professional cook blues.

One busy Saturday night service, many years ago, my station partner and I looked down the line, at one of the meat cooks, and knew something was amiss. There had been an exchange between him and our expediting sous chef that none of us were paying much attention to until our sous raised his voice and squelched that meat cook's words. My partner and I looked down the line and saw that cook just standing there. His knife bag was on his cutting board and he was looking at it.

This might not sound so odd, but in the final minutes before service begins and your ticket machine starts chinkity click clink clinking into it's sputter of endless tickets, time both condenses and elongates like nod sentences on slow motion. You can't stop moving, you can't stop doing,

you are never ready.

You never have time to stand stock still. And your knife bag is no where to be seen. You've been using your tools for hours and they won't find the dark resting place of that knife roll until well past the violet hour.

Service begins. We are at the ready to serve 500+ people 4 star food with 10 cooks on the line not including the expeditor. We have 3 dining rooms, six menus and there's no room for error.

We are about 45 minutes into service when this meat line cook says, "I gotta go."

The air leaves the kitchen and every cook freezes, for a nanosecond. None of us dare to look up. Our sous yells at the line cook. Screams. Rails. All front of house is concrete. Cooks keep cooking. Sous and Line Cook sit under a theater spot light and meat cooks gives in. He starts cooking again. We exhale. Carefully.

8 o'clock hits. The board is full. Captains, back waiters, 3 dishwashers, runners full throttle ahead.

And it's right about then I feel the air in the room shift. Tilt. Electricity ankle high. I am working two ovens, sauteeing and quenelling 25 ice creams my board is full my partner has plates out we're garnishing like mad I'm yelling for runners and plates are getting wiped as they're lifted off the pass

and

I see in my peripheral vision

that that meat cook has turned his back to his grill and is packing up his knives. He has long curly hair and it's obscuring his flattened face. He shows no emotion. He is a quiet artisan, slowly taking care of his tools. The rush of service, the cacaphony of kitchen, the orders barked and directed and a kitchen orchestrated is madness, all around him.

The sous says little. We dare not speak. We watch

in complete disbelief.

The line steps one step closer to stoves to let him pass when he walks out.

He walks out in the middle of service. On Saturday night. In one of New York's best, most popular restaurants.

The ticket machine doesn't notice. The diners don't give a shit. They want their four star food. Now.

It's surreal, and we all know. We all hope

that that is never us.

But what we don't know, what we don't want to believe, what we will fight tooth and nail to forget, to stay in denial with, to shelve, to subjugate, to keep at arms' length, or better yet-- as far away as we can, is that

One day that will be us.

      Sooner than we think.

There was a running joke in that kitchen ever after that night. When we were in the weeds, which was always, but right before service when our nerves were on high alert and we watched the clock banging out its last seconds before the ticket machine would go from sleeping to fourth gear, one of us might say, "I gotta go." laughing in that easy way you can never laugh like again

after it's you.

After it's the you that has got to go. No matter what the fuck is happing in the kitchen. No matter what your leaving does to your fellow cooks and chef and those clueless diners happily perusing the menu.

-----

We have a few pieces of advice concerning 'life outside the kitchen getting in the way of work/cooking" for cooks in this brutal business of professional cooking:

Leave it at the door.
Use your job to avoid your life.
Workaholism is the best forgetting drug.
You can cry, but you gotta keep working.
You can hide in the walk in, but you won't be alone.
There's no part-time in the kitchen.
If you can't come with 1000%, don't come at all.
Preoccupation causes bodily injury. To yourself and others.
Never call in sick unless you're dead.

--------

But what about when you can't leave it at the door?

What about the day I got a long distance call on the internal kitchen phone line at the French Laundry telling me one of my cousins died in a car crash that morning?

What about the day I worked lunch service shaking & hallucinating-- stone cold sober, because of an internal organ failure?

What about the day you bury the most important person in your life?

What about the day you come home to find your partner with someone else?

What about the day you wake up to terrorist attacks? And the days and weeks that follow waiting for word from people you know who were working in the Twin Towers that day? What about the day you get that phone call you didn't want to get, but knew you were going to, telling you that your worst fears were confirmed?

What about the day you hear from your beloved that she has an incurable illness?

What about the day you go home to find your husband gone & divorce papers on the kitchen table?

What about the day you find a lump in your breast?

What about the day you realize your addiction is, finally, something that needs to be addressed. Now. ?

What about the day you learn one of your best friends' has taken her own life?

What about the day you get a call from the school that your child has been hurt?

Then what?

