I hate my own cooking. It wasn’t always this way; in the beginning I loved everything that I made, regardless of how disgusting it was. After six years of assaulting my unsuspecting palate with countless taste tests, it is extremely difficult to find merit in anything that I cook. Not because it isn’t any good, but because it isn’t good enough; a curse that is common amongst those who strive to improve. A finished plate never seems finished, I could spend days arranging and rearranging. I have difficulty letting go, much like a parent when their darling little bastard heads off to university to learn how to do drugs and have sex. To relinquish control is torture. Aside from the long hours and slightly above normal levels of alcohol consumption, I believe this inner struggle to be the reason why most cooks look and feel much older than they actually are.
Imagine an extremely rare and valuable substance (for example: diamond juice). Now let’s pretend that your boss has an unlimited supply of diamond juice, and on occasions more rare than the substance itself, he chooses to give you a drop. The drop is so miniscule that it evaporates once it hits your skin. He knows that if he gave you a measurable amount, you would just run away and build a mansion out of unicorn bones. The act provides you with a confidence you’ve never known, you feel like Mick Jagger with a stained apron and an appropriately sized mouth. This act of generousity never, ever takes place around others. Yet despite being impossible to prove, you immediately tell your coworkers all about it. Their reactions are pricelessly doubtful yet unmistakably jealous. In turn, they tell you in great detail about the time that they got theirs, their eyes chock full of the kind of sentiment typically reserved for first loves and The Lion King. Now imagine that this is a metaphor, and that I’m actually talking about compliments.
If it weren’t for the fact that I get to keep my job, I’d have a hard time believing that I do it well at all. Occasional positive customer feedback provides a break from relentless self doubt, as does cooking for grateful loved ones; people, you keep my head in check. Cooking professionally is supposed to be like climbing a mountain without a top. Unfortunately such information isn’t divulged at the beginning of the journey, but rather is discovered much too late to turn around. So you carry on, knowing not where you’re going but only that it’s up and it’s hard.
I guess it’s unfair to say that I hate my cooking, it’s actually fine, I’m just bored of it. I’ve tasted my own food more than anyone else’s, including my mom’s. One of the greatest things about eating is surprise, something that more or less vanishes when you do this for a living. I’m beginning to understand the motivations of people like Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria. This is not to say that I’m going to trade my knives for a chemistry set, but rather that I respect their defiant attitudes towards their own personal boredom.
When I cook, I cook against my future. I don’t have the ghost of Escoffier in my ear telling me about the virtues of a well made veloute. Instead I see myself doing whatever it is that I’m doing better than I’m doing it in that moment. It pisses me off to a point where I want to punch that bastard in the face, but I’ve seen Back To The Future and know not to fuck with time travel. If cooking were a person I’d take him on Oprah and really get to the root of all of this. Unfortunately that’s impossible, so I write these things down and send them to the internet instead.
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Line Cook,
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