What I Wish I Knew Before I Wanted To Be A Chef

A question was posed to me during my introduction interview for culinary school: “Do you consider food to be art on a plate?” I was exposed to fine dining, after all, through artful documentaries that glorified the plight and plunder of chefs across the world, fervently elevating them to celebrity status. Sure, their food looked beautiful. However, I didn’t venture into the food business because I wanted to be an artist. In fact, it was my desire to be an artist — a musician and audio engineer, to be exact— that backfired, presently placing me in the financially precarious position of going back to school in my mid twenties. My fumbled diatribe enveloped the phrases often heard from T.V. and celebrity chefs; I espoused fast food as below “art,” I glorified local ingredients as the bastion of good food and good character, I delivered the gospel of farm-to-table and sustainability. …