the gang’s all here

Part of reflecting on a twenty-year culinary career is categorizing and filing the wide range of oddball personalities and relationships that I’ve both cherished and painfully endured, the latter I believe setting me up for an other-worldly ability to be patient, as well as obviously hilarious.

(To be clear, I’m a bit of a shit-talker, but always in an affectionate and mostly respectful way.)

The first kitchen trope are typical, ‘white-bread’ chefs; one’s that look and joke like they’ve really focused on nailing a pancake recipe (but don’t have kids) and cringingly refer to chicken breasts as “chicken boobs” to try to be funny.

They’re the lost souls that don’t quite fit in and miss far more than they hit, they never howl at the moon with a bottle of liquor, nor do they have the mental Rolodex of good stories about drugs or sexual adventures from after-service hours. ‘White-bread chefs’ hair gets trimmed every six weeks, drives a Prius or some other smart car, probably has student loans (which is a rarity in this industry,) and if he has one, consistently refers to his wife as ‘the ol’ ball and chain’ to gain some slippery shit-talking footing with his crew. We don’t know why he/she’s working in a professional kitchen, and we surround he/she with skepticism as well as a healthy mistrust that they’ll tell the owner we listen to music with swear words so we lose the damn kitchen speakers.

[I see the female version of this character as that garden-variety entitled, possible ‘Karen’ vibe. I hate to be cruel to you, ‘Madysson’, but no one cares that you called it a “crustless quiche,” goddamnit, it’s a fucking frittata.]

Another card in the kitchen is the chef that started working young, probably too young, doing mundane kitchen jobs like dishwashing or bussing, and subsequently fell in love with the motley crew standing behind that hot window. He/she watched in awe as the cooks on deck said whatever they wanted, did whatever they wanted, and not only did the chef team get away with it all but were celebrated for it!

And so, armed with the same slightly self-destructive and masochistic tendencies as the most seasoned chef, the youngin’ devoted their life to the kitchen: determined to be as wild, as free, as absorbed completely in this intoxicating tight-knit, land-loving pirate crew that always pulled all the girls (or guys, obviously,) that never had to bend to anyone but ‘Chef.’ Be good, be fast, talk shit, and howl away amongst your brethren. Count on this chef to drive you home when you’re both hammered but he doesn’t smoke and thusly “the booze doesn’t get to his head as fast.”

[I don’t know dude, thems were the rules and one doesn’t question the rules… until now when I think, man, that was a load of laughable bullshit.]

There’s always going to be the person in any profession who despite not having any sincere, intuitive talent, thinks they’re the best. It’s a pervasive, annoyingly ‘American’ thing – the stupid confidence. These assholes are much like the ‘white bread’ chef but perhaps carry several sizes of culinary tweezers in their $118 Hedley and Bennett apron, and dare to try to convince anyone who has never once asked why homemade bitters are far superior, or why they don’t eat any comforting childlike items like Kraft mac and cheese or fast food because it’s garbage to their craft, or maybe they’ll fling out a name like

“Yeah man, yo, legit Dominique Crenn liked my food photo on Instagram, pretty sure I’m heading to the Bay area for the summer hire!”

Holy shit, I don’t care. You’re a walking banner of frat-boy energy mixed with the peculiar combination of dumb ego and insecurity, but you never once volunteer to cook a family meal for us at the end of a service, which is even more infuriating when everyone takes turns. You could ‘show off’ for us if you had it in you, but you don’t have it in you, do you?

They never do. They also never last – I see them go into real estate eventually, all the while continuing to wear colored, highly-reflective sunglasses on the backs of their heads, and I imagine they’re always dating hostesses in restaurants – despite any age gap.

Then there are the old punks, God bless ’em. They’ve got the Herringbone, ‘Newsboy’ hats over their receding hairline or coyly wear a modern mullet, you see the scars in their faces where all the piercings used to be, and they’ve got some hilariously obvious tattoo like a cat with a star as its butthole on their forearm and don’t remember getting it. They sing poetic about the ‘Moons Over my Hammy’ they had this past weekend and roll their eyes into the back of their heads when they talk about a particular food memory, be it something they made or something someone made for them. They don’t lie, ever, they admit when they’re wrong, and tell you to go fuck your Mother at least.. three times a day? If you’re close.

That guy/gal is also the friend you can depend on that will bail you out of jail on their night off, will drive you to the airport, you can cry on their shoulder through a breakup, and will help you move. Find yourself an elder-hipster Chef, generally, the scarier looking the better, and you will find a partner in life.

There’s a wide range of people that juggle between all these – the kids, the felons, the part-timers while they finish mortuary school, kiddos whose parents own the business. But as these folks are fleeting, it’s my job as their ‘kitchen mentor’ to walk them through our world, and then when their tour has ended wave them goodbye, sincerely grateful for their hard work. Frequently I’ll reminisce about them to strangers, sometimes with bottom-of-the-heart affection.

In summation. If you’re a young cook reading this, it’s an awesome field, man. It’s a wild ride.

But please, don’t ever, ever, announce a plate of food as being ‘très soigné. You might get laughed at, despite not knowing why. Again I shrug, but thems the rules.