I asked Carol to search reddit and find the top 10 questions people have about becoming a cook for a chef. Before we even get started, let’s make one thing very clear. Chef (male) and Cheffe (female) mean the same thing- boss. Chefs are your best friend and your worst nightmare on the same fucking day. This is because they’re the liaison between you, the staff, and the owners…. who may or may not know anything about running a restaurant. I told Mel I was feeling Bourdain-ish today. We’ll see what comes out. I don’t think I’m more direct than he is, but I don’t think I’m less………..

• “Is being a chef worth it?”
  • In all things, it depends. Are you the kind of person who likes to cook, or are you the type of person who likes to manage cooks? It is a very stressful job, because sometimes you’re on the brigade with the rest of us, sweating your ass off….. and sometimes you’re being raked over the coals by the owners, who may or may not have valid points because it depends on how much experience they have. Not every cook is built to be a chef, because not every cook is built to be an executive. Most know that early by watching chefs sweat what job they want very early. As a general rule, yes. But only if you really, really, really love it. You dream about it. You can’t think about anything else but cooking and how the restaurant is doing without you. Otherwise, there will be no joy in your life. The job itself really sucks in terms of how you run your body ragged. But the whole experience is about walking out at the end of the night with a win and feel good tired. It’s a different sense of accomplishment than office workers have at the end of the day.
• “Does being a chef pay well?”
  • Again, it depends. Have you gone to culinary school? How much experience do you have since then? Have you had any successes in other restaurants? Where have you trained after culinary school? For instance, if you want a job as a chef at a Mexican restaurant, have you ever actually been there? It also matters what kind of job you have. Are you the chef at a small place or a large one? At an institution like Old Ebbett Grill and take a chance on changing *anything?* Being a chef pays well, but it involves a lot of time, dedication, and effort on your part to rise above working in restaurants who won’t pay you what you’re worth if you’re that talented. You also really have to want it. Really. You have to want a life where you work when everyone else plays, and you may never get a holiday with your family ever again. It just depends on the restaurant, and also how quickly you go from being a chef de cuisine into the ranks of executive chef, where you’re not in the kitchen all the time. You’re planning menus, doing inventory, tracking food cost and labor, all of it. That’s why you have to balance why it’s worth becoming a chef, which leads directly into the next question.
• “Is it fun being a chef?”
  • “Is it fun?” Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a drag because you’re caught up in paperwork. But when you’re actually in the kitchen and vibing with your team, there’s nothing like it. Reminds you of the old days, when you were the one constantly in the shit. You absolutely get high on life and you think you need caffeine to make it through. You don’t. Your body makes adrenaline like water under that much pressure. Our addiction to caffeine is at keeping up that breakneck pace, not that it’s impossible with enough time and sleep to let your muscles heal from all the ways you’re currently abusing them. Now, let’s talk about working in a kitchen when you’re not a chef. It is the biggest fucking ride of your life and you will never forget it. You’ll never live a life like it, and even if you leave relatively quickly, you’ll remember the kitchen fondly because you were being taught how to do something well that serves you every day of your life. We get to the kitchen early to prepare the mise, the containers and backups of prepared food like you see at a fast casual restaurant. Even fine dining has all their stations laid out like that, because “gotta move fast, gotta perform miracles.”
• “Do I need special education to be a chef?”
  • Yes, and here’s how I think an education would best serve you. Get a job in a restaurant and see if you can hack it for a year without missing a day. See how many times you can impress your chef so that when they look at your food, they don’t find something you did wrong. If, at the end of that year, you still feel like you want to be the ringmaster, then go to culinary school. Learning on the job first is half the battle, because there are so many kids with no restaurant experience that go to culinary school They get in debt, and then they graduate with a huge flaw in their plans…………… they don’t actually like working in a restaurant.
• “What can I do now to become a chef in the future?”
  • Watch every instructional video you possibly can on knife skills- not only the cut, but how to sharpen a knife as well. Because there are cheap chef’s knives that you can try out before you commit to a Japanese thousand fold, take the time to find your knife. It needs to fit perfectly in your hand, and the YouTube videos will tell you the difference between European and Asian cutting techniques. I prefer a handle that’s molded to me using French style, a basic octagonal handle when I’m using Japanese-style (more efficient in some ways. Depends on what I’m doing). However, I mean a Japanese chef’s knife with an octagonal handle. I would want a French-style handle on a santoku knife as well. The main thing is that the longer you use it, the more it feels like an extension of your hand. You start with knife skills because that’s the first thing Chef/the kitchen manager will notice. Can you handle yourself on prep? “I want this box of onions julienned.” You have half an hour. They don’t have to say it. That’s literally all the time you have left before service. Anything you don’t finish may or may not get done during the shift depending on how busy the restaurant is, but I’ll be back at it as soon as things calm down. I cannot leave without my prep list done at the end of the night, and doing pars for what I need to prep the next day. If I forget, I will go back to the restaurant, even if the next day is my day off.
• “How do I improve my knife skills for cooking?”
  • People assume that dull knives are better because obviously, they’re not as sharp. However, it’s counterintuitive as a dull knife will slip, making it more likely than less that you’ll have an accident. I do not recommend electric sharpeners at all. Either learn how to use the stones or take it to someone if you value your knife. Even a good electric sharpener comes with no guarantee it won’t eat a chef’s knife for breakfast.
