[Incase you missed it] Day 11: What is Chef Life really like?
Alternative title: Getting through those really shit days
Just when I was beginning to think it was all lobsters, laughs and liquid nitrogen along came Wednesday...
Turns out every fourth Wednesday is a deep clean day.
Everything, and I mean everything gets sterilised and washed down. Kitchen units are pulled out from the walls, the floor behind is doused down. All equipment comes off the shelves, to be thoroughly cleaned and put back. Ingredients are double-checked, tidied or chucked.
For six hours, six of us clean and for most of that time, I’m at the sink washing item after item.
On the plus side, it gives me time to think. Six hours washing up tends to do that, but also it allows space for the darker thoughts to appear.
It’s not all lobsters and laughs, sugar and smiles
Chef Life. I hesitate as I write this post. But I’d be telling a lopsided story if I made kitchen life out only to be a place of joyous creation, of sugar and smiles.
All that I have written so far is true. Learning how to prep langoustine; creating parsley nitro-shots; feasting on incredible paellas for staff meals; discovering wonderful and weird new ingredients; the adrenaline buzz of service - all that is is very much chef life.
But there is also the other side. Isn’t there always?
As I clean the grime, my thoughts weave from a fairy-liquid-induced-zen to a heavy dose of doubting myself and a battering of more pertinent questions like wtf am I doing here?
Why have I chosen to be here? Doing this 100 day chef stage? Who am I kidding? Why am I’m working for free? Am I nuts?
Chef life is hard; it’s routine, and it’s repetitive.
During six hours washing up I get to thinking about the darker side of chef life:
What is Chef Life?
It’s grime and deep clean days.
It’s digging gunk out of your shoes.
It’s sweat rolling down the inside of your chef jacket.
It’s a double espresso before service.
It’s hunched shoulders.
It’s gone midnight.
It’s the smell of smoking oil.
It’s rap music at 10am then a power nap at lunchtime before service.
It’s taking the bins out.
It’s waiting for the last tables to go.
It’s sleeping through five alarms.
And you wonder if it is worth it, and you are seriously tempted to throw in the towel.
The doubts attacking you, invisible ninjas, jumping in from the darkness from all directions, they have you on the ropes.
But this is not new ground.
I’ve been here before, no doubt you have too?
These hours, or days, or weeks that go slower than usual, when your energy has hit rock bottom, and you feel like you are trudging through a mental treacle, going nowhere fast.
And I find the best way through the mental mess is to con myself.
And so I tell myself something I’d tell myself when I was training for the Olympics and the going got tough.
That today is worth double.
No logical evidence to back this up, no way of measuring what is double, but that’s beside point. You only have to con yourself so you can get through the rough patch. Until it passes. Until it’s easy again.
Progression, be it in the kitchen, on the judo mat, or in whatever area of life you are focussing on, is not a steady climb upwards, but you go up and down, you improve, then you plateau, then your improve again and so on it goes.
If you let the doubts stop on the plateaus then you won’t improve.
So, just keep going. Bank the double points and get through the day.
Eventually the long day of self-doubt and deep-cleaning (or should that be deep-doubt and self-cleaning) comes to an end.
I drag my complaining, grouchy self home, but strangely it’s not long before I find myself looking forward to the next day.
A day that promises the flip side of the coin.
Because if you ask me the question: “What is Chef Life?” again tomorrow.
I’d say it is all the above, but more often it is all the below:
It’s tastes and textures and colours.
It’s a box of glistening sea urchins.
It’s the buzz of service.
It’s a team coming together in unison.
It’s seeing ingredients transform before your eyes into something more than they were before.
It’s that feeling when you nail it.
It’s being right here, right now.
It’s fire and flames.
It’s dancing to music while you get the mis en place done.
It’s banter and crap jokes.
It’s adrenaline in your veins, and it’s undeniably addictive.
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In the next episode, things get orange. I learn how to make arroz a la naranja (sweet orange rice)
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For the next 100 Days I’m staging in Spanish Michelin star restaurants. Join me on the journey!
The journey so far:
Day 1: What's an Olympian doing in a Kitchen?
Day 2: Go as fast as you can, but no faster
Day 3: Cooking on Instincts
Day 4: Why working for free is priceless
Day 5: Controlling the Controllables
Day 6: The Weird and Wonderful
Day 7: The Pursuit of Excellence
Day 8: Learn the rules, then break them
Day 9: Palate Push-Ups
Day 10: The Enjoyment of Cooking
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Love it. Let's spread the word about how filthy this glamorous job of ours really is.
Ain't that the truth about all the things that are worth pursuing? Thanks for the great read, Nicola, your frown will soon become a beaming smile again.