If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.’

– Ben Franklin

You don’t get to decide whether or not you are a mentor. Your apprentices decide that when they determine whether or not they can learn from you- and the absolute greatest feeling on Earth is when your apprentices succeed.

A few weeks ago, I heard from one of my former assistants. She’d moved to California and was trying to get back into the baking industry, but finding a job was getting a little tough and discouraging. I’d given her good advice before- could I help now?

She’s a good person and a good worker- I knew it was just a matter of time before someone would find her. I told her what I knew, and my experiences job hunting around Portland. Critically for all this were three bits of information it took me way too long to learn:

1. Job hunting is a full-time job itself. Give yourself some grace and take breaks.

2. Other peoples evaluations and reactions are about them, not you. Maybe you aren’t right for that person or that job, but it doesn’t mean you’re not good for any job.

3. Don’t let yourself get desperate. Don’t just jump at any place that’ll have you. Take a breath and decide if you can actually be happy and content there.

Yesterday, I heard back from her. She’d gotten a job as a pastry chef in a place where she was respected and left alone to do her thing. She was making the kind of stuff she and I had made together, and she was ready for it because of our experience together.

Absolutely humble, but that’s us. Whenever anyone asks me about work at the winery, I tell them “I’m treated well, paid well, and largely left alone to do what I’m best at. When she told me this, the first thing that flashed through my mind was how my mentor Karen taught me, how proud I was of my former assistant for making her own way, and how grateful I was to Karen for teaching me.

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I do not believe in secret knowledge. I gain absolutely nothing but a headache and stress from teaching my assistants and apprentices anything but the best way I know to make a recipe or set up their station. Who does it help to keep secrets like that? Not me- I have to fix and correct them constantly to get things done “right.” It’s better to teach them the best way I know- along with any tips and tricks- right off the bat

If they take it and surpass me? If they find a way that works better or makes a better product? GOOD. Otherwise, I’ve just made another “me” and added nothing to the world, or worse- I’ve withheld knowledge and made sure I can’t take a fucking day off because I’m the only one who “does it right.” Being a leader OR a teacher means “I succeed when my student/team succeeds.”

If I could shove one idea into every pro cook or chefs brain, it would be this: “If you are envious of someone newer or younger than you, the problem is on YOUR end.” Only someone insecure of their own skills and experience would get sweaty over a capable and precocious student. Maybe you can envy their youth and energy- that’s what happens with age. For time on Earth though, you (ideally) got wisdom, experience, and insight they haven’t acquired yet- and it’s not their fault if you didn’t. Build the industry or BOW OUT.

The idea of “legacy” isn’t far from my mind these days. I’ve turned 38, yeah- and I’ve mentioned before how I’ve felt Death/Despair floating around the margins of my life. It’s why I want- I need– to keep writing. To finish my book, and to update and improve my online cookbook so that my friends, fans, and loved ones can make the recipes I used to make the way I used to make them if something happens to me.

In Judaism (and interestingly in the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” novels”) a person is never gone entirely until their name is forgotten and no longer said. It’s why Jews say “May their memory be for a blessing” rather than “may they rest in peace.” It’s why the harshest curse in Judaism is “may their name be blotted out”- asking God, who has perfect memory, to willfully forget someone’s name and remove them from Creation entirely.

In this way, as long as someone in the world can tell stories about knowing us or say “My old teacher Matt taught me how to make crust this way” or “My old mentor Karen taught me task management like this…” we are never truly gone. We always made a difference, and that echoes on.

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, “We are either ancestors whose presence enriches the lives of our descendants, or we are ghosts whose existence haunts them.”

Who would you be?

Act accordingly, and
Stay Classy,