Chefs are {in}famous for posessing many traits. Patient & Understanding are not two of them. Not high on the list at any rate. We're famous for more popular antonyms like hot-tempered and unforbearing. We bristle at critique, take everything personally, and have a hard time listening to reason on the job. We don't love change. Especially the change that comes when a cook gives notice.
I have worked for all kinds of chefs. I wanted to work for as many chefs as I could before "becoming one myself." I saw as many management styles as I did kitchens. The chefs who struck me the most were the ones pushed, challenged, listened to, grew, mentored, inspired, learned from and sent off their cooks when their "time had come" in said kitchen.
It takes incredible generosity, grace, maturity, humility, confidence and intuition to be such a chef. A chef has to know when a cook can go no further under their wing, in their kitchen, in one location. Said chef has to have been paying attention to said cook throughout the entirety of their term. From interview to stage to hire.
I have said this before and I will never stop saying it: Do not waste your precious time learning this life-long craft in a kitchen where the chef only looks at you like a warm body. Do not work for one minute more in a kitchen where you are not learning, not being challenged, not growing. There are so many fucking kitchens to make no money in. You might as well struggle to make ends meet under the tutelage of a chef who matters and to whom you matter.
A chef I used to work with used to say there are 2 kinds of chefs: The Sharing and The Stingy/self-serving ones. The Sharing Chef will always talk about their sous chef, their chef de cuisine, their staff. The Sharing Chef will eat at other restaurants and talk about other chefs besides the ones under their jurisdiction. The Sharing Chef will tell other chefs about great products they've found. The Sharing Chef will share staff. Sharing Chefs sometimes trade cooks before promoting them in their own kitchens. Sharing Chefs do not poach.
The Sharing Chef is not a touchy feely person with only pleases and thank yous and nicey nice things to say all the time and smiling and handing you the kool-aid and giving you sick days and knowing the name of your dog and giving you your birthday off.
The Sharing Chef can kick your ass so hard your spine ends and your thighs begin. The Sharing Chef can make you cry on the line, and keep working. The Sharing Chef can blackball you and call you names in languages you don't understand. The Sharing Chef can scare the shit out of you, down to your core, and help you to understand that she/he knows everyone in the business and you better not fucking burn that bridge.
The Sharing Chef, afterall, has the same pressures as the narcissistic one. Margins to meet, food costs to keep down, GM's to reckon with, owners to keep happy, diners to feed, dishwashers to fix, cooks to train, walk-ins to clean, invoices to log, uniform companies to argue with, fish to scale, burns to treat, and so on.
The Sharing Chef can help you get the next job as much as The Stingy Chef, but there are distinct differences.
The Stingy Chef barely teaches. The Stingy Chef believes their own hype. The Stingy Chef is often bitter. The Stingy Chef will watch you do something wrong/incorrect/inefficient and never correct you. The Stingy Chef will take credit for your work when it's great and put your name on what's wrong. The Stingy Chef doesn't mind a cook who isn't growing, learning, asking questions. "The Stingy Chef wants you to know s/he is the best and doesn't particularly want to "prove it" to you-- either because s/he is a secret shoemaker or because to "bring you up" is to face the possibilty of you being better than s/he."
Sometimes a Sharing Chef will look like a Stingy Chef because you're so fucking cocky the only way they can put you in your place is to make you 'beg' for knowledge. Chefs who have worked for dozens of years despise a cook who thinks they know it all after five minutes in the business. Some Sharing Chefs are quiet. Very Quiet. Silent even. Sometimes you have to watch them, be in their kitchens, show your dedication, for years, before you realize you are learning from them.
It's possible that The Stingy Chef and The Sharing Chef are the same person. It's possible both kinds of chefs are who you'll be.
But you have a choice. An active, intentional choice. A choice is something you decide, you make. You don't fall into choice by mistake.
See the red flags? They're not waving you in.
Many chefs are at the helms of stoves are just cooks in disguise. All it takes is a white jacket. Chef is a self designated title. A lot of people can cook in a professional kitchen. As many people can "become chefs," if they have the desire.
