Jumping Back Into the Frying Pan
Getting back into the kitchen after a six-year absence in the hope that I can get my passion back — not just for cooking but for life
This is the story of a chef who’s love for cooking and food defined him — until he lost the passion and left the kitchen behind forever, or so he thought.
Back to the beginning
I began my cooking journey in 2001, and I loved everything about it. I’m not exactly sure why I decided cooking was the career for me, but it probably had something to do with the fact I thought chefs were pretty cool. Jamie Oliver was the new kid on the block, and whatever you might think of him, at that time he did make cooking and being a chef relatively cool — well to me anyway. I also worked at a restaurant as a waiter and even though the chefs were mainly pricks to me something about it intrigued me, and I thought I’d like to give it a go. So that’s what I did.
I was never one of those kids who knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was always envious of those who had picked their A level subjects accordingly. Me, however, I chose three random subjects that, of course, I failed. I buried my head in the sand (my modus operandi) and started to look for jobs — well pretended to at first, to keep my mother appeased. I worked in a bar for a short amount of time until I made the decision that I wanted to train to become a chef. I was advised by a career guide not to go to college, as I would have to pay for it due to my age. So with the help of a training company I learnt on the job and completed my NVQ at the same time — the best decision I made.
Chefs who come straight out of college are some of the worst I have worked with as their knife skills are below par, they are often slow, lack any finesse and have no idea what it means to be a chef. What I mean by this, is that they can cook the dishes that they have learnt at college, but being a chef is much more than that. It’s about organisation, managing your station, using your know-how to get through a busy service, having to think on your feet to get the job done. In my experience, a lot of college taught chefs lack this. I don’t mean to generalise. Some fabulous cooks that have come through college, and there are no doubt some dog awful on the job trained cooks, but I’m just going off what I have experienced. Overall, in my opinion, kitchen experience is vital.
My first job was in the restaurant of a large hotel chain. At my working trial, the HR manager asked me where I saw myself in five years. Not really understanding kitchen terminology yet I responded that I would be a Sous Chef (the second chef, literally translates as under chef.) She said that it was highly unlikely and that I should lower my expectations. It took me four years to make sous chef. I always thought of going back and telling her so rather smugly, but alas I never did. After the interview, I spent some time in the kitchen, and one of the chefs sat me down and tried to put me off from becoming a chef.
“It’s a shit job; you’ll have no social life, it’s arduous work, you’ll never see your friends, are you sure this is the life for you?”
They didn’t put me off, however, and I bloody loved it, I loved everything about it. Of course, it was all of the things they said it was. They were trying to make sure that I knew what I was getting myself into. At the time, I thought they were being dramatic and making it sound worse than it was. But I was enjoying it so much that I overlooked the bad parts — there was nothing I disliked about the job then. I later found out that they had bet that I wouldn’t last the week. I stayed there for three years.
I moved on to bigger and better things, a smaller boutique hotel with a two AA Rosetted fine dining restaurant. It got to a point where I outgrew my first job and the way they did things. I saw how certain things were prepared or cooked, and knew I knew I could do better. That’s the great thing about being a cook, you are always learning, and there is always a new place to ply your trade, a new Head Chef willing to teach you.
I spent three years there, completing my level 3 NVQ and rising to Sous Chef. But as far as my cooking career was concerned, it was time to get serious. I wanted to test myself, and I knew that London was the only place I could go next. In the end, there was only one chef that I wanted to work for — Tom Aikens. I loved his style of food, his creative flair and the way he used his ingredients. His eponymous restaurant in Chelsea was 1 Michelin star (2 stars rising) and 5 AA Rosettes. Before going there, I thought I was a good cook. I knew I still had a lot to learn but was confident in my ability. I knew fuck all, that became apparent on my working trial. The way the chefs worked and cooked, the kitchen practises, were eye-opening to me, and although I was scared shitless, it was incredibly exciting. I soon realised that I wasn’t, in fact, a good cook, I was average at best. But it is because of my time there that I am now a great cook. The things I learnt there have stayed with me and I put into practice wherever I work. I learnt that the little things matter, whether it’s how you cut herbs or the way a container should be clingfilmed (so tight that you can’t see any clingfilm) the way something should be paned (breadcrumbed) so that you can see each grain of panko. It’s all of the little things add up to make a fantastic dish.
I worked there for a year and holy shit it was enough. It was terrifying, exhilarating and rewarding in equal measure. I was a wreck. Gaunt, pallid, wasting away, huge dark patches under my eyes, extremely tired.
After working with Tom, I moved back up north and got a job with Anthony Flinn at his eponymous restaurant in Leeds. I quickly worked my up to be his Head Chef and spent three years with him before heading back down south again. My girlfriend (now wife ) got a job down there, so I went with her. I spent the first few months working for an agency which wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I got placed in a decent kitchen and stayed there until I met up with a mate with whom I had worked with at Tom Aikens. He had set up a catering company, and I joined him as his head chef. It was a stressful yet rewarding time of my life. When we had a catering job on I was working extremely hard, it was probably the most stressful I had had, but when there wasn’t an event to cater for it was office work — writing blogs, compiling menus etc. And the best thing was we finished at 5 pm — This was unprecedented for me. I had never had evenings at home before. And before long, my girlfriend and I got used to it, and I knew then that it would be hard to go back.
