Rant and rave....

What do Chef's and cook's think of food bloggers? .......................

The smarter one's embrace and brown nose them. As this would be best for business and career. But from my observations most are apprehensive. Cook's by nature, are more introverts. If they prefer and are good dealing with people they would be servers or front of house staff. A good FOH staff is generally more valuable than a peasant cook. Sure there are exceptions. The exception is that the poor bugger looks like crap. Most cooks I've met are miserable SOB's. Let's face it, waiter's and bartender's make better $$$. Only a fool would slave in the kitchen, or a swine.

Sure, there are lot's of progress made in the industry and there are a few celebrity chef's. Even food empire's run by someone that apparently started in the kitchen. You've probably seen, Babe: Pig in the City  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120595/ , you probably thought the pig was so cute. Well it was. That pig was in a freakin movie! How many pigs get to be in a movie. How many cooks even get to be a chef? Not many apparently. Most of the best cooks I've worked with and met, never want to be a Chef. They would rather work in their own domain, where they have more control regarding their daily routine. While many people assume that the primary ingredient to being a great Chef is the ability to cook. The business reality is that a Chef's biggest role is to part of a profitable enterprise. Most of this skills are not covered in your 'Chef school'.

Someone asked me last night upon hearing that I was a chef, if it was true: "is the kitchen very 'military like'?". errr... as in like 'A Few Good Men'? where soldiers have a 'code of conduct', and you never undermine authority. Yes it's true. There use to be lotsa ass kickin'. And cooks crying themselves to bed. But nowadays it's minimal. Sure, we yell at the incompetent nin-kam-poop prep guy. After he messed up on the mise-en-place, AGAIN!. On a Friday evening heading to the busiest weekend of the year. But in today's kitchen any inappropriateness get's dealt with immediately. In other words no abuses are tolerated. If only, the good Ole days were back, when you could give the cook a good kick in the ass when he messed up. Morale in the kitchen would improve dramatically! At least the slacker would really think twice about cutting corners on his prep. And as a food lover, all you really want is good food right? Please take a stand. Down with human rights! Let the kitchen abuses come back in vogue. .....

What give's the right to an utter unknown or anybody that can sign up for a free blog account to make comments about a chef's work. A chef who has worked and risked so much(including some possible flogging). A chef has to endure so much just to get there. Now a 'no name' nobody who thinks they are food lover or presumably knowledgeable in food because they ate better food than their peers. Because they were born with a silver spoon and never gone to bed hungry decide they want to 'share' their food knowledge with the world. Chef's and especially cooks only wished he had your dining budget. Cooks who get by with the restaurant's staff meals' and leftover carbohydrates for years and years. Saving their hard earned paycheques for other necessities like rent, and wal-mart clothing.

So how was your day at work today? Did you a have good day? Sent out and replied to all your e-mails. Made all your calls you were suppose to. File all the documents correctly. Hope you didn't leave any work left undone. Imagine if you did? What would happen. Probably no biggie. Nothing you cant fix when you get in tomorrow, right. Imagine if head office sent in an 'efficiency' expert. And the said 'expert' came and observed your work. It's a long weekend. Stressful week, kids just back in school. Parents visiting. Your basement got flooded. Darn it. Was suppose to get that fix earlier. Now you get home and just realize you forgot to sent the attachment to the bank for a pending loan for the company. Oops!. Never done that before. Sure you figure some way to fix it. But not before the 'efficiency' expert makes note of it and post it on the world wide web so your kids, parents and co-workers know you made an honest mistake.

It's one thing to have a customer make a remark to a server who then passes it on the the chef. But to have a moment of your work judged and immortalized, can be unnerving. IMHO, having a moment of your work judged and immortalized on the world wide web albeit positive isn't really fair. It doesn't really reflect who you are and what you are made of. There are so many factors that come into play when it comes to cooking and food. As is with the variables that come into running a food service environment.

People who think that being a chef is a great career should never be a guidance counselor. It would be like hiring an alms dealer to general an incumbent war. If your kids say they wanna be Chef because they like eating. Tell your kids to be a food blogger instead. They eat better than most Chef's.

So I did ask a chef what he thought of food bloggers. The answer was, "I don't really pay attention to them. It  doesn't make a difference to what I do or make. I have my own standard and accountability". Amen.

P/S rough post. will edit later. gotta go make turkey dinner now...