In Defense of Chefs (Where I Pick On Endive)

The other day as I flew down the State Highway 41 on my way to a paying gig as a dancing monkey and I slipped on NPR. Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! always entertains me. This week their special guest, Thomas Keller,  owns two restaurants. At The French Laundry, he serves very small-portion many course meals at brickshittingly high prices.

Seriously? $175? Maybe I am a dirty philistine ankle deep in bacon, but I don't see the need for Endive.

You know what, I am just going to say it. Fuck Endive. It can suck eggs.

OK, I want to shift gears. Because menus like this, combined with the apparent arrogant bullfuckery of Chefs, leads many who don;t know better to ask "Why are Chefs such douchebags?"

A justified but inappropriate response by a chef is to put the thousand dollar knives through the offending ignoramuses neck. Put down your babies. A better response is to puff up you chef's jacket and paraphrase the book of Job:

Gird up now thy loins like a Chef; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Dish Tell me, if you understand. Who hath memorized the measures there of? Or who had stretched the dough upon it! 

I wanted to be a Chef for approximately 3-4 hours back in 1999.  I saw the Chefs in their fine whites and thought it was fun. And hey, I can cook - I use recipes. But unlike a lot of people who chef-hate, when I realized what was involved, I said "Fuck this shit" and decided to be headbutted in the dick by a goat. Much less stressful.

A Chef isn't just some random  dorkfaced snotweasel in the kitchen baking a pie. Any jerk can yank a recipe from the Internet and slap together a solid Apple Crumb Pie or Casserole. If you think this is cooking, then eat a bag of dicks. [FB friends - ;) ]

A Chef has to be several things by the time they get to rightfully be called a chef. They are at once a hustler, salesman, artist, an accountant,and an epicurean.

Hustler
I mean hustler as "one who hustles". You see, when some 16-17-year-old says "I want to be a chef" what they are really saying is "I want to be a gopher bitch-boy (or gopher bitch-girl)." They are going to start at the bottom, amongst a bunch of bottom feeders. Assuming you have a bit of sense, a smidgen of education, and some luck, you start as a Chef de partie.  In the US we call them station cooks or line cooks. There are a bunch of types, but the all mean the same thing. Tedious-fucking-peon. Go on, fry shit for eight hours in a kitchen that is as hot and greasy as Hell's asshole. And when you aren't risking 3rd degree burns frying, sauteing,  and baking, frying, you are stocking, and prepping for the other four. Bathroom breaks? Fuck you. Cigarette breaks? Not if you want someday move up to rotisserie and roundsman. And say goodbye to your days off.  You have to ship 12 appetizers out in four to six minutes. It's liked those timed cooking competitions, but for hours. Don't fuck up.
And that's if you are lucky enough to snag  a chef position. In actuality you'll start as a busser or a dishwasher. All the heat, all the grease, but with 200% more "half-eaten-food-sludge"

Oh, and did I mention these positions pay right about minimum wage? Maybe a few dollars more. This is why I nope'd right the hell out of being a chef. 

This never stops, by the way. You just sort of add more work and that work has greater repercussions. Instead of holding the line back 5 minutes for a single customer, suddenly your failure to inventory causes you  run out of Endive in the middle of Friday dinner service. Fucking Endive.

Salesman 
Diners are the biggest whiners ever.  They have high expectations despite the fact that their meal is made by minimum wage gophers amongst 30 meals. And when they see the bill they choke on their spiteful tongues. When I found out it costs $175 dollars a plate for The French Laundry, I just about pissed myself. But Then Chef Keller started describing one of his dishes, about the experience of small plates and diminish returns. He wanted each person to ask "I want a little more." and receive the new surprise.
Why, this old art hating philistine wistfully thought on being in Yountsville and dropping two bills.
See, he smartly turned it from "$200 dollars in tiny food" to an experience. A good salesman will sell the feeling, not the product.

Artist
A chef is always trying to wow you, to evoke feelings. Whether it's the feeling of comfort in a hot curry or the sensual lust of a dessert. They are trying to provide a unique dining experience.  The philistine in me struggles with this. When I see them haul out a frozen block to paint with chocolate, I yawn. I am impressed by the clever design of Heston's feast - and I might enjoy the experience. But I find it unnecessary.

I am wrong. Dead wrong. The search for novelty - the driving force of humanity, demands greater and greater effort into cleverness. No longer is steak good enough. Now we have to have a pureed steak milkshake with garlic mashed potatoes and Endive sprinkles.

That three-minute cigarette doesn't come with a mental disengagement. Anytime not spent cooking is spent 


Accountant
Once you work five or six years of 18 hour days and become a head chef (often by virtue of simply sticking it out),  you have to start performing Inventory, which is Latin for "counting boxes with a clipboard." and can also mean "alcoholism." You have a limited budget,often provided by an owner who is clearly living in 1765 when chickens went for a half-farthing for ten. How many boxes of goat spleen do you have? How many services tonight? How long until the spleen goes bad? And can you get by after that idiot Ralph dumped an entire box of Endive?

Can you? I sure as hell can't, not after working seven 18-hour days.




So they have a right to be arrogant - as anyone who exhibits expertise won  through hard sacrifice deserves a goddamn medal.