Thanks, Anthony Bourdain. You wrote the tale of the kitchen outlaw. You and that accursed channel made people believe that there is a certain romance associated with working in most kitchens. You did for professional cooking what Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power did for the historic pirate - you made it seem cool to cook. The good guy always wins in the end and Olivia de Havilland is always there, just off camera, ready to throw herself into the arms of the conquering hero.
Sure, as an after thought you remembered to mention the long hours, shit pay, asshole owners, lack of health insurance. But by then it was too late because you had already sucked Joe Public into the poetry of your 17-year-old idea of that Cape Cod kitchen.
Bastard.
I went to culinary school, but not because of you. I didn't even open your book until I had graduated. By then I had started to understand what it was I was paying a lot of money to get myself into. I read your book anyway. And I enjoyed it. I met the people all over NYC who mimic your characters and co-workers. I liked them, and I loved the work.
I chopped onions for what seemed like days at a time, but it was really only 12 hours. I stood at those very cramped tables in basement kitchens, stuffing fish with lemongrass while the people around me did obscene things with octopus tentacles. I didn't feel I had worked a full day unless I left the dark basement, covered in green lobster slime. I will never lose the memory of everyone in the prep kitchen, from the porter to the dishwasher, to the 300-pound ex-con grill guy, breaking out into a heartfelt chorus of Build Me Up Buttercup for no other reason than it's just a great song.
Good food, the kind that you remember the taste of three days or three years later, is made with a little piece of the cook's soul and a whole lot of his or her love. I believe that it is possible to be as intimate through food preparation as any adult act, so long as your whole heart is in it.
I have done my part, showing my love, working the line in a 65-seat house that could serve upwards of 500 covers for Sunday brunch. But what you have never said, chef, and I have never seen through the polished lens of that accursed channel, is what happens when the love dies, making you feel like a cheap, pre-Disneyfied Times Square hooker. For me, it sent me running for cover, back to my moderately well-paid corporate job with full health benefits.
Earlier today someone interrupted a conversation I was having with Joe The Grill Guy in my office's cafeteria and said how much fun it would be to work in a kitchen. Joe and I stopped mid-sentence and just stared at this poor woman. She obviously loves her food porn and fell into the kitchen-as-romantic-pirate-ship trap. She doesn't understand that behind the smiling faces on those shows (you know those shows - don't deny it) are feet so swollen and painful you can barely walk. There are second- and third-degree burns. There are scars from too many slips of the knife. There is that bad back that never quite seems to get better. There are 16-hour days and weeks without a single day off. There are customers who wouldn't know a medium-rare steak if it walked up behind them and stole their wallet. This reminded me of the time when a particularly evil woman told me how romantic it must be to work in publishing, simply because Jackie Kennedy had done it.
Oh, the misinformation!
So, again I thank you, Chef, for perpetuating the myth. While it tickles me to think that someone out there might view me as a romantic character, I don't feel particularly full of swash or buckle when, for no good reason, my feet ache.
Sure, as an after thought you remembered to mention the long hours, shit pay, asshole owners, lack of health insurance. But by then it was too late because you had already sucked Joe Public into the poetry of your 17-year-old idea of that Cape Cod kitchen.
Bastard.
I went to culinary school, but not because of you. I didn't even open your book until I had graduated. By then I had started to understand what it was I was paying a lot of money to get myself into. I read your book anyway. And I enjoyed it. I met the people all over NYC who mimic your characters and co-workers. I liked them, and I loved the work.
I chopped onions for what seemed like days at a time, but it was really only 12 hours. I stood at those very cramped tables in basement kitchens, stuffing fish with lemongrass while the people around me did obscene things with octopus tentacles. I didn't feel I had worked a full day unless I left the dark basement, covered in green lobster slime. I will never lose the memory of everyone in the prep kitchen, from the porter to the dishwasher, to the 300-pound ex-con grill guy, breaking out into a heartfelt chorus of Build Me Up Buttercup for no other reason than it's just a great song.
Good food, the kind that you remember the taste of three days or three years later, is made with a little piece of the cook's soul and a whole lot of his or her love. I believe that it is possible to be as intimate through food preparation as any adult act, so long as your whole heart is in it.
I have done my part, showing my love, working the line in a 65-seat house that could serve upwards of 500 covers for Sunday brunch. But what you have never said, chef, and I have never seen through the polished lens of that accursed channel, is what happens when the love dies, making you feel like a cheap, pre-Disneyfied Times Square hooker. For me, it sent me running for cover, back to my moderately well-paid corporate job with full health benefits.
Earlier today someone interrupted a conversation I was having with Joe The Grill Guy in my office's cafeteria and said how much fun it would be to work in a kitchen. Joe and I stopped mid-sentence and just stared at this poor woman. She obviously loves her food porn and fell into the kitchen-as-romantic-pirate-ship trap. She doesn't understand that behind the smiling faces on those shows (you know those shows - don't deny it) are feet so swollen and painful you can barely walk. There are second- and third-degree burns. There are scars from too many slips of the knife. There is that bad back that never quite seems to get better. There are 16-hour days and weeks without a single day off. There are customers who wouldn't know a medium-rare steak if it walked up behind them and stole their wallet. This reminded me of the time when a particularly evil woman told me how romantic it must be to work in publishing, simply because Jackie Kennedy had done it.
Oh, the misinformation!
So, again I thank you, Chef, for perpetuating the myth. While it tickles me to think that someone out there might view me as a romantic character, I don't feel particularly full of swash or buckle when, for no good reason, my feet ache.
