The Importance of Being

A couple of times a year I am asked to speak to a group of culinary students touring the resort with their instructor.

I enjoy getting the opportunity to get my hands on these budding Culinarians, in fact I think that it should be a mandatory part of the curriculum. I could teach a class entitled "The culinary field is not what you see on the Food Network, 101."

Culinary education is the fastest growing segment of secondary education in the United States. Amazingly, thousands of young men and women enroll in absurdly expensive culinary programs at various colleges and institutions around the country without ever having set foot in a kitchen.

I mean hey, would you get up one day and decide to be a plumber because you saw one on TV and thought it looked cool? (No offense to Joe the Plumber)

The problem is that Television and the media have created this romanticized idea of what goes on in a kitchen.

Working in a kitchen is hard. Long, long days and nights on your feet. Hot, loud, high stress, screaming chefs, complaining servers, demanding guests.

It's not for everybody. I believe that certain people are just meant to be cooks, born to it if you will.

Certainly no rational person would choose to work such long hours, every weekend and every holiday when normal people are off doing, well, whatever it is normal people do.

I often gauge the level of dedication and seriousness of these students by asking a few simple questions. "Who is the author of "Boy meets Grill" and the owner of the Mesa Grill in New York City?" Invariably the hands shoot up in the air, Bobby Flay, of course.

I'll generally ask a few more with the same results, Mario, Emeril, etcetera.

The students are getting comfortable now, they know their chefs. Then I'll ask something like: "I am widely considered to be the father of modern French cuisine, who am I? Blank stares, no hands. Maybe it's the jeopardy style phrasing... One gentleman ventures in a less than confident voice "Escoffier?" Modern, I repeat. OK, here's a hint: "Legions of the most famous chefs of the last fifty years trained at my Michelin three star restaurant "La Pyramide" near Lyons, France including: Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Louis Outhier, Georges Perrier and Jean and Pierre, the Brothers Troisgros, together they possess over 20 Michelin stars among their various establishments." Still nothing. (Fernand Point)

Let's try another, I'll say: "This Chef is widely considered to be the first "celebrity chef." This gets some nods, some smiles, back on familiar ground.

"I am credited with creating the standard chef's hat; the toque, I published a classification of all sauces into groups, based on four mother sauces. I wrote several encyclopedic works on cookery, but above all "L'Art de la Cuisine Française" which included, aside from hundreds of recipes, plans for menus and opulent table settings, a history of French cookery, and instructions for organizing kitchens. "Who am I? More blank stares. (Marie Antoine Careme)

I tell them, I'm not trying to make you feel stupid, or demonstrate my superior knowledge of culinary history, but rather to illustrate a point. All those "celebrity chefs" whose names rolled off your tongues so easily, wouldn't even exist without the work of these great men (and women, thank you Julia) who went before.

Don't get me wrong, I like these TV chefs, all three I mentioned all happen to be very good cooks, smart businessmen, and fun guys. Mr. Flay has been kind enough to loan me his kitchen and staff when cooking at the Beard House, Mr. Batali has pimped me for a resort promotion and taught some of my cooks the art of salumi in an exchange program I worked out with his restaurant, and I once watched Mr. Lagasse decorate my sous chef's entire upper body with Cheez Whiz (out of a spray can) while he was passed out on a couch at an after hours soiree.

The problem is, the chance of these students ever becoming a "celebrity chef" on the level of Mr. Lagasse and company, (or even Tyler Florence for that matter) is roughly the same as being picked first in next years NBA draft.

I love my job, I love what I do. I have been fortunate enough to be on a few magazine covers and meet some fun people. Is that what I set out to do? Not in a million years. I got into this field because I love food, eating, cooking and everything about it. The beauty of a perfectly turned vegetable, a pristine piece of fish, a razor sharp knife, that smell of hot oil in pan when the garlic hits it... All the other stuff just happened.

I guess it's true what my father told me, "Find something you love to do and it will never seem like work."

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