Letters to the Editor
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What happened to "A" ?
Sounds like the anonymous Sous Chef saved you from going out of business. Why doesn't she get the credit of actually being named? Was that her choice or yours?
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Why would anybody in their right mind
want to become a chef?
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Truly a terrifying story
When he first mentioned changing the menu, I thought this was going to be one of those stories like Sunset Blvd, narrated by a dead guy.
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Or, to be more precise...
...why would anyone want to be a chef for the author!
I'm glad that she received something out of this whole experience, but the only thing that this story really showed was her extreme lack of professionalism, especially early on in her restaurant's history. Seems like her restaurant would have been an absolute failure without her staff there to... errr... pull her fat out of the fire.
Chalk it up to another story in this series where some yuppie wannabe has more arrogance than brains or skill.
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No one...
...in his or her right mind would become a chef. Like art or medicine, it's a thing you either must do, always, all the time, or really shouldn't try.
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Here's a few reasons why people want to be chefs
1) Julia Child through today's Food Network has created a glamour that rarely rings true. Be a chef, get on TV! I am not denigrating anyone here, least of all Julia, but culinary programs are quite happy with the facade. Just as less than 1% of college athletes make it to the pros, much less make it big, the same can be said for all the kids diving into culinary school straight out of H.S. and have never worked in a restaurant. Note: I made up the 1% number, but please realize the number of chefs running high profile restaurants is a tiny, TINY number of working chefs in the world.
2) Some, as Neimon says, are driven by crazy passion to do nothing but cook and create and I've worked with people who can't find anything else to talk about because they have such tunnel vision. But this isn't true of everyone, by any means. It isn't true for me. Truth is....
3) Some of us just like it. I enjoy my career and glad I found it/it found me. I fell into it, starting when I was 16 (I am 33 now) and very slowly finding my way into a career in the kitchen. I am good at it and enjoy it greatly, but I have never felt it is something I "must do, always, all the time." Four the past five years I have had a non-traditional, non-restaurant job and absolutely love it. I hope to be done with restaurants forever. I have decent hours, more than decent pay and benefits.
I am, more or less, the private chef for a small corporation doing cooking demonstrations and private events. I work late (and by late I mean 9pm) 1-3 night per week, and am always done by 5pm on Friday, work a very occasional Sat. and never on Sunday. There are more of us there than you might think...many chefs, cooks, etc. are not working in restaurants. A long time ago I decided I wanted to work "on the periphery of the food service industry" and was fortunate enough to get there.
So, that is why I am a chef. Because I like it. And I love my job.
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Yet Another Idiots Who Succeed Story
Please, Salon, stop with the stories about idiots who nevertheless succeeded. There's a fine line between a heartwarming story of the good-hearted person who tried hard, learned important lessons, and succeeded, and the leaden story of the ignoramus who thought she knew everything, behaved unkindly to those around her, and yet learned a few lessons and managed to succeed.
All too many of Salon's 'life' stories are the latter. Please stop.
[Note that I will not complain endlessly about this. I will not email the editor, I will not post complaints in every story like this, and I will not harangue my fellow Salon members about the subject. I will just stop reading stories in the 'Life' section. I already don't read stories in several other sections. We'll see if Salon is worth paying for next time it comes up for renewal.]
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Penance
Anybody else think this article reads like the "community service" portion of the author's efforts to make things right with A.?
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Why would anybody in their right mind
eat at, much less open, a restaurant called Prune?
Ick.
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Enjoyed the article
The whole time I was reading it, I knew someone would say something like this "Chalk it up to another story in this series where some yuppie wannabe has more arrogance than brains or skill." What a bunch of insufferable jerks.
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Prune is my favorite restaurant in New York
...and that's saying something. It's AWESOME. I enjoyed this article because Gabrielle writes really well, and is witty and self-aware, and is honest and wry and humble about her shortcomings. If you had Sunday brunch at Prune, which I do as often as I possibly can, you would realize that based on the incredibly delicious food, she could be an arrogant nightmare. Instead she sounds funny, warm and human.
On second thought, maybe her food proves that she is NOT an arrogant nightmare. Eating at Prune is like eating love. It's fabulous, and consistent, and totally unpretentious. Yum. I want to go there right now and have some spaghetti carbonara and one of those incredible bloody marys...
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Neimon's right
The chef profession is a calling.
I wanted to be a chef because I love to cook. I worked my way up to the point that I was subbing on the line and I was miserable. I worked with chefs, noted their obsession with food and realized that I didn't have the calling. Now I work in a completely non-food related industry and I'm as happy as can be. I still love to cook and am told that I cook very well, but making a nice dinner for your friends is not at all the same as developing a menu and cranking out dozens of perfect dishes a night.
If you aren't a chef (or have never worked in a professional kitchen) you will never understand why anyone would do it. If you are a chef, you know that you have no choice.