Can you go into the the kitchen that day, that week, those months, and leave it at the door? Cry in the walk- in? Can you go into work and grill or saute or reduce stocks or brunoise meaningless cubes out of vegetables no one is ever going to taste, let alone see your perfect knife skills?

How do you go on?

How do you continue to care about, be inspired by, want to teach, be interested in learning, this exhausting craft, this hungry thirsty insatiable beast of an industry?

Those phone calls, those life altering moments, need to be seen to.

I took time off from cooking to help someone die. I took years off from getting into my chef's coat when I knew I could not give 1000%. I worked in catering when I could not give all of me to a restaurant. I worked in another industry altogether when my grief was so profound I could not sleep or eat or read or speak.

But there are more options than 2.

If you can work through the experience. If you can focus on one hour at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time, one service at a time, you can accumulate a few hours, a few days, a few months, working through the pain, the anguish.

When you can collect a few of life's breathtaking heartbreaks, and you can get through them, and get to the to the other side, where there is light, you collect hope. Hope doesn't go bad. It collects interest in your bank.

And every time you walk through the coals, you can remember that you once did, you twice did, that before.

Because cooking and baking are verbs, they heal as they work you. Working with your hands, seeing immediate results for your toils, heals. Being in a kitchen with other cooks, many of whom have had serious struggles of their own, humbles us and we can be carried by them, if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Kitchen cooks are pirates. We are survivors even if we're not always the fittest. We romp and we meander. We're train jumpers and responsible citizens alike.

Show me someone in my uniform everyday who does not struggle with the craft, the industry, the grace. That person does not exist. You can use work to avoid life, yes, but what about when work is life? Managing life inside and outside of the kitchen is tricky business.

If there's one thing I know it's this. Cooking and baking and writing about it buoys me. Has set me on course even when I couldn't see land through tears. Has brought me back down to earth when I could see my body floating away from self.

But there are times in a cooks life when saying, "I gotta go." is what needs to be said. Only that cook can know when. And why.

I beg of you this, cooks with the blues, attempt to stick it out. Use the kitchen to heal yourself through the pain. Kitchens steady. Kitchens support. Kitchens weather. Kitchens give perspective, consistency. Kitchens heal.

Comments

[Derek Clough]

Shuna,
As usual you nailed it. I spent 6 years running a Rowena Wu Kitchen to bury pain, betrayal, etc... And was possibly my best...most focused...most challenged...most rewarded time of my professional life. I am now scarred but healed and moved on to a better place. But look back on that time with fond disdain.

Derek!! Fantastic to see you here, sir. O yes, I know this intense restaurant owner you speak of. I worked in a Reed Hearon kitchen that she owned... oy vey. I LOVE this line of yours, But look back on that time with fond disdain. Thank you so much for being 'here.' I always ::liked:: you. wink. ~ Shuna

[Kristina]

I remember the day my stepfather died and I was working. My chef came to me and said, "You have to go to the hospital. Now." It was the middle of lunch service and my mother had called him, not me. He didn't tell me anything but "go now" but by the time I got there, it was too late.
I was back at work for my next scheduled shift, 2 days later.
It was tough, but yes, sometimes the work is the best distraction.

[Natalie Sellers]

How true!

[Haan Palcu-Chang]

I agree, kitchens do heal. Creating food that means something to people is an immensely fulfilling and restorative process that has no equal.

Still, I feel that the culture in kitchens is largely unhealthy and overly macho.

Yelling, screaming, eating once during a 14 hour shift, the idea that you have to come to work unless you are about to die, it all seems so ridiculous. I mean, who was it that decided that cooking food should be carried out like a military campaign?

Having cooked in michelin star restaurants in Europe for the last year I just can't help but feel that the culture in the kitchen needs to change.

There needs to be more mutual respect, not more subordination. There needs to be better monetary compensation so that cooking is a more viable trade to live by. And most importantly there needs to be less of this ridiculous macho culture. You are not fighting a war, you are not making monumental global-policy decisions...you are cooking, get over yourself. THere will be much less of these "I gotta go" moments when chefs embrace a healthier work philosophy.

Just my thoughts...

Haan, I have worked in very strict and incredibly laid back kitchens and I think strict kitchens run better. There is a reason why kitchen structure is military based. It's the same reason why there aren't 4 people conducting an orchestra or 16 teachers teaching one class of students. Order is absolutely necessary.

In my own kitchen, cooks are never screamed or yelled at, everyone gets my full attention and respect equally. And still there is moaning & whinging... So I'm not convinced the nice way is the best way. Also a lot of the ways chefs treat their cooks is to test them. 'The industry is hard, can you go the distance?' is what they're saying, without saying it.

