Celeb Chefs

Welcome to the post-Food Network kitchen where everyone is an expert and everyone’s a chef. Media types clamor for comment, leads, recipes and a fresh face. The Food Network has been an ally and a nemesis. Its inception has seemingly done more to promote and also to implode our industry. Because of the Food Network our status in the socioeconomic arena has been elevated from drug addicted and recently incarcerated to brilliant artist and part time rock star.Top Chef, Iron Chef, The Next Food Network Star – none of these shows paint our industry in an accurate light. Like it or not, we have become not chefs, but entertainers.

People always ask me if I watch these shows, and up until last month I hadn’t. I generally answer their question this way, “What do you do for a living?” They say, “I’m lawyer”, or “I work for UPS”. Then I say, “Oh, so I bet you go home after a long day and watch reruns of King of Queens and Allie McBeal”.The impact of this new phenomenon hadn’t occurred to me until I taught a class last week where one of my students said, “so it really doesn’t get done in 30 minutes?”Incredulous, I declared, “NO!”

I drove home that night and her question haunted me – the sheer obliviousness was more than just ignorance. She has only been exposed to our industry based on what she sees on television or what she reads in YUMMO Weekly – or whatever Rachel Ray’s magazine is called. How could I fault her for the misinformation she has been fed, and washed down with EVOO?Then it dawned on me – how many career changers, high school graduates and foodies have flooded our culinary schools because of that same premise?

I know whereof I tread…this is and uncomfortable subject. Our schools are sacred places of learning and skill development. The question remains – how many students have entered culinary school under the guise of the 30 minute meal? If they’ve never worked in a professional kitchen before, they don’t know the plight of the 50 hour work week (if you have a light gig), the oftentimes low pay, absence of employer provided health insurance, and the calluses from peeling umpteen cases of potatoes.Many of them have asked me for jobs. When I explain the pay rate, I get a blank stare. Someone just asked me for $25 an hour, plus a $30 bonus for the fifth hour to ASSIST in a cooking class! They want to know why they can’t sit down while they work, and why they don’t get vacation. These people, who haven’t even graduated from culinary school, have a really skewed perception of the reality of our industry; and I have to ask how they came to think this way.

There used to be a time when what we did really mattered because we took pride in our vocation. There used to be a time when the Masters were the Masters, and what they taught us meant something. There used to be a time when you respected what people had to teach you. I remember when my mentor would walk by me as I decorated cakes and say, “If you can’t write with a pencil, you can’t write with a pastry bag”. That kind of “motivation” isn’t acceptable anymore! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate for verbal lashings and overly aggressive admonitions. What I am saying is that we have to examine where we’ve been and where we’re going; and we need to be strong enough to stay the course.

We are at a very important crossroads in our industry. Who will be the next generation of people to lead us where we need to go? Who will be articulate, professional, business savvy, and committed to the pursuit of excellence?We are on the cusp of some very important changes in our industry. Let’s tell our story and not aim to become sound bites or 90 second clips. Let’s not be led by the media; instead, let’s take control and lead them where we want them to go. No one can tell our story better than we can. Let’s set our standards and stick to them, instead of being pulled under the tidal wave of food as shallow entertainment.