Life On The Line...

Chapter one

I jumped into cooking on a bit of a whim. With little to no hesitation. After spending many years in the art business I was looking/needing to change my life. 

It started with a class in 1998. A gift, to sit in with a local chef and watch them prepare something amazing. Then you get to taste the somethings and take home all the recipes. 

Then I learned that I could volunteer to assist the chefs. I could take the class, work along side the chefs and it was free. A win win. 

After volunteering  several times, I asked one of the chefs what it would take to become a cook. She invited me to visit her restaurant to see what I thought.

The next day I showed up excited to see the action of a real kitchen. After a few hours of me trying to stay out the way, in a very tiny space, she said, "I would ask you what you thought but you haven't stopped smiling the entire time." I hadn't. I loved it.

It looked like it would be a great deal of fun. Playing with food and getting paid. How naive.

She offered me a job. I started the next night, training on the saute station, I took to it right away, and stayed for almost 4 years.

I got lucky. She was an excellent chef on the verge of a great career. It was her first restaurant so she spent a lot of time in the kitchen. But she was a hot head. She screamed and yelled at us. Occasionally throwing things at us. Like plates of food. God help us if one of her plate wasn't what she wanted. It should be 13 inches tall and it's only 12, you had better duck. She would not hesitate to throw a full plate back at us through the window if she wasn't pleased. She was horrible, but brilliant.

Through it all I learned a great deal. It fed a passion I feel toward food. It's an art, it's creative, it's sensual. It's also very hot, horrible hours, low wages, no security or benefits, and very stressful.  Serious cuts and burns are part the daily joys.  The pressure can be over whelming. It's a running joke in every kitchen that it takes a special kind of crazy to survive in the restaurant industry. It's funny because it's true.

Kitchens are a counter culture that most never see and even fewer understand. Cooks or BOH (back of house) are a strange mix of people. Under educated, over educated, lots of drugs addicts, drug dealers, alcoholics, ex-cons, illegal aliens, witness relocation, students, drop outs, burn outs, mid life crisis, and at times the occasional killer, predator or flat out psychopaths. 

They are also a close knit group of transients. Usually accepting of everyone's quirks. You have to be. Conditions are close. The hours alone make it hard for you to have friends and sometimes family whom aren't in the industry. We work nights, holidays, weekends. Some places are never closed, 24/7, 365. Your days off are during the week. You run on a schedule that is almost the opposite of the rest of the world.  It can be great to have days off when the rest of the world is working. places are less crowded, and most things are open.

It is also very difficult to maintain any sort of normal relationship. If you're not in the industry the life style is difficult to understand.  I practically missed my child's entire life between ages of 7 and 10. It contributed to my divorce. 

It's the hours we work. Horrible, late, long. Most cooks are night people. As I write this it's 2am. 

At my current position, a Sous Chef at an international hotel chain, I work an average of 60+ hours a week. 10-12 hours a day, five days, often it's six. Often it's as many as 20 days in a row without a day off. 12pm to 12am or later. I spend the first two hours checking everything out, checking in with other sous', cooks, managers, going over the line set up, mise en place, specials, prep, banquets, special events, and the restaurant.I have to do my own line work and mise en place. The next 6-7 hours are spent on the line as the saute/grill chef. I run the line. I cover a section that is 14 feet long. The hot side is responsible for all of the entree dishes for dinner and a few items off the bar and pool menus, not to mention room service.  It's very hot. On average it runs about 85-120 degrees.  There are few breaks, sometimes none. It can be crazy busy one night and slow the next. Most night we serve about 200-300 covers a day. The last couple of hours are spent cleaning up, putting things away, going over inventory, placing orders, writing the prep list, organizing walk-ins,checking the other cooks line and cleaning, helping the dish washer clear the pit, checking in with the night cleaners and sending a nightly passdown email to all of the managers and chefs. 

Give or take...



 
 

Lost In Invisiblity...

When I was much younger, I wondered if I might be invisible. Not all the time, but often. I could be surrounded by people and wouldn't get noticed. They would look right through me, never at me. Now as I continue to age I'm convinced that I am actually invisible,  from time to time. And never by my choice. I just seem to fade out and then eventually back in.

It's an odd sensation.

It's been almost a year since I closed my studio. I miss it like breathing. I can feel it pulsing through my veins, calling to me. It never stops. I can hear it. I can't turn it off. I worry I may never get back.
The responsibility of being an adult never seem to diminish. The world always wants, no,  demands more and more and is never satisfied. Always more.

I don't understand what we've done. What we've become. I can see where things are headed ever so clear. Am I the only one? Can anyone else see what we have done to ourselves? That it's getting worse, not better? That greed, selfish ego, corruption and lies have become the norm, and are accepted as if it always been that way. Or always should have been that way. I just don't know anymore.

I scream. The louder I scream the softer my voice. No one hears. No one listens. No one cares about anything outside of their own beliefs, right or wrong, good or bad. There has become no room for growth or improvement, or knowledge. At what point do we stop striving to be better? When do we stop asking questions? When do we decide that we know everything we need to know and stop taking in additional knowledge? Why do we stop learning? Or more importantly, why do we start refusing to learn and think that we know everything there is to know? And then decide that everyone else is wrong even when confronted with empirical evidence and scientific proof?

Just why? Common sense is no longer common. Education has become the enemy of those in control. Education is feared more than any other threat. Truthful knowledge is power and its dangerous.

So I scream. I stand in the middle of the street and I scream out in pain from the bottom of my soul. Surrounded by people I scream from the top of lungs...

...nothing. No response. No reaction. Like I'm not there.

Silent.

Invisible.

Lost...

Is This Thing On...

Love Askew...

Of the few things that I have regrets about, the one that haunts me most is that our wonderful little Bug will have no memories of a life when we were in love. He has grown up in a home without love or affection. Of course we love him and show him as much affection as we can, but there is nothing but mean, cold, detachment toward one another. He will grow up thinking that our relationship is normal. Most of his friend have divorced parents so he has no reference from them either.  I had always dreamed that our son would grow up in a home that was warm and full of love, laughter, affection, romance and passion for life. I pray that when he falls in love, that he will follow his heart and not the icy example that we have given him.
I'm sad that I can't stop loving you. I'm sad that you are so cold and indifferent toward me. I'm sad that you can't love me. I'm sad that I was so blind to you and your real feelings.

Cold Indifference...

How do I stop loving someone? How do I make my heart realize that she doesn't love anymore? Or  realize that maybe she never really did? Her cold indifference toward me is like a knife to my skin. I miss her so much. I want to hold her and tell her how much I still care.
She doesn't love me. She doesn't even like me most days, I'm more of a toleration. Spending any amount of time with me is merely for our son and then I'm dismissed as soon as possible.
Why can't I let go and realize that she is not going to come back. Her heart has no room for me.
I keep hoping that one day she will see something in me that she used to see. But each time our eyes meet mine are met with regret. Why can't she see me the way we were? Why isn't my love and romance enough for her? Why am I not enough for her? I hate this. Why can't I let her go the way she let me go? I'm tired. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep each night. I'm tired of missing what I thought we had. I'm tired of the rejection and cold indifference.