Poking the bear

What a whirlwind couple of years!

From burning out and losing my family, to being accepted into a bachelor’s of science degree. Funnily enough, I still haven’t been able to pass foundation maths at university or school level, but I got a pass in foundation chemistry. It is good to know I am still that kind of cat.

I have most recently been right on the edge of bailing on my science dreams! Not through the difficulties associated with academic studies (it is  hard AF though), but from my inability to be disciplined enough to go from earning a thousand dollars a week, down to 5 or 6 hundred a week. It is in many moments lately that I wish I would or could fail at something I really want!

Not going of the rails as a teenager will be the go next time around. I know now I should have been a scientist already, but life had other plans.

I have had a decent taste again of what I consider to be a professional kitchen for the first time in a long time. Only a small hotel setting, yet with a head chef on a level that I have never had the pleasure of grinding with before. Vast amounts of high-end products, learning the craft of how burn things and make them taste delicious, and a brigade of competent professional chefs! It was like a time warp back to a time long forgotten.

It was unfortunate my head chef would pull up stumps after only 7 or so months of my presence, so I was on the move again.

The most notable aspect of my employment at this hotel was the presence of a very talented cook of a sous chef that was hired about halfway through my tenure. He was the real deal in regard to his displays of ‘chef’ affection towards me and the rest of the team. He was a bit much for this fossil with his intensity, but his demeanour was as I remembered a sous chef should be. He certainly poked and prodded me, and as much as it fired me up and had me thinking about dropping him on his head on a few occasions, his intent on getting the best out of me, or ‘poking the bear’ as he put it, has worked.

These guys were insistent that I do not go waste my talents when I decided to move on, and I they dam well got me thinking hard about it.

Working with high level chefs again really got my chef juices flowing with the possibilities of the glory that comes with being a good head chef. As it does whenever I am around competent chefs. Yet why go back to what I have previously already mastered.

Had I gone backwards in my cooking craft by going on this university journey?  Or had I gotten so far advanced as a person, and a cook, that there is now no turning back and I am now unrelatable to the common chef or cook?

My intolerance for what I considered to be completely normal and commonplace kitchen etiquette has evaporated, it had long ago. Certain behaviours carried out by colleagues had me feeling like I wanted to drop people, much the same way as I did when I was a young whipper snapper!

Such behaviours I have come to realise, both the ones presented to me and my reactions to those, I now consider beneath me. I must keep those behaviours behind me if I am to make it in the academic world, or in most places of society in all honesty.

We chefs have an intense way of showing love and affection, which for the most part would be considered criminal in most workplaces. This is not because we are savages, it is because we work in a high stake, high pressure environment which can sometimes come across the wrong way to those that are not fluent in chef. High pressure divided by high stakes equates to intensely responsive behaviour.

I think people want, and expect a nice chef these days, and they want more pressure, and they want more of what they see on T.V. A very basic human psychological equation indicates a heavily burdened chef is not capable of keeping his or her burdens bottled up and locked away. Not me anyway, I am over the fuss of associated with professional cookery.

My philosophy on food is set, it is mine, and it won’t change. You or anyone else can have a problem with it, just don’t piss in my ear about it. You can leave, or I can leave. Sorted. No fuss required.

I have decided to start researching mankind’s psyche, in order to not only understand my own life trauma and the psyche bestowed upon myself because of those experiences, but to try to unravel why high end kitchen teams operate the way the do. Or at least, explain from a scientific perspective, why we behave the way we do.

I know why I want to hit people with frying pans when they docket drop me (give me 30 peoples orders in 10 minutes), but I want to put it down in writing from a scientific perspective, as I don’t think many have succeeded in doing that before, let alone tried.

I am certain most of you have seen Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares, and as much as that show is based on rehearsed fictional drama, there is a non-fiction detail in the belittlement and savagery associated with professional kitchens. And such behaviours are in some way an expression of love, most of the time anyway. It’s kind of like poking the bear into action, to get a desired response.

I still love being a chef, but I am not in love with it anymore. I am still obsessed with creation and doing things that have not been done before. My food and innovation degree will give me just the fix I need there. As will the numerous casual jobs along the way that I need to pay the bills. No more leading kitchens again for this chef. Not full time and not the traditional kind of kitchens anyway.

Onwards, upwards and further growth or adaption of my own discipline is required. There is no point in going backwards, I cannot get my flow on walking backwards.

Winter is rolling over Tasmania, so be sure to get in your winter harvests of carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and particularly mushrooms if you are a fan. The first frost is not far away, the first one has probably already dropped.

Truffles will be about very soon, but in the meantime, Tamar fungi will have some decadent fungal varieties for you to have a play with if you are in the Launceston area. Check them out here. https://www.westtamarfungi.com/home

#Pro tip: The hatred bestowed upon those that dare to be different, is born from the envy of those who fear to do the same.