Health and Fitness

Life After the Line- When Chefs Change Careers

/ The Black Hat Baker / 3 Comments

My friend Renee has- like most of our industry- had a rough couple of months.

Renee is a sommelier back east. She has enough skill that positions in her niche are scarce. She also has lifestyle demands that make the job pool even shallower- and enough contacts and familiarity with a particular scene on the East Coast that discretion is required. As we sip coffees and tea at a rainy cafe in Astoria, Renee spins a saga of staffing and management issues, attending the needs of VIPs, and protecting the restaurants reputation. It all culminates in a storm of uppity underlings, COVID protocols, and curiously nebulous budgets that lead to her (relieved but frustrated) resignation.

“I’m not even fond of wine,” she admits with a short snort. “I’m good at being a somme, but I honestly like cocktails more.” She didn’t even really enjoy the fine dining restaurant life. She was fine with the formality and artifice of high society. The social waters she navigates with ease gives me the willies just thinking about. Managing the wine at a restaurant, though, was “just a box that had to be checked on the way.”

“I think I’m going to pivot to distribution.” she muses as we finish our coffee. “That’ll keep my toes in the world. People keep suggesting I teach, so there’s that too.”

I recount my own experiences at the bakery (I’m almost afraid they’ll bore her- my own worries have been no less frustrating, but far less flashy) and we share a rueful laugh. The tragedy of it all is that none of this is new. “That’s the industry.” We’re both tired, both burned out- and wondering if we haven’t had enough.

It’s a question that a lot of chefs ask themselves. This foul year of Our Lord 2020, however, has stepped up a lot of professional timelines. With every successful night’s service, every broken freezer, every balancing of the books- chefs everywhere ask themselves “How much longer can I keep this up? ”

“What will come next?”

Youtube https://youtu.be/pYLjHhSOE7s

Continue reading →

Self Care For The Culinary Professional

/ The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

Service industries- especially the hospitality/culinary industry- are some of the most grueling and exhausting jobs in the world. There are certainly jobs that are tougher physically and come with a higher body count (linemen, miners, lumberjacks, etc), but jobs in the service industry don’t just exhaust you physically. Kitchen work absolutely puts your mind and soul through the wringer as well, leaving many of us exhausted and burned out- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

In order to survive, we cooks have any number of coping mechanisms and habits- drugs and alcohol, unfortunately, being the most famous ones. More and more of us, however, are looking to better and healthier ways to look after our bodies and minds away from the rigors of the kitchen. The lifestyle changes of high-profile chefs like Greg Gourdet, Gabriel Rucker, and the owners of Joe Beef have signaled a change in the “work hard, party harder” atmosphere of the professional kitchen, and cooks- greenhorns and old hands alike- are starting to take their side work seriously.

It’s hard as hell, and the easiest thing in the world. Here’s a few things I’ve learned.

Animated GIF from the movie Ratatouille of the cook pumping his fist and saying "Let's do this thing!"
Continue reading →

Less Tasks, More Missions

/ The Black Hat Baker / 2 Comments

Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

I’m a big believer in the power of routine. It encourages good habits when you have a daily mindset of “A, followed by B, followed by C…” In my case, my mornings consist of:

  1. Wake up.
  2. Eat breakfast- a bowl of cereal, some protein and a cup of vegetable juice on work days, a more involved breakfast on weekends (say, a loaded omelette.)
  3. Meditation practice, minimum 15 minutes.
  4. Shower, dress, depart for work.

I go through the steps, everything I want to get done gets done, and I’m on my way.

Routines are, however, by their nature a structure. Structures are, by custom, rigid and also encourage rigid thinking. Every now and then, it’s good to “shake it up” and learn to “go with the flow” again.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
Continue reading →

The Numbs

/ The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

I wandered into the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor, my back against the filing cabinet with our TV on it. We had gotten the TV for free, but neither of us watched it much, except for in-home movie nights. Em was crashed out on our couch, listening to podcasts and booping at a game on her phone.

“It’s been so weird,” I said, as Cleo wandered up and batted curiously at the strings on my hoodie. “Ever since last Thursday, I’ve just felt so numb. Like I’m stuck in a bubble and floating through the world.”

Em paused for a minute and thought. “You know how the Stages of Grief can apply to more than just people dying? Like they can apply to any sudden change in life? It sounds like you’re in the denial stage.”

Cleo has given up trying to eat my clothing and instead curls up in my lap, presenting her chin for scratches. I oblige and raise an eyebrow toward Em. “Okay… What am I grieving over then?”

”The fact that, as healthy as you have lived, and as much care as you’ve taken of your body- all the effort to get healthy and fit- you can still get sick from something you never saw coming.”

Young man on a park bench Seated with his head in his hands, face down.
Continue reading →