the kind to respond to that well. I am tolerant that when asked what six times nine is, someone is going to check my math on a calculator. But dammit, I AM going to say something about that butter cookie they want to send as a lactose intolerant dessert. And it is really hard to not react strongly when the response is "So? Only milk has lactose."

I had great teachers in culinary school. Intelligent individuals who were perfectly comfortable with letting me know how much I wouldn't know when I got that piece of paper, even while they fed my brain. They encouraged me to get out there while going to classes to see what is really like, and I did. They understood, and helped me to understand, that what I was getting from them was a vocabulary. They gave me the freedom to fail. That freedom gave me confidence to try again, and try different, and question how and why and what. To learn. To be educated.

Is it any wonder that of all the options available to me for the long term, I want to be like those that valued my brain, challenged me even while letting me know that I was working in an idealized, sheltered environment? Could you blame me for wanting nothing more for the immediate future than a chef that is, if not as smart as I am, cognizant of what to do with someone who is smart?