The Chefs That Scream!

part 1

With movies like Bradley Cooper’s “Burnt”, shows like Gordon Ramsey’s “Hells Kitchen”and Hulu’s “The Bear” that feature over-the-top kitchen tantrums, I am often asked whether the Hollywood depictions have a basis in reality.

The short answer is yes, sometimes. Am I guilty of engaging in that behavior myself? Unfortunately, yes. I’ve had some real meltdowns over the years, mostly over disagreements on customers changing the food. We have our craft ( the chicken is dry , the steak is under cooked ) and that is one thing, but our art is another. Imagine you worked for weeks on a painting and the customer orders it, but asks you to remove the color red. They don’t like it, it makes their eyes hurt. I have ten other beautiful paintings with no red but they have to have that one, just with out the red.

Those emotions certainly don’t account for my best moments as a human, and I’ve often lost sleep over them. Eventually it began to impact my mental health and even led me to slip into depression. I knew I had to change. Moving forward really involved letting go of a lot, and forgiving a lot, of myself and others. It’s been a work in progress, and time heals. The staff gets a chuckle out of recalling some of my epic blowouts years later.

Chefs are like coaches and music conductors. We do not play the game or the instruments. Our position does not involve doing a lot of the actual cooking during service. We are standing on the sidelines directing, tasting, cajoling, cheering, and blustering so cooks on the line will perform in unison and to spec. At the end of the day I am responsible for the wins and the losses in the kitchen. If an overcooked steak gets out, I have to take the blame. I can’t be everywhere at once so it becomes a matter of trusting people to execute my vision. I give them the knowledge, the equipment and the materials. After that I need to let them do the job.

As I have matured personally and professionally, my mantra has become “Nothing good ever happens when you lose your temper”. Your team will focus on the emotions of the moment, both theirs and yours. A loss of self control results in a loss of focus on the food. Not to mention you will, no doubt, wind up looking like an ass.

Positive energy and personal growth are far better mortar to build a crew. That being said, sometimes people need a fire lit under their ass, to improve. Enduring a conniption over a seemingly insignificant detail can create a highly focused, detailed chef. There is absolutely a need for quality because my name is attached to their work. So don’t let me catch someone who is in the weeds putting the burnt side down hoping I won’t notice because, that can bring out the old me in a hurry.

I speak from years of experience. As a line cook, I have been called”a fuck up”, “a worthless piece of shit”, and my personal favorite, “a bleedin fuckin wanker” ( which was almost charming with the Irish accent ) . I have been forced to call myself “dummy” and an “asshole” out loud in front of the kitchen. I have been told my fried calamari “looked like someone’s used condoms.” As horrifying as all that may sound, it is the fire that forges the metal of a chef.

It gives you a thick skin and a tolerance for the pressure, and the presure becomes addictive. These experiences allow us to keep calm when things are falling down all around us. Surviving and thriving in those conditions is a badge of honor. I would not surrender any of those slights despite the nausea and humiliation they may have caused me at the time.