TL;DR. experienced former chef wants to talk about his opinions and reviews of the food/industry of today as he tries to find his way back to the deep and personal relationship he used to have with food.
Hello there!
As the blog description states, I'm a former chef and passionate foodie. Keep on reading to get an overview of my history with food.
I spent the last few years of the 90's and almost all the Naughties in professional kitchens that ranged from golf and yacht clubs to Rosette and Michelin ranked venues and four a five star hotels. I even spent some time in fast food, but that's a story for another time.
I was so obsessed with the industry that I wanted to prove myself in all arenas. The smallest fine dining restaurant I worked in had 38 covers and no relays, and the largest was a 400+ room hotel that had function space for over 2000. I would also use my holiday to work stages for agencies so I could hone my skills in setups I was not familiar with e.g spending 2 days covering in a small independent kitchen, or on location with a large scale event catering a wedding in a stately home.
This adventurous nature was, I feel (using the rose tinted glasses of hindsight,) the primary trigger for me to lose the spark the food had provided for my entire life. Within 10 years in the industry I had accomplished all I had dreamed about since I was a skinny 13 year old learning to cook because I had nobody to provide for me. I felt lost.
I made attempts to leave the industry, I looked for management roles in retail and in offices and more. I had 4 or 5 years of management experience, managing brigades from 3 people up to 15, budgets that ran into the £millions, H&S trainer...the list goes on. "Won't be too hard to get a sideways movement type role in a new industry" I thought to myself. Boy, did I get that wrong. "Your management experience doesn't transfer to our industry" was the default response, and since I had never done anything else I felt that I couldn't argue my case. Maybe man management is really that different in an office? After all, you don't have to motivate your staff to be happy about an 80 hour week with no overtime/lieu days/gratitude, every week. No days off in December, not attending that party with your partner, missing your kid's school performances etc.
After about a year of this, I bit the bullet and started applying for entry level roles. Ha! That went about as well as you'd expect. I was hideously, almost offensively, over qualified for roles. I got it, man. I'd been a recruiter. I wasn't resentful. I knew that it was a hard sell for me to sit there and sell to someone looking at my CV and telling them I was happy to walk away from the places they were looking at, and that I would also be happy with the £15k a year pay cut.
I won't lie to you, working 80 hour weeks in an industry you're trying to get away from really starts to grate on you. Towards the end I was so distracted and in so much pain that I started to make mistakes. For the first time in my career I was having performance conversations with my bosses. Eventually, I snapped and walked away. I still hold a small amount of regret for the team that I walked away from, anyone that's been in that environment will understand the camaraderie a brigade commands.
For the best part of the next decade I hated the process of cooking. I garnered no joy from preparing food, and I felt numb when I ate. Anything. For the first year I didn't cook a single thing, not even nuking a ready meal. I just couldn't do it.
Fast forward to today, and I'm on the mend. I consider myself a Recovering Chef, and I'm starting to get the passion back. My real world friends would be able to tell you how happy I get when I eat great food, and just how much of an excited rant I can get on if they start to talk food around me. Do I know all I used to know? No, not even close. My food knowledge is not even comparable these days. Do I want to know it all? Absolutely yes!
So this is a journey. And if you stick around you'll get to join me on this quest of mine. I'll try some things and I'll like them, or I won't. I'll express my view and opinions on the wider food world and I'll be right, or I'll be wrong. I'm doing this to aid my learning so I'm not afraid to be called out for a mistake (abuse isn't acceptable.) I am not a professional critic, nor am I a trained journalist/writer. It's just me, being me.
That's about it. If you made it this far? Well, that's just swell. You don't get a prize, sorry. Just the pride in the knowledge that you completed it.
Welcome my incessant ramblings that I call my blog.
The RAD(ish) Foodie. Xx
Hello there!
As the blog description states, I'm a former chef and passionate foodie. Keep on reading to get an overview of my history with food.
I spent the last few years of the 90's and almost all the Naughties in professional kitchens that ranged from golf and yacht clubs to Rosette and Michelin ranked venues and four a five star hotels. I even spent some time in fast food, but that's a story for another time.
I was so obsessed with the industry that I wanted to prove myself in all arenas. The smallest fine dining restaurant I worked in had 38 covers and no relays, and the largest was a 400+ room hotel that had function space for over 2000. I would also use my holiday to work stages for agencies so I could hone my skills in setups I was not familiar with e.g spending 2 days covering in a small independent kitchen, or on location with a large scale event catering a wedding in a stately home.
This adventurous nature was, I feel (using the rose tinted glasses of hindsight,) the primary trigger for me to lose the spark the food had provided for my entire life. Within 10 years in the industry I had accomplished all I had dreamed about since I was a skinny 13 year old learning to cook because I had nobody to provide for me. I felt lost.
I made attempts to leave the industry, I looked for management roles in retail and in offices and more. I had 4 or 5 years of management experience, managing brigades from 3 people up to 15, budgets that ran into the £millions, H&S trainer...the list goes on. "Won't be too hard to get a sideways movement type role in a new industry" I thought to myself. Boy, did I get that wrong. "Your management experience doesn't transfer to our industry" was the default response, and since I had never done anything else I felt that I couldn't argue my case. Maybe man management is really that different in an office? After all, you don't have to motivate your staff to be happy about an 80 hour week with no overtime/lieu days/gratitude, every week. No days off in December, not attending that party with your partner, missing your kid's school performances etc.
After about a year of this, I bit the bullet and started applying for entry level roles. Ha! That went about as well as you'd expect. I was hideously, almost offensively, over qualified for roles. I got it, man. I'd been a recruiter. I wasn't resentful. I knew that it was a hard sell for me to sit there and sell to someone looking at my CV and telling them I was happy to walk away from the places they were looking at, and that I would also be happy with the £15k a year pay cut.
I won't lie to you, working 80 hour weeks in an industry you're trying to get away from really starts to grate on you. Towards the end I was so distracted and in so much pain that I started to make mistakes. For the first time in my career I was having performance conversations with my bosses. Eventually, I snapped and walked away. I still hold a small amount of regret for the team that I walked away from, anyone that's been in that environment will understand the camaraderie a brigade commands.
For the best part of the next decade I hated the process of cooking. I garnered no joy from preparing food, and I felt numb when I ate. Anything. For the first year I didn't cook a single thing, not even nuking a ready meal. I just couldn't do it.
Fast forward to today, and I'm on the mend. I consider myself a Recovering Chef, and I'm starting to get the passion back. My real world friends would be able to tell you how happy I get when I eat great food, and just how much of an excited rant I can get on if they start to talk food around me. Do I know all I used to know? No, not even close. My food knowledge is not even comparable these days. Do I want to know it all? Absolutely yes!
So this is a journey. And if you stick around you'll get to join me on this quest of mine. I'll try some things and I'll like them, or I won't. I'll express my view and opinions on the wider food world and I'll be right, or I'll be wrong. I'm doing this to aid my learning so I'm not afraid to be called out for a mistake (abuse isn't acceptable.) I am not a professional critic, nor am I a trained journalist/writer. It's just me, being me.
That's about it. If you made it this far? Well, that's just swell. You don't get a prize, sorry. Just the pride in the knowledge that you completed it.
Welcome my incessant ramblings that I call my blog.
The RAD(ish) Foodie. Xx