I agree that kitchens don't have to be prisons, but, in my own experience, the more strict the kitchen, the better the cooks. ~ Shuna

[recovery chef]

I will start sending people here when they ask why I dropped out of cooking school and don't currently cook. Powerful post. Thanks so much

[Justin Ide]

Great post! Far to many people in this world simply give up too easily and don't really know what "work" is these days.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Remember, Food is Love!

Cheers,
Justin

[Audrey]

Wow Shuna!! You really have to love cooking to live that sort of life.

[Kristin Vaughn]

I started cooking at the age of 14 in a snack shack on a lake..hot dogs and hamburgers were our main fare.. I am 30 now and am simply amazed at how much my story and experiences of working in kitchens paralell the things you have written!! you make me feel as if we worked in all the same places and just have not met eachother yet! 90% of the time, I was the only girl that worked the line. So Ive spent years trying to pull my own weigh; prove to everyone that I deserved my job; show my Chefs that I was just as good, just as fast, just as accurate, just as organized, just as prepared, and just as dependable as my male counterparts..And I've also spent years trying to convince myself that I was in the right profession, that I WAS good enough to be there..I 2nd guessed every decision, every plate, every sauce, every substitution, and every ticket time in front of me for a long time. I now know this was largely due to the weak, or lazy, or just plain incompetent leadership displayed by the majpority of the chefs i have worked for..So in 2010, 14 years after I had my first "hit" of working the line, I was able to get a job at a University here in Nashville. I no longer 2nd guess anything. I'm confident in my decisions, my abilities, and myself. And so is my Chef and Sous. They are amazing. I still am the only girl on the line, I realize that may not ever change. But I love it and no longer spend much time proving anything to anyone, most importantly, myself. Thank you for being one of those Chefs that teaches and molds and trains and supports. There are too many that do not.

[naomi]

I've left comments before, and I must say, especially after this one, it feels wrong. You write beautifully and deeply and true, such that my comments are weak little sputters. So, forgive me for doing it again; this was too moving for me not to thank you.

[Linda]

I retired early for a reason, I do not agree with a military approach and I do not think that it works. Chefs are people and making food is not brain surgery. There needs to be respect among a team. You know early on if someone has a work ethic or not and in my experience Chefs usually do. Demeaning someone does not build self esteem and pointing fingers does not either. A kitchen is a place to produce and learn from a place of strength. Everyone is overworked in a kitchen but maturity tells you to take care of yourself so that you are your best at what you do. Sometimes you are really sick and you have a choice to call out or to infect the whole kitchen, I have seen it happen with the flu, it was a nightmare because the sous came in, too sick to work and refused to leave and within a week everyone in the kitchen was sick. Had he stayed home it would have been different. I am not saying that as a blanket statement but you have to have the maturity to see the whole picture. If all you do is complain about the position you should probably be doing something different. My 2 cents

[Haan Palcu-Chang]

Thank you for responding to my comment. I really appreciate it. I get what you are saying and I understand where you are coming from. It is always interesting to get another point of view.

I think from my experience I just function better when people around me are calm and collected. Not yelling and disrespectful.

On a side note, I am always amazed at how long everybody's comments are on your blog. I think that shows how much people care about what you are writing about. I think that is pretty neat.

[pastrystudio]

Absolutely amazing portrayal of the profession, true in every aspect. I only lasted 6 years and it still brings a strange and oddly conflicted sense of beautiful joy and a horrendous grumble of stress in the pit of my stomach just thinking about it. It's everything you and your commenters say it is and so much more. But for now, I choose to remember only the sheer and utter tantalizing beauty of the ingredients and how they ultimately grace the plate and inhabit our soul and that still takes my breath away.

[Emily]

One of my favorite posts - Your words stuck in my head for days. Thank You!

[Marissa]

This post nearly brought me to tears. This is a beautiful portrait of what the kitchen asks of us, but also what the kitchen gives us in return. A kitchen's life is a powerful thing. Thank you for reminding us of that.

[Lovebabz]

My dear you are wise beyond your years. You know things. You have learned things. Now you are sharing things....

Some of us already know...good food is healing...cooking good food is healing. This applies to the 4 star chef as well as the momma with 4 kids.

You have to keep talking about this...there is definitely more to say.

[Susanne]

I am not a cook, just one of those customers who eat more or less happily what the cooks have created. Thank you for your post; it will help me to be more grateful for the food i eat, for the service i get, for the miracle that is happening in every ambitioned kitchen. And to understand those better who need to say: i gotta go.

