Sometimes the only thing that makes sense in life, is food. Food doesn't yell at you to be faster, cleaner, more efficient; doesn't breathe down your neck when the tickets start falling off the crowded board on a Saturday night dinner rush; it doesn't worry about labor or keeping food cost down. All it needs is skillful hands and a passionate heart to love it and create it into a masterpiece. Food is patient and submissive when a knowledgable hand is guiding it into the desired form it needs to take on. Food becomes whatever the creator wants it to become. Today I came to realize that in some aspects, people are similar. I'm similar.
For the last month, I have been struggling at my new job. I've set my standards high for myself and I cannot accept any less. When I fall short, I begin to question myself... my abilities, my talents, my decisions, my everything. I can't seem to be fast enough, clean enough, efficient enough, be able to juggle ten tickets at the same time, mutlitask well enough. I'm not good enough. Today I broke down at work. The first time I ever cried at work. I began to wonder what am I doing here? Why am I doing this? I'm not able to juggle my to-do list, keep a clean station, and look after another station until my relief shows up. I'm not good enough. That last phrase echoed in my mind for the last hour of my shift; add that ontop of intense stress, no sleep and no food and I just cracked. I hurriedly left work to the comfort of my car so that I could release all that I had built up inside... that monster that I had let fester for over a month. After some consolation, I had been reminded that I was good enough. Although I was too hard on myself, that was what was going to separate me as the CHEF from the cooks. I am going to make a great chef someday, at least that's the lie I've been told.
I've come to the stark discovery that everyone... and I mean EVERYone in this industry is insane. I'm not meaning the Webster definition of doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result; I mean, we're out of our minds and we know it. I have literally cut half of my fingernail off; I have burn marks riddling my arms from hot bread pans, hot pig grease, or just plain hot things. My feet have ran away to find a less abusive owner; my knees belong to an 80 year old woman, and my back just hangs out and reminds me of my 10 hours shift in which I just got slaughtered. Because of my schedule, my sleep is shot, I'm lucky if I get 5 hours. I hardly eat ( a starving cook... the irony), in fact my body now freaks out when I feed it. And this is nothing compared to what other cooks and chefs experience. WHO in their right mind would do this??? Nobody! Tis why we're all insane. In the midst of it all, the pain, the discomfort, the frustration, the stress, normal people would ask "why are you doing this to yourself? Are you sure you want to do this the rest of your life?"
And I've thought about it... I've wondered if I could escape the insanity that consumes my life and manifests itself on the plate. And I've come to discover, I could never do anything else with my life. Not that I am incapable of doing another trade or don't have a vast amount of varying skills, but nothing else would answer the call that is inside of me like the banging of pans against the stoves, the rustle of non-skid shoes against stone floors, the constant yelling of "Corner!" "Behind! Knives" "Heard that!" (any and all explicitives I could do without.), the dreaded sound of the tickets being printed and ripped from the machine, the furious tapping of knives against plastic boards, the sweat, the blood, the tears, the stress that comes from putting this 
on the plate in order for me to eventually have
my own restaurant. My insanity and my perfectionist-ism. That's the secret ingredient for me to be the best chef out there.
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