Whoever knows pain is dangerous from the fire that burns the soul

I would to talk about being a chef in a blunt and matter of fact sort of way.

We are all self absorbed, high strung , egoistical, mad, somewhat genius, sarcastic, twats. We are womenizers, sluts, drinkers, drug addicts ,insane or a combo of one or more of these things. We burn bridges fast and then act like nothing happen because we truly can't remember it . We don't know when to stop or to go home. Most of us never realize when the job has consumed our life till its to late . Some hide it well ... Some let it all hang out like Britney's Vj jay.
We think we are right and hate having to compromise but do it cause we can't have are staff hate us otherwise we have no staff.
We get a kick when those we have trained turn out to be like us. Yes we are asses sometimes. We can be rude, pains in the ass , impulsive and stubborn. We have a wicked and weird sense of humor. We laugh when we shouldn't , act like 16 year olds and probably do many other things that could land us in court.

But we have patience. We are kind to those who have the sparkle we had when we first started out and have been chasing for far to long. Those newbies piss is us off because they think they know everything. And probably remind us of a younger version of ourselves .
I am always brought back to a part of the movie and book A Razor's Edge, where Larry and gray arrive in France with nice new Red Cross van and piedmount proceeded to dirty it up and break it. That's how I feel about crispy white newbies. Army and training new culinary cooks are similar in that we have to break the spirit in order to make it better.
Now before you roll your eyes or call me an ass. ... Being in hot kitchens for 12-15 hours at a time on your feet all the time without a break is not the cool rocks star
Way of life tv chefs make it look.
And there are only a handful(handful is a vague reference because I really mean somewhere in the capacity of a couple of thousand) that are really good and go at it everyday , pushing the grade , making the food taste as it should : like food . Even the molecularly gastronomy has a lot of coolness but has to be done right. It's really only about a few things: great ingredients, knowledge and creative spark. That's it. Seriously. Knowledge is not just what you think. It's about knowing what's in season and how long it will keep. It's the ability to predict how something will taste just by knowing the ingredients and how that knowledge just rolls off your tongue without even thinking about it. It's laughing at the tequila shrimp going horribly wrong and impressed with yourself with the pork butt wrapped in pork belly that went ohhhh my god so well

We are also a bunch of burnouts . Like war torn soldiers that have had one to many tours . At this point most switch jobs . The rest of us carry on in some matter.
Those who survive are the happy chefs that usually find some knook in the world that makes them happy.



In the end those who are truly great don't care about money(it's lovely of course but not what we strive for) we just want people to enjoy the food and be connected to them even on a surface connection.

Our madness is our job. Our work ethic the hammer to the coffin and our craft is the joy of our soul.