But I digress,my name is Christian. I'm what most people would describe as a "ex-chef" but I prefer to think of myself as retired. I haven't seen the inside of a professional kitchen for over 18 months,my whites have probably got mothballs in the wardrobe BUT I can say my knifes are still sharp and see regular use. Why did I leave? That's easy. Bad Head chef and Bad management. As any chef will tell you these things can make your day 110% longer and harder.
So I left. I hung up my whites,cleaned my knifes packed then into my kit,stacked my recipe/cook books into a box and put them all into the garage thinking that I'd never touch them again. Now you have to understand a kitchen team is like a family. You support each other,you help each other,you work hard for each other and yes you fight with each other but at the end of the shift after all is said and done you sit down,have a beer and look back at the night and feel good about what you achieved,how many meals you pumped out or how you bailed yourself outta the weeds or how well the specials sold etc. But when the people that you look up to in "The Family" begin to shit on you life gets harder. The shifts seem longer and the small things you used to shrug off.....they get bigger and bigger until it all becomes too much and it pushes you to breaking point,burnt out and disillusioned.
Now the irony here is you would think that I'd get as far away as possible from anything even vaguely kitchen related right?? Wrong. I went from cooking in kitchens to building them. I became a joiner,a kitchen joiner to be exact. Just to clarify something here I didn't apply for this job I walked into it,I thought it was just going be a temporary thing but here I am still doing it today.
About now your probably asking yourself "What the hell has this got to do with anything and why is he blogging about it??" Again easy. I miss it. I miss the service rush,the "calm before the storm" feeling just before service,the hussle n flow during prep as you rush to get everything done. And the people too. So I'm going back into the kitchen or as I like to think of it "...Back into the frying pan".
Ok so its not just going to be that easy. I've been out of the industry for quite a while now and though I can still cook excellent food I don't have the speed nor the sharpness I used to have. Trust me doing a dinner party for 10 friends is nothing compared to doing a dinner service of 120 paying customers. So I have to sharpen my skills up again and prove I can still do it. How am I going to do this?? I'm going to work for free!
Sounds crazy huh?? But let me elaborate a little. There is about 0.000001% chance that if I apply for a job in a good restaurant that I'll actually get the job,too long out of the kitchen is the first thing they'll say. So the plan goes like this- I have a day job,a easy day job with weekends off....and free nights. So what shall I do with those weekends and free nights?? I plan to go around restaurants and give what most Head Chefs don't believe exists....A free worker with skills. I'm going to become a bit of a kitchen whore giving myself to who ever will take me for a couple of nights.
Hmmm reading that makes it sound a lot easier than I actually think it's going to be, there are a few things I've got to do first. Get some fresh whites,a new cooks knife and knife roll (along with a few other items) and then work up the balls to do it. A professional kitchen is a scary place,mistakes are usual accompanied with a bollocking or your own blood and the public has become even more demanding of their chefs expecting more for their money and higher standards of food for their tastebuds. All of which I will be opening myself up to again and which I suspect will smash my current sheltered ego into 1000 pieces very quickly. So its a daunting challenge that lies ahead of me.
But there is a ulterior motive for my return to the kitchen and it's purely selfish. I love food porn,you know those photo's of food that just make your mouth water,your tongue twitch as your tastebuds get aroused. The kind of photo that with out even knowing the recipe just makes you want to cook it. Food photo's play a huge part in what we eat I mean how many times have you heard the saying "we eat with our eyes first". And we do....we 100% do. I mean just look at the fast food giants!!! If their food looked as good in real life as it did on the adverts we'd all being eating it,Hell they'd probably put 80% of the worlds restaurants out of business. As it stands I'm pretty sure most of us are guilty of giving into those adverts and buying it only to be bitterly disappointed and reminded of how good those marketing campaigns are.
So my other motivation for returning to the kitchen is to be in a place where everyday there is something just begging to be photographed and shown to the world in all its glory,from the freshest of fresh greens,plumpest red succulent strawberries to a perfectly cooked steak I intend to capture as much of it as I can and show it too the world for all to enjoy. So not only do I have to sharpen my chef skills I also need to learn to use my camera as fast and as accurate as my knife.
Now I can't very well talk about food photos with out posting any so here are a few of my own photos of my food and though the photo's may not be perfect in time I will get better and so will the photos.
So this is what I'll be writing about. The trials and challenges of returning to a professional kitchen and what I have to do to get there and learning how to take food photos good enough that it'll make you want to eat the photo itself......wish me luck!
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