Good deeds

Recently I received a phone call from the publisher of Chef Magazine. She informed that I had been nominated and subsequently chosen as one of five finalists for their (the magazine's) "Chef of the year" award. (See magazine, page 13.)

The Chef Magazine award is significant because the recipient is chosen based on his or her contributions in the areas of mentoring, community service, professionalism and culinary innovation rather than by how popular their restaurant is or how effective their public relations firm has been.

Now I won't lie and tell you that it's not nice to be recognized, it is. But the fact is, I've been at this awhile and I have been fortunate enough to have garnered my fair share of recognition. Truthfully, I thought that my days of being in the public eye were over when I left Chicago three years ago.

My focus here has been on improving our operation by bringing my experience to bear, helping the resort to improve our environmental stewardship, and building ties with the community while mentoring the young Culinarians in my charge.

Turns out you don't need a PR firm if you don't care who notices.

Of course it would be gratifying to win, but I'm pretty happy to make the top five. The winner will have the opportunity to donate some money to their charity of choice and I certainly can think of some worthy local causes.

The call got me thinking, though, about how different things are in our industry now than they were back in 1979 when I started my first restaurant job.

Back then, restaurant patrons didn't know who the chef was or more likely the cooks were. It was an unglamorous, underpaid, unappreciated job.

Hey wait, I guess not much has changed after all?

What has changed is the public's perception of what a chef does and is, and along with it the legions of young men and women who are entering the field because of some romanticized notion they got from watching Bobby , Mario or god forbid, Tyler.

It's not all bad, the Food Network and all of its copycat media outlets have brought a lot of attention to our field and in many ways made it better for those of us in it. Many of the starry eyed youngsters in culinary school today, however, will be doing something quite different a few years from now.

Because at the end of the day, for most of us the job is all of those things I mentioned above, and then some. God help me, I love it though.

Filed under Chefs