Being a Chef: A Sweet-Smelling Savor

If I had a nickel for every time I heard the following statement, I would be very, very wealthy: “You’re a chef? Wow, that must be neat!”

Don’t misunderstand me. A career in the Culinary Arts is an awesome vocation, a calling many aspire to but few excel at. Being a chef has been elevated over the last few decades by a select group of chefs who have become not only household names, but have established a new benchmark for all those who have come after. I am proud and honored to call myself one and be associated with such individuals. I’m also blessed to be part of an industry that is so essential, and following in a history that is so rich.

The truth is, however, that being a chef is anything but easy. It takes a rare breed to answer the call: you need a passion for the art of creating delicious food, the endurance to work long hours on your feet in a hot kitchen, the skill and finesse to cut, carve and cook, the strength of will to lead a kitchen crew like a general, the desire to satisfy even the most discerning palette and a personality that translates into every unique dish you serve. You need to be hard as steel, have a fire in your belly that never quits and have more spit and polish than a shoeshine.

And in today’s world, a world where the Chef de Cuisine and Master Chef has been replaced with the Executive Chef and the Kitchen Manager, you better have the wits and savvy to work in an office environment and weather more meetings than you can shake a whisk at. You need to be part culinarian, part purchaser/receiver, part health inspector, part manager and 100% Chef.

Still Sound Neat?

Working as a professional chef, you soon come to understand that the phrase “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen” is anything but a metaphor. And it applies to far more than merely the physical environment you work in. Being a chef is physically, mentally and emotionally demanding. All the time.

And thanks to the image some of my more popular colleagues have portrayed about being a chef, you’re expected to perform under these conditions with a smile on your face. The days of the tyrannical, totalitarian Master Chef, screaming obscenities and throwing pots and pans while he throws a temper tantrum are gone (well, almost. I’m not mentioning any names). Not to mention the fact that the kitchen environment used to be like Las Vegas: what happened there stayed there, behind closed doors. Today, many fine-diners wants to see the chef in action: and with many restaurants and restaurant concepts opening up the kitchen to the dining room and the guest, everything you do and say can be seen and heard. It’s like a cross between live dinner theater and being on display in a fish bowl.