Cooking professionally is a deeply personal profession. It’s different from many other trades. People don’t tend to take pictures of the clogged toilet that the plumber cleared after a late night service call. But they can’t help but pull out their phone and take multiple pictures and video of each dish and plate of food set in front of them over the span of the evening
It’s this intimacy that makes cooking a horribly vulnerable exchange between chef and patron. The guest is paying to be served something deliciously pleasurable, and in turn, to take into their body, trusting it will deliver on that promise and not make them sick. If the meal does not meet expectations, it’s a disappointment that is difficult to overcome.
But it must be overcome or else an insidious condition will develop. There will be the dark offer to insulate the heart from the main reason we cook for others, and that is to bring delight and make people happy. When this goal is thwarted, the chef will get edgy and start taking that frustration out on others, especially staff. And to keep going down this rocky road will lead nowhere.
The biggest sin a chef can commit isn’t getting angry. It’s making a pact with Cynicism. Anger can be addressed far easier than a heart metastasized with the cancer of Cynicism. The reason is simple. An angry heart can still be genuine and passionate. But the cynical heart has distanced itself from its passion because it finds it too dangerous.
Show me a cynical heart and I’ll show you a deeply wounded one. One that used to want something but has decided it’s too risky to keep desire alive. It becomes safer to kill it. So into the coffin goes passion, longing, and desire and anything else that looks like them. To ensure they don’t try to come back from the dead and escape, it reaches for the nails of sarcasm to keep the lid shut.
You know Sarcasm. It is that response that comes off as humorous and funny, but insidiously is shown to be sharp, piercing, and hurtful. All three do an effective job and keep passion from making a stir and causing a useless ruckus. Sarcasm is often followed up with, “Just kidding” or “Can’t you take a joke?”
It always carries a price. And always leaves a mark.
The Chef, as well as any soul that takes Creativity seriously, must diligently confront the temptations of Cynicism. The Craft cannot become what it was intended without being unshielded.
The kitchen is a most suitable laboratory for vulnerable Creativity and thus, for nurturing the heart towards an hospitable expression. It is never a place for Cynicism and Sarcasm. If the latter is allowed to fester, the food and service will taste like it.
I can teach you how to cook, but I can’t teach you how to care. I can show you how to serve the guest, but I can’t love them for you.
Thanks for reading.