CHEF OR COOK?

 

I once asked a friend if he liked to cook. He said, “Yes, but I am a cook, not a chef. A chef is an alchemist. Otherwise, you are just a cook.” I have chewed on this for quite a while (pun intended). Am I a chef, or am I a cook? 

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   My first memories of cooking are vague and inconsequential. My mother did her job and “put food on the table” - it was a task - it was no simple feat for a family of 7. She dutifully represented three food groups: vegetable, protein, and carbohydrate. Despite so many of us, five children born over 14 years, we did not cook together, or I cannot easily conjure up times we did. I remember an exciting presentation of a Yorkshire Pudding once, a lot of Newman’s Own Italian Dressing on leafy green salads, and the tradition of cooking Genovoa Delicatessan’s Meat Ravioli. When we went camping, my father made garlic fried chicken in his cast iron pan. One of my older sisters baked perfect chocolate chip cookies with salted butter. 

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   Everything I first learned about cooking came from working in restaurants. I was 13 when a friend at school said his mother was a chef at a local restaurant, and I could work under the table on the weekends. I remember watching my friend’s mother on the hot line. Her analysis of timing, temperature, and rhythm. Her thoughtful pause after tasting a sauce, the moment of calculation. There were distinct moments I can recall in all the different restaurants I worked in after that. A chef judging the peaches when stone fruit season arrived, holding them with a gentle squeeze in each palm. The gentle art of de-boning a fish. The pastry chef rolling out layers of chilled butter over sheets of dough.

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   I learned to observe all people cook. My sister standing next to the risotto in the saucepan, stirring at the same steady pace for 20 minutes. A friend shucking oysters, tilting the tool’s edge so I can see the angle of the turn. Men at a BBQ turn their steaks for an even char. My mother-in-law explaining yogurt cultures and starters.

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   My first instinct is to say I am not a chef. Sadly, I am a cook. I’m disappointed in myself that I am not a chef. I prefer to cook from recipes, especially recipes with pictures. I search Google and follow different chefs’ Instagram accounts. I often cook the same thing until it tires and moves out of the rotation. I concentrate more on dinner than other meals. I cook more for others than I do myself. I enjoy reading old handwritten recipes from my grandparents, even if I don’t want to cook pork chops and string beans. I eat out and slam the food because I am in a hurry, or I eat out and savor each bite, pausing for that calculation to decode the ingredients. 

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   I am an inconsistent cook. For years, I could only manage pasta with parmesan for my toddlers. I have been known to use pre-seasoned couscous and Safeway roasted chickens. I let years go by before I felt my cooking was worth a good set of knives. I don’t spend money on table settings. With three children, everything fancy seemed to break, so I kept plastic glasses through high school. My house is not a white-linen restaurant. However, I love to cook. I love to watch others cook. I rarely feel pride, but my heart swells when I remember the teenagers around our table for Shabbat dinner. Don’t tell them, but I cry when my daughters call to ask for a recipe. 

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   What would make me a chef besides a late-life appearance at culinary school? A chef can take any three ingredients and make a meal. A chef can grab from an endless array of spices and seasonings and create a masterpiece. A chef can taste things down to the chemistry. A chef can handle food masterfully. Sometimes, I am close to that. If you come to my house for dinner, you will likely get a sense of the history I have shared here - salmon cooked to just the right temperature or a sauce with the right balance of acid - and it will be pretty good.