[seasofia]

I really needed to read this. I must have read and linked to it over a dozen times now. I am a professional cook and have been struggling with these questions for years.

Your words have meant so much to me since I found you a year ago, and have gotten me through some extraordinarily dark and difficult times. Thank you for everything.

[G]

Thank you for this post. I've been a long time lurker of your blog. Reading this put tears in my eyes because you put in eloquent words exactly how I feel about the kitchen. I only lasted 3 years. My heart was in love with the work but my head and body did not agree. I wasn't able to sacrifice. And in this sort of industry it's either be great or go home. Funny because my heart still wants to do it and I often look back on those three years with "fond disdain". Reading the comments from your really awesome readers also put tears in my eye because some of what they said was the reason why I left. I think it's wrong that cooks really can't leave when they have to. And it really isn't that serious. It's just food. But people sacrificed A LOT to make that food so I understand that too. And I understand that it is serious. And if you can endure all that than it's definitely worth it to be part of that exclusive cooks club. I'm honored that I was even able to be a pledge-ling for that club during the 3 years I worked.

[Alan]

Just a brief comment from a Dad whose 20 year old daughter just graduated from FCI and is going to create wonderful experiences for people out of flour, sugar, cream, butter and her passion. Long story short, 3 weeks before she was to graduate from school she was the victim of a hit and run while riding her bike to school in Manhattan. Three months in Bellevue Hospital, two of which she couldn't eat or drink, mom traveling from Ohio to be by her side every day. One month after discharge she was back to school to finish what she had started. Her life had changed immeasurably and in ways none of us could imagine. Her maturiy, professionalism and dedication has been a wonder to see. She is now doing an internship at a restaurant you'd recognize and valuing every minute. She sent me this post with the following note:

"Dad, this blog post can tell you kind of what is going on inside my head right now, and it can tell you better than I ever could".

She might shoot me for writing you but I just wanted you to know how much she was touched by what you wrote. Her name is Hannah and she is a hell of a kid and a hell of a pastry chef.

Thanks for telling me what she couldn't express.

[JBennett]

Awesome, true and wonderfully written.

[sheila @ Elements]

I enjoyed reading your post, and I cracked up when you talked about how you and your co-workers have this little joke now and will say, "I gotta go" from time to time.

It reminded me of a time when this new guy we had just hired said he had to go to the bathroom to change his shirt. Huh? Change your shirt? I don't know; he didn't tell me that. I didn't hear that but apparently he told one of the other cooks that.

Anyway, he never came back. So now occasionally one of us will say, "I gotta go change my shirt" and it's funny as hell. :)

As far as never calling in sick...well...there is that unwritten rule. Officially the rule is you're supposed to call in if you're ill (feverish, have diarrhea, or are vomiting). So many don't stay home though. They come in and infect the rest of us, and that's just not cool. But that's the way it is.

Leave it at the door...yeah...that's how it's supposed to be. But there are some people who bring it right through the door every shift they work, making the night miserable for everyone else around them.

I wish they'd leave their attitudes at home, but they don't. You hear their mouths runnin' all night long.

The crazy pace and being in the weeds all night...I can take that. But the attitudes...that's what gets to me. I try not to let it. I try to ignore it. But it's always there.

One thing's for sure...cooking and baking is good for the soul. It sure is brutal on your feet though! :)

[Dani Craig]

I have bookmarked, read, and re-read this piece. Every time you speak of grace in any of your posts, it moves me to the core. If only my writing came close to reaching the level of eloquence you have perfected with your own.

[D]

I have probably read this entry a dozen times since you posted it, Chef. This entry speaks volumes to me.

Sometimes I feel like the weight of everything going on in my life is too much to carry, but I realized recently that this is the only industry that allows me to cull it. It's the only industry that allows me to witness progress, continually, daily, in times when progress or change or positivity seems unattainable. The feeling that I can bring joy to another's life when I'm having trouble finding the joy in my own. It is my joy.

Something happened recently that left me in a pretty bad state. Last night I worked around 350 covers solo, and under the pressure, I was having a hard time separating my work from what I should have left at home. I felt tears well up in my eyes as every ticket rolled in - but my hands never stopped working. And every plate I passed was something I was proud of, because it's where my soul ended up.

Thank you a billion times for this post. I really cannot thank you enough. Every time I get even the slightest feeling that the weight might be too much, I remember what you said -- Kitchens heal. And they do every time.

[S]

Thank you, Chef.

As I go through this rough time in life re-reading this entry was just what I needed. The family that I've gained from working in this kitchen - they need me and I need them. More so the latter at this moment. I am healing with their help and with time.