Target

My first mistake was trying to go to Target on Saturday. Have you ever been to Target on Saturday? I apologize if that seems to be a stupid question, but in my line of work, Saturday errand running is not exactly an option.

As soon as I drove into the parking lot, I should have known, and should’ve promptly turned around. It seemed like hundreds of cars were zooming around the parking lot, slamming on the brakes and inching along as they stalked the closest parking spot. Like a cheetah hunting a gazelle, Windstar minivans slowly crept through the tight aisles until they SLAMMED on the gas to whip into the spot just vacated by another vehicle.

Mothers and children were ambling through the rows of cars, haphazardly making their way to the entrance. “She should really put a leash on that one; it’s dangerous out here….” I thought to myself. ‘If I had one of those, it would totally be on a leash….”

Inside, I was amazed by the swarms of people, and all of them, and I mean ALL of them, seeming not to have anywhere else in the world that they needed to be after they collected their Rubbermade tubs, hula hoops, flash drives and Vicks Vapo-Rub.

I, on the other hand, had lots of places to be after I snatched up my Coke Zero, Post-it Notes, binder clips, bathing suit, and birthday card. It didn’t take long to notice that I was the only person walking quickly and in a straight line. Post-it Notes, check. Bathing suit, check. Binder Clips, yes. Birthday card…check. ‘Zero’! It’s on sale!

As I zoomed over to where the ‘Zero’ was, I came upon a woman who had parked her shopping cart diagonally in the aisle. Her screaming toddler’s wailing was going, apparently, unnoticed (by her), as he flailed about in the enormous red basket. Annoyed that she would assume that she is the only person who may have a need for granola bars, I barked out a pointed, but clear, “BEHIND YOU”.

Oh my god.

The look.

We were like an explorer and a native of some lost tribe, discovering the other, and then staring quizzically, perplexed by this mysterious person staring right back.

It was in that moment that I remembered that “on the outside”, people say, “excuse me”. I was not wielding a chef’s knife or a hot roasting pan…I was just tying to get to the ‘Zero’. The problem is this; civilians are not accustomed to being notified by your nearness with an abrupt announcement. They are much more comfortable with such niceties like, “pardon me”, or, “I’m sorry; could I just sneak past you?” all uttered in a very sheepish tenor, with eyes fixated on the floor.

There is generally nothing ‘sheepish’ about me, and nothing sheepish about any other chefs I know. Proud, assertive, hurried, and confident, we have places to go and not very much time to get there. Time wasting, dawdling, and moseying about is not tolerated in a professional kitchen. Wandering is an indicator of uselessness and inferiority. A cook who casually strolls to and fro in your kitchen has about a 3 day expiration date before the pack forces him out.

Likewise, in a kitchen, you would never sprawl out everywhere, with all of your tools, ingredients, and recipes strewn about. Being able to work in a tight, sometimes unreasonably small space is the mark of flexibility, efficiency, and resourcefulness. A chef would never park his or her shopping cart diagonally in the aisle of any store.

Nor would a chef walk around, seemingly unaware of their whereabouts, and the proximity of other people around them, looking genuinely surprised when another person crossed their path; and by ‘path’, I mean, their transverse meandering through a common walkway, pushing a shopping cart and looking everywhere except straight ahead.

So, there we were, staring at each other, almost daring the other to push this just a little further. The woman snapped up her Nutrigrain bars and pushed her cart, as I passed silent judgment on her for buying such inferior, chemically-laced foodstuffs made in some factory by someone wearing a hairnet and lab coat. She muttered something under her breath as she continued her shopping elsewhere in the aisles of the bustling store.

Judgment reciprocated.

Her toddler was still screaming. I could sense that she had moved over to the electronics, based on the dullness of his shrill cries. Maybe she will buy a GPS to show her where she was going, and objects surrounding her. Jeez, do they make those like a pedometer – something she could strap to her shoe? That would be nice… I wondered if he screamed at such a decibel that she was unable to hear, much like dogs have that heightened sense of hearing on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I strolled up to the Zero, shaking my head. I wondered what it was like to be this unaware, this isolated. My god, what a gift that would be… the ability to totally zone out and go through life unfettered by the various incidents and people around you. Total and complete ignorance, aware only of what it right in front of you at any moment. I can’t even conceive of it.

Intensity is a trait I’ve long possessed. As I child I was quite focused. As an adult I persist in my tightly wound ways. Deliberate actions, effort guided by thought, I move through life with a sense of high-strung ambition. There is an annoyingly strong pull about my energy, as well as an annoyingly strong resistance to the flow of those lesser intense people around me.

“See, Stac - your standards are just too high…” or my other favorite, “you think too much”. Two, count them, TWO of my former employers have said those unthinkable words to me. And I thought I was coasting. Shit.

Contemplation. Thought. Effort. Painstaking measures. There is always a reason for absolutely everything that I do. Nothing that I do is arbitrary, nothing is an afterthought. Relentless. Driven. Always chasing something. Nothing is good enough. Ever. Even this column has taken me 3 months to finish, and, it still isn’t right.

To be a chef, you have to be a risk taker. You have to be confident. You have to be bold.
You have to be your own unstoppable force. There has to be something that throbs deep inside you, the pulsating creativity and brilliance of making beautiful order out of total chaos.

It might seem a little extreme, and, maybe it is. But I don’t find it to be all that uncommon. The chef as a professional is the embodiment of passion. Some people were wired to be engineers, born with the critical thinking skills that make them successful at solving the riddles of the modern world. Others seem to have been born with the language skills of the great orators of the ages. Sometimes, you just can’t separate yourself from who you really are, even if you’re at Target.