Currently, I’m on 100 Day Chef Stage, touring different Michelin starred restaurants in the World. Read about chef life; the mistakes I make, the lessons I learn and the characters I meet, as I learn from some of the best chefs in the world. (My journey so far.👉)
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Chef Life
It’s not all lobsters and laughs, sugar and smiles.
Chef Life. I hesitate to 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.
All that I have written so far is true. Learning how to prep lobsters; create parsley spheres with liquid nitrogen; feasting on incredible paellas for staff meals; meeting of Mugaritz chef Andoni Aduriz; the adrenaline buzz of service; all that is is very much chef life.
But there is also the other side. Isn’t there always?
Just when I was beginning to think it was all lobsters, and liquid nitrogen along came Wednesday...
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, thoroughly cleaned and returned. Ingredients are double-checked, tidied or chucked.
For six hours, six of us cleaned and for most of that time, I was at the sink washing up.
On the plus side, it gave me time to think. Six hours washing up tends to do that, but also it allows space for the darker thoughts to appear.
My thoughts weaved from a fairy liquid induced zen to a heavy dose of doubting myself and the more pertinent questions like what on earth was I doing on this 100 day chef stage?
Why had I chosen to be here? Who am I kidding? And I’m working for free? Am I nuts?
Chef life is hard; it’s routine, and it’s repetitive. Take a look at these quotes from 20 Professional Chefs about life in the kitchen.
During six hours washing up I got thinking about the other 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 the dead whirr of the fridge upstairs.
It’s waiting for the last tables to go.
It’s sleeping through five alarms.
But then, as I get home, crash out on the sofa, despite today’s deep clean I find myself still looking forward to the next day. A day that promises the flip side of the coin.
Because when you ask the question, What is Chef Life? It is all the above, but more often it is all the below:
It’s challenging and all consuming
It’s art and textures and colours
It’s a box of glistening sea urchins to prep
It’s the buzz of service
It’s a team coming together in unison
It’s learning
It’s seeing ingredients change before your eyes into something more than they were before
It’s that feeling when you nail it.
It’s being completely focussed
And it’s undeniably addictive.
And, it’s waking up and doing it all again the next day.
El Monastrell, Alicante
Day 1 – What’s an Olympian doing in a kitchen anyway?
Day 4 – Why work for free?
Day 7 – Knife Skills, go as fast as you can but no faster
Day 10 – Mugaritz: You don’t have to like something to like it
Day 12 – The best paella recipe, in the world
Day 14 – Chef Life, it’s not all liquid nitrogen and lobsters