But it's not the word Chef,
It's what you do with that position
It's what you do with that title
It's what you do with that rush of power
It's what you decide will be your management style
It's how you decide to repay what was given to you
It's how you choose to be remembered by your cooks, your industry
It's your integrity
It's your standards
It's how much patience you have for your own journey in the craft
It's how much you understand what craft means
It's how hard of a look you'll be brave enough to muster the courage for, to see yourself for all you are
It's how much humble pie you can swallow, whole
It's how many tears of joy and struggle you're willing to admit will be on your horizon
that matters.
Can you handle the tedium? Can you do the same thing day after day, kitchen after kitchen, city after city, year after year?
Craft. A verb. A noun. A daunting task. An unforgiving journey. Un unattainable goal. A life spent asking unanswered questions.
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Some concrete examples:
When I worked at Gramercy Tavern there was a cook on the line who was clearly kicking everyone's ass. I watched, I learned, I admired. It was obvious she was ready to be a sous chef. Tom gave the ok, but said 'You have to do something first. You have to work somewhere else more formidable first, for two years, and then you can come back here a sous. You'll work at Le Bernadin.'
When I worked at Citizen Cake our savoury chef worked all of his cooks through the stations and when they could not learn any more from him he gave them an end date and helped place them in their next jobs.
The first chef I worked for gave me reading assignments {before the internet-- I had to go to the Library} and lent me books to study.
When Thomas placed me at Bouchon, after working at The French Laundry, in my first Pastry Chef role, I said I wasn't ready. To which he replied, 'You'll never be ready. I'll put you in shoes too big and when you fill them you'll know it's time to move on.'
Sherry Yard told me once, before interviewing dozens of pastry cooks, 'You want to hire people who want your job. They're the one's who will keep you on your toes. They're the one's you'll learn from.'
When I arrived in London for my month long interview/trail at The Bread Factory the owners wanted me to replace the pastry chef they had in place. When I went into his kitchen under other pretenses--of course he knew-- he not only did not let on but made me feel at home in the most humble, gracious, generous, gorgeous way possible.
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These are the chefs I aspire to be like. Not the chefs who put their name all over my work every time I received press under their roofs. When a cook gives me a proper notice I honor their last weeks, days, hours, with the same respect they've shown me in their resignation.
I want to to teach cooks what I was taught.
These are hard lessons. Chefs don't put their arms around their cooks and teach them the ways... That shit is the stuff of two dimensional fairy tales.
Not every cook is the right fit in your kitchen. Not every cook can handle promotion. A cook can look ready and deteriorate under middle management pressures. Not every cook makes a chef who is a leader and a teacher or can delegate effectively. Some cooks continue to lie to themselves and you no matter how hard you push them, toward the truth.
Craft. It doesn't arrive on your doorstep, wrapped neatly, or bubblewrap protected. It doesn't arrive. Ever.
You have to find a teacher. Teachers. Mentors. You have to move. You have to want. You have to desire. You have to fight. You have to keep knocking on doors even when none of them open. You have to follow-through. You have to suit up, show up and shut up.
And chefs? We're in charge, yes, but we're fallible. We make mistakes. Watch us. Watch how your chef acts when she/he makes a mistake. Watch to see if your chef grows too. No one wants to work in stagnation. That water fucking stinks.
There's a difference between patience for repetition and boredom/stagnation. Careful of bouncing from one kitchen to the next-- thrill seeking, if you will. Oftentimes if you can handle the boredom that comes with month after month of sameness, a year passes and you take the elevator down a floor, to the next level of intimacy with that chef, that team, that cuisine, that menu, those four seasons and their ensuing dishes.
Patience has its rewards.
I could not Chef, mentor, inspire, push, challenge, promote, share with, listen to, manage or send off cooks well until I had experienced being a cook under the tutelage of chefs who did these things for me and other cooks around me.
I could not do or be any of these things, until I made the choice that this was the kind of chef I wanted to be. Until I made the choice that this was the mark I wanted to make.
I could not be any of these things to my cooks until I understood
we keep what we have by giving it away.
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