CHEFS- BRANDING... BS? SELLOUT? GREEDY?...IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE

Something most people out there don't know about chef's, cooks or cooking , is that it's crazy assed tough and thankless work. When you're either just out of school "prima donna", or starting out as a "prep bitch" with no experience in a decent restaurant, the one thing you can count on more than death or taxes, is that "they" are gonna work you like a rented mule. You'll probably work upwards of sixteen plus hours a day six days a week, for what amounts to a shamefully small amount of money, in a cramped area that's at times 130 degrees or more, you're quite literally cooking yourself. Go ahead, ask any professional in the industry who has made their bones how easy the work is...Or better yet, just for funsies, tell them you, or someone you know is thinking of going to culinary school or getting into the food service industry. Then ask them their thoughts. If they're being polite, they will tell you it's tough. Or if they are being truthful, you will probably get something that starts with "Are you/they F'ING crazy!? and end with, If I had to do it over again, I would have gone to college and studied ancient dead languages and art history, and made more money than I am now!


By the time a cook becomes  Chef de cuisine (literally "chief of kitchen"), they have put in a serious amount of hours, probably have some health issues (back, legs, feet, etc...), make ok money, but still it is no cakewalk because the success or failure is typically planted squarely on that persons shoulders. So there is an incentive to spend as much time, if not more in that kitchen to keep your fingers on the pulse, as it were, of your restaurant, your patient. Your next step if you're so blessed is to become known for your food. Be it in newspapers, magazines, TV interviews, etc. Today this is a common thing, but there was a time not too long ago when being a chef held no such prestige. Jacques Pepin was offered the position of executive chef for president Kennedy, and he turned it down in lieu of a job for Howard Johnson. When asked why he did such a crazy thing he said, "In France I was the Chef de cuisine for the French president and never received one interview, or had one picture taken....I thought the Howard Johnson job would be more interesting."


So now you're becoming well known and you may even be lucky enough to have a few restaurants with financial backers, and business partners, PR people etc... to take care of the nuts n bolts of operating such businesses, so you can be free to create the great food and maintain the standards of your blooming empire. Hey, there are things in the works to get you a TV show cause you're a swell person and you make good food. This will finally be where you will start to achieve fame, but will undoubtedly work nearly as many hours...The problem is, you can't do it for fame, or the money, because you'll never become famous, or rich enough, and you'll drive yourself crazy trying to get those precious things. The fame, the money... must be a derivative of your sweat equity.


So now the TV show is going great, you're rich, you're famous, your business has grown by leaps and bounds, hell, you've opened four more places, in Rio, Las Vegas, Chicago and London....you're an international superstar of cuisine! Here come the endorsements, alright, you're finally into the big money. Don't forget now, you have integrity, no sireebob, I have standards, I have integrity, nothing but the best, that's what I'm gonna endorse....Ummmmm.....Here's the problem. Yes you have integrity, you have standards, that's what you've built your whole career on....But now, you have 10 restaurants, business partners, investors, employees, several hundred if not thousands of people are depending on you to keep maintaining, even growing your Name, your Brand. You can't NOT do these commercials.... "Why yes, when I'm working in my kitchen all I ever wear are Doctor Schills Insole Cushy Thing's....yes indeed.....comfy as a cloud!"


You have to do this, and you will do this, and sure you'll make a lot more money, and those snobby bastard foodies will hate you for selling out, the cibo crowd will be fine with it because, well shit because they appreciate pretty much anything food related, the American people are already on board as they are the only people still left watching the Food Network or the Cooking Channel....so they're scarfing this stuff up as fast as you can endorse it.


Would I ever buy "their stuff"....Not a shot in hell. Why?! "But Pav, that's not being very cibo"... you're saying, and you're right....but right here on line 7 in my, "worked in professional kitchens/ cook contract" I am more or less obligated to consider myself a cook as opposed to cibo...which allows me the added benefit to also thumb my nose at things that I/The Industry Lifer Team deem as unadulterated bullshit. I wouldn't use the spice mixes, because I have a tongue, I have spices, and I know what I like, I don't need to be told "This is Steak Rub"... out of spite if I saw that in a kitchen, I would most definitely use it on fish. I won't use the Stock as I have a stove, and something called a stockpot....guess what it's used for? I won't buy the pans because I know where the kitchen supply store is that isn't interested in hawking kitchen ware for some celebrity, they're interested in supplying kitchens with stuff that works, and at a competitive price. So it goes... with the toothpaste, the dog food, etc, etc, etc...ad nauseum...I don't, and I won't buy this stuff...but that's just me. If you like any of these things, feel free to buy and use them, take no shame kind people...really, it isn't all shit on a stick. I guess for me, it's just principal.


Do I blame them?! Hell no, and I'll tell you why dear readers. Because these men/women in most cases have worked their butts off, are from humble beginnings, are good people, and if they can sell lumps of dog shit that people will buy... all the power to them! They almost have to do this, because if they don't... the empire starts to fold and people start to loose their jobs. The Chefs themselves would still do fine, but so many others depend on them. So they will keep doing what they do for the sake of the people who got them to the station they are at....and really, that's what a good chef does.