Cooking as a chef.

Becoming a chef changes how you cook.

Or let me put it a different way: there are moments when I feel that becoming a chef has made me a worse cook.

When you come home from a shift, there is little energy left in you to make a meal from scratch. Frozen meals, instant noodles, and pre-made sauces become a more regular guilty pleasure before they ultimately work their way into being an irreplaceable staple in your diet. The ready-meal aisle, previously snubbed, now promises an exciting and quick dinner opportunity. Pre-made soups and prepped vegetables allow me to see to my much-neglected vegetable needs. Completely making it to five fruit-and-veg servings a day becomes a rare success. Meal planning now involves having as many low-prep, easily accessible meal options ready which are to provide comfort, ideally without immediately propelling me into a state of lethargy after eating them.

Then occasionally, on a day off after a decent night’s sleep, lulled into a false sense of energy and enthusiasm, I will find myself inspired by the many great ingredients, recipes, and dishes out there.

Remembering my passion for and skill in cooking outside the restaurant, I will hunt down specific ingredients, come home laden with bags full of fresh produce, and excitedly begin to recreate the vision of the glorious meal I had in mind. After an hour or so of vigorous prep, I remember that I will be back at work tomorrow, once again standing in the kitchen as I am now, and I start to regret that I am spending my precious day off by being on my feet, chopping away, cooking, and washing up. Once my supposedly glorious meal is complete, I critically compare it to the vision I’d had (it had tasted nicer in my imagination than it did in real life), tiredly sit down, finish my portion within five minutes, and laze on my couch for a while before mustering up the energy to clear away the dishes and leftovers, thinking that I should have just ordered a takeaway or made a fish finger sandwich instead.

Then there’s the stress of cooking for friends and family. What used to be a simple occasion to get together or just a means to get in some much-needed sustenance, is now a test to validate your profession.

Some expect some fancy dish they may not have had before or something they wouldn’t usually make themselves. Others may appreciate that you are in no mood to reinvent cooking on a Tuesday evening but will still expect the basics to be made to perfection. If you’re making pasta, it better be the best pasta they’ve ever eaten. And even if there really is no external expectation, you realise that you, too, are putting pressure on yourself when cooking for others, and find yourself apologising for details that did not turn out exactly as you’d hoped or pre-emptively pointing out potential mistakes (“Sorry, it may be a little on the saltier side!”, “The tomatoes weren’t as nice as I’d hoped; I’ve not tried this brand before, so the texture may be a little different than what you’re used to”, “It’s not my best!”).

And when you do make a meal where everything goes to plan and you don’t have too much to apologise for, your guests give you a quick “Mhm that’s lovely”, before moving on to other topics and not mentioning the food ever again, instead of (as you’d expected) several rounds of compliments, desperate demands for the recipe, and repeated questions and exclamations admiring how you managed to get the flavours and textures so perfectly right!

And finally, there comes the dreaded moment when you are responsible for the staff food at the restaurant, and you are forced to question if you’ve ever had an original thought about food and - ultimately - whether you are actually a good cook at all.

You forget to order a vital ingredient, completely underestimate how long it takes to prep and cook the ingredients, and you lose any sense of portion size, worrying that you made too little, only to make enough to feed the staff again the next day. Although you go in with the aspiration to make something delicious and new and original, usually you do just end up making “some kind of curry”. And while you are watching everyone help themselves to your mediocre meal, you cannot help but quietly pray that your performance in making staff food will have no negative impact on your future at the restaurant.