  • Again, instructional videos on YouTube so that you can hold your hands just like they do. So that you can see the cuts up close. Joshua Weissman is my favorite YouTube chef, but I don’t know if he has a video on basic knife skills. I can’t imagine that he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, Anthony Bourdain does. I can’t watch it anymore unless I’m really in the mood for it. It’s hard to see him be happy on camera because it just makes me miss the light that he was.
  • Expensive does not mean better when it comes to a knife. The care and maintenance on a Japanese thousand fold is not the same. The reason those knives exist is that they are heirlooms, the kind of present you get when you become a chef. They’re not just knives, they’re the knives you hope your great grandchildren use with pleasure. Just like with wine, buy what you like.
• “What’s the best way to learn about different cuisines?”
  • You, and I can’t stress this enough, go there. And you won’t always learn the most from having a stage in a foreign restaurant. It may come from working locally and meeting people’s grandmothers. Restaurants cannot hold a candle to grandmothers. If you are in the US, you are blessed beyond all measure. Most of our cooking is built on ancestors from somewhere else. Therefore, you have access to a lot of culinary education just because a friend of a friend has a Georgian or Brazilian or South African grandmother. Miracles happen every day, you just have to know where to find them. Research is shit when it comes to food because you can’t Google it. You have to go there and taste the way the dish is made in the context in which it is generally prepared. I am not talking about the general public. I’m talking about chefs who want to specialize, like if I wanted to become a Mexican chef rather than an American chef, I’d have to live in Mexico a long time before I was ready to commit to working professionally. I need to prove to abuelita that I have my shit together.
• “How do I handle the pressure in a busy kitchen?”
  • By having a two second out of body experience while you synthesize the information coming back at you. If you say “heard,” the next words will be “call back,” and if you didn’t slow down enough to hear, you will not be able to tell the chef what they just told you. Congratulations, you’re an idiot. The biggest hurdle to overcome is all the negativity that comes at you, because you have to shake things off immediately and move on. If you need to cry in the walk-in, it better be quick. We’ve all had those days when it’s all coming at us at once. But there’s more than just crying in the walk-in because you’re frustrated. Working long hours on grill when it’s open flame makes sitting in the freezer for a few minutes every couple of hours invaluable. The hardest break to take is having to go to the bathroom. The easiest break to take is having a smoke. No one gives a shit if you need to pee or if you just need a break. However, too many chefs have seen what happens when their cooks have nic fits in the middle of a shift. It’s how they get a break, and how non-smokers do a lot of work when people are feeling lazy. Loooooot more nic fits when there’s “nothing to do.”
• “What are the essential tools every chef should have?”
  • A set of pots and pans that heat evenly and everything has a lid. You should do your own research, but I have All-Clad.
  • Spending the most you can afford on equipment for the restaurant and thus, me, and leaving the dishes and glassware to be picked up in the resale bin. You cannot afford to replace anything at $50 a wine glass when a customer or the dishwasher has an oopsie and destroys a whole case in the machine because they’re too delicate. That particular idea is from “Kitchen Confidential,” but it’s not like I don’t have the experience. I just didn’t write about it before he did.
  • A chef’s knife fit to height, and you need to experiment with which length is right for you. I am only 5’2. A 12-in chef’s knife is like seeing me in an XXL t-shirt.
  • A really, really good bread knife. Not only do you need the serrated edge for the crust, they’re handy when you have to break the skin on something, like a tomato or a bell pepper.
  • A set of spatulas that are silicon and won’t get hot if you accidentally leave them in the pan.
  • Cambros (storage containers of different sizes, same lids)
  • Scoops of varying sizes to ensure portion control/food cost.
  • There are a whole lot of things that fall under “etc.” here, but I promise you that 99% of the job is done with two knives and a spatula…. unless you have a flat top, and then I prefer dough cutters in both hands.
  • Comfortable shoes, because you need something that makes it where your feet don’t hurt after being on them for 12-14 hours a day up to seven days a week.
• “What’s the role of creativity in cooking?”
  • Being able to adjust to anything on the fly. You never know what’s coming. If you get yourself into a mess, you better know how to get out of it. Luckily, the cooking fundamentals work across the ethnicity of the food. Acid neutralizes salt to some degree and starch will soak up the rest. Fat will support a lot of heat and spice. The more fat, the more Scovilles. Having anything sugary on the side is what makes riding the line between pain and pleasure so much fun- like habanero fudge ice cream at Pix Patisserie in Portland, OR….. which also falls under the “more fat” category. I don’t use heat to excess just for the hell of it. Whatever I’m cooking must have enough flavor to support that level of heat. For instance, acid, heat, and sugar mixing immediately in a fruit salsa. The way I shop never has to change. I don’t plan for what to cook, I work with what I have. Necessity is the mother of invention, and it creates flavor combinations that you wouldn’t have thought of before. If you don’t learn to step out on a limb to cook on principles and only follow recipes, then you are not a creative home cook- and that’s okay. Knowing how to execute a recipe is a skill Julia Child taught millions of people how to do that, even me before I married a chef and became French-trained by proxy. I’m not even sure I can follow a recipe because by the time I’ve gotten to the second paragraph, I’m like, “mmmmmm that’s not how we do that.” Creativity comes from tasting. Always. Rise above the recipe, and just feel it out. You can look up the technical details on YouTube, but only you know what spice levels you’ll tolerate. If something is bordering on inedible, sometimes full fat plain yogurt will kill the burn. Good luck. God bless.
  • But again, the most important role creativity plays in the kitchen is recovering from mistakes. I cannot stress this enough.