HAVE YOU GOT THE CHEF GENE?

There's a major gap in my literary ramblings that's making it hard to start writing again.

My year as a chef, being handed incredible opportunities, setting a new world record for distance-outside-comfort-zone, having some of the toughest days of my life, is largely unrecorded.

Trying to be a chef and trying to write about it were mutually exclusive. Hats off to any full time chef who finds the time or energy to do much else. In fact, hats off to any full time chef, period. I scarcely even kept a diary, something I've done reasonably well for nearly 40 years.

Maybe one day I'll find time to tell the stories. Like having a salad (and slug) returned on my first ever service. Or literally crawling from bed to bathroom after several 16 hour shifts. Or trying to make bacon and egg pie for 20 tourists on a boat in a wildly rolling sea. Or just how much you can achieve in 15 seconds with abject fear as motivation. But for now it's just too overwhelming. Where would I start?

A line in the sand must be drawn or I'll never write again. It doesn't sit comfortably to skip such a significant chapter, but I can at least manage the last page of that chapter . . .

. . . So I guess I'm not going to be a chef. I can handle the hours, pace, pay, heat, burns and bruises. I worked hard, always longer than I had to. I turned up every single day. I truly cared about the quality of food going out and, having been self employed for the last 10 years, worked with the thought "what if this was my business?".

But I don't have the personality to be a chef. You have to be extremely confident. I'm not, and can't pretend otherwise.

Some people thrive on jumping in the deep end, but I guess I'm more the paddling pool type. Eventually, by working hard and doing my best, I get to play with the big kids, and sometimes even become a better swimmer than them. But the kitchen is an Olympic pool and no place for a lack of confidence. Apart from being personally demoralising, it affects everyone else. Maybe if I'd been shoved in a corner prepping vegetables and slowly worked my way up it would have been different, but that wasn't what happened. I saw other people make the leap from novice to confident chef, so it is achievable. Just not by me.

I gave it my best shot. Given the time, effort and expense, the realisation that I lack the chef gene has been a bitter pill to swallow, and I'm still in recovery. Massive disappointment, but of course not the end of the world. I have other talents.

I loved wearing the uniform and how it felt sitting in the alleyway having a beer with the other chefs after service. I loved the political incorrectness, merciless piss-taking and practical jokes. I loved how it felt when the Head Chef said "good service", or when a customer sent an appreciative comment to the kitchen.


No regrets. At least I won't die wondering. And one of the many good things to come out of my cheffing attempt is that everything else, past and future, seems easy by comparison.

Moving on.

Happy New Year!