So, what do I say? Dear Diary???
Here I am, sixty years old, working as a kitchen manager in a too long financially failing restaurant on a beautiful island on the Southwest coast of Florida. I've been in this job for over four years and have observed myself gradually working into a self taught management position. I have had no mentors, save one.
Long ago, in another place and time, I worked in DownEast Maine, with a female chef of world class, from North Boston. I am thoroughly amazed, on an almost daily basis, how much I actually learned from her, working at her side for three seasons. I have no regrets. I paid attention and I learned. Maybe I wish I had asked more questions than always relying on my own 'poke and hope' style of learning. Observation...but, what I've learned has followed me always since then.
At any rate, back to the present. My beloved RR tenure that I cut my managerial teeth on, is over for the North end of Anna Maria. The restaurant has been sold and will shortly close for renovations, including new kitchen gear which will require relearning how to cook with finesse since the burners, ovens and the like, will be new and working properly. How does one hang up the camping hat and put on the real live cook one? I am nervous about this change of hands. I've been around restaurants for many years and again, through observation, have compiled my own list of do's and do nots if I were to have my own business. As we progress into new ideas, new ownership, new management, I see a lot of DO NOTS starting to pile up more and more each day. We seem to be going from one old set of DO NOTS to a new set of "Oh no, this is not gonna be good..."
I'm all for people owning restaurants who have never been part of The Life, but I also hope to God on a regular basis that they would surround themselves with people in the industry who are fully learned and informed on running this type of business and who have themselves, come up through the ranks understanding fully what exactly it means to work a line without a break, shoving out endless covers, hopping on a fryer during a Friday night 'all you can eat' fish service. Get a little taste for the industry. Get a little taste for the trials and tribulations of working with people who are underpaid and overworked. Slam a rack of dishes through the dishwasher while trying to keep a detergent level acceptable since being unable to purchase the proper product for the machine due to checks bouncing. Work with those same underpaid folks who have had their checks bounce...good reward for whatever service they are able to provide due to low esteem and check cashing worries...
Listen to the head of the kitchen who has worked with every lowlife to come down the pike, when she says the resume is unacceptable because I can't check references. Two 1 year references of places closed...
Now, I've been reading a lot of Anthony Bourdain lately and I see myself, I see a sort of validation in what we do for a living, how we do it, and with whom we do it with. Obviously, I am not a CIA graduate nor do I in any way, consider myself a 'chef.' I can justify the title IF I put the french translation into play, meaning, Chief of Kitchen. Okay, I am the chief of the kitchen, the Captain, if you will, of this ship. Fancy high falutin' chef, No.
Tony says, 37 is the age of retirement or should be, for a line cook. I am 60. I have no book tours, no travel shows, no anything to make money for myself other than to show up at my job every day and give 100% and more. I am wearing the scars of a 'too old line cook.' I have a pesky fungus in my system which shows itself on my hands ever so slightly, from years of dipping my hands in a bleach bucket for sanitation. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, I have too many muscle spasms and charlie horses from hours upon hours of standing on my feet on a quarry tile floor. My stress level is through the roof from years of inferior help, troubled help, help that can't or won't learn the way of the kitchen, the endless parade of junkies, wierdos, drunks, whiners...The stress of trying to not sock the boss with a big order and balencing it all out to go easy on his checkbook in order to insure a paycheck on payday...The stress of trying to shove out up to 300 covers a day in season, or more, with inadequate equipment; ovens that don't work, or only work when you lay on the ground and attempt to light them for a time, shortage of containers, labels, buckets, pots, pans, and yet, making it work and putting out beautiful food in spite of all this.
The opportunity is presenting itself to change. New stuff, new challenges, and yet, I sense a 'status quo' coming about. I don't like how I feel. I don't want to do any more 'tricks.' I just want to cook. How do I just cook at sixty? How do I get back into the humpin' humming slammin' line magic if it will never come back again? I am not an Old 60 but I am a tired 60. Tired of bullshit, tired of one expert after another making decisions that are poor ones. How do I make my statement without alienating people? How do I get a slug to start caring about the job they do in kitchen work that they're supposed to feel something about? How do I not get angry at some dumb ass culinary school graduate that can't seem to learn simple procedure? How do I explain to a new owner that I really really really know what I'm doing back there and if you just give me the tools to do my job and trust me just a little, I won't let you down? How do I find a job that I can do what I love then go home and float in the pool without the phone endlessly ringing?
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