After a few years, it was time to go back home again, but that was a problem. I got used to a more ‘normal life.’ Did I want to go back to the crazy hours that until recently been my norm? The answer, as I am sure you can guess, was no. I was soon to be married and knew that one day we wanted to have children. I didn’t want to be a stay away dad, stuck in a kitchen while my children grew up, seeing them for an hour in the mornings only. I also had the problem of where to work. There was nowhere in Leeds at that time where I wanted to work. So I did a bit of agency work for a while, but this confounded how I was already feeling. I was at a crossroads, and the path I took was away from the kitchen. I had lost the love. It happens to a lot of chefs at one time or another, but I never thought it would happen to me.
To become a chef, you have to commit to it 100%, you have to make sacrifices, and I didn’t want to make them anymore. In a way, I had lost my twenty’s to the kitchen. I missed many nights out with my friends. I was stuck working my ass off while they danced theirs off — don’t get me wrong it was the career I chose, and I have no real regrets, more pangs of what could have been. In the end, I had nothing left to give.
In the years that followed since I stepped away from the kitchen, many times, people have asked me whether I missed cooking. My answer was always the same — no, not at all. That wasn’t entirely true though. Did I miss the long, brutal hours, chefs lambasting me for an incorrectly cooked fish, working long into the night, aching legs, back and feet? Of course not. But I did miss the creativity aspect. The menu planning, coming up with new dishes and new flavours. I also missed the camaraderie. As a chef, you often spend more time with your kitchen team than your family. But all that withstanding I was happy without it.
The depression
A few years or so down the line after dabbling with my own business, I took a job with a social media agency as a social media account manager — a job I came to despise. Then the depression hit. You can read about that here.
I was desperate to get out of the job that I mostly blamed for the way I was feeling. Another part of the problem was I didn’t honestly know what the hell I was going to do with my life. If I found the job I was doing now stressful; I figured it would be the same or worse elsewhere. I could work in a different field, but I would be starting from scratch again. After coming clean with work, they reduced my workload, among other things, and I put off the inevitable and stayed with them. It was the easiest thing to do rather than face up to what else I could do. Things came to a head again relatively quickly, the pressure at work was increasing, and as such, I became insular once again, and my work began to suffer. One morning I was supposed to be travelling to the head office in Newcastle, but I couldn’t face it — I hadn’t completed a piece of work, and I knew I would have nowhere to hide so I phoned in sick, but they didn’t believe me. I had been ill, however, as a result of the stress I was suffering from, but it made no difference. It became untenable for me to stay there and I left. They were very good to me, to be honest, and paid me gardening leave, so I had a month and a half to figure something out.
Inception
The weight lifted immediately, I felt like a new man, but I was out of a job and had a month to find something. The main problem was that I felt lost. I was fast approaching my thirty-ninth birthday, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life and the depression began to engulf me again slowly. I often thought about the thirty or so years of work that I had left before I could retire, and it frightened the hell out of me, that I could not see a clear path. What would I do know? I had many sleepless nights and panic gripped me whenever I thought of my listless future; I suppose the depression brought on a sort of early mid-life crisis.
I went through the process of looking for jobs again, which only worsened the panic I was feeling. I’m not sure when it first occurred to me that I could go back to being a chef, (something that I said I would never do again,) but like Inception the idea grew and began to take hold. Perhaps I could go back to cooking? It’s the only thing I’m good at I told myself. I saw a job that I fancied in a popular cafe. I didn’t want to go into restaurants again, my feelings about the long hours being in-conducive to having a young family hadn’t changed. As it turned out, the job had gone, but by then, I had made the decision that I would start looking for cooking jobs. As luck would have it, I noticed a position was open at an Enterprise and Arts centre that house an eatery. A place I knew very well as I had been going there for years. I had also had an office in their workspace area, and as such, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to get back into the kitchen. In my opinion, the food there had gone downhill somewhat in the last year or so and I knew I could improve the offering. I got the job. It was incredibly exciting going out to get new whites, (chef jackets) knives and aprons as well as everything else I would need. The day before I was due to start, I put my new white jacket, black trousers, black Birkenstock clogs and my apron on to see how I looked. It was strange as I had not seen myself dressed like that for so long and yet it felt right, like reacquainting with an old friend. I was exhilarated for the first time in a long while, but also incredibly relieved that I had found something, after many stressful months trying to figure out what my future would pan out.
Eleven months in I’m delighted that I’m cooking again. It was the best decision I could have made. And best of all, it has reignited my passion for food that I thought had gone forever.
