Decision Points: and I thought cooking was stressful

For today's entree I decided to go non-conventional.

In all my 10 fabulous years of cooking, I thought I had the most stressful job in the world. Working in a high heat environment, sweating like a pig, smelling like a combination of marinara sauce and vomit. Arguing early in the morning with various purveyors for better prices, having my competitors restaurants fax me their daily menu, dealing with staff and customers. It just didn't seem like anyone had a more stressful time.

Enter 2008.
I started working for an airline where the highlight of my "stress" would be how to pour a diet coke. I wanted out of the restaurant business after a few botched attempts with relationships that thought I was overly obsessed with my job.
I enjoyed this non-challenging peanut brain job for about 4 months. Then I got bored. So the thought of returning to the kitchen occurred to me, but then  I remembered the good and the bad .... but mostly the bad. I figured I have to do something else with my life, something challenging.

So I started school at a local community college, got my AA in liberal arts while working for a major airline. I then transferred to a 4 year big boy college to get my bachelors in "Media Studies" (it was the easiest major according to my guidance councilor so I went for it).

Today we are in 2011, and I will be graduating May 18th from A NYC College. My attempt at landing an internship is so far proving to be unsuccessful and my internship advisor advised me to "dumb down" my resume.

Enter plan B

I have always toyed with the idea of going to law school, it was always in the back of my mind, especially since I sued my former boss and won some $$. I spoke like a champion in court, wearing a suit and tie, addressing the judge with words like "your honor" and "I object".
My dad happened to be there in court with me just in case my former boss tried to "put a hit out on me".
Even though I have struggled to maintain a good relationship with my father, the way his eyes glowed when I walked out the courtroom. He had a smile from ear to ear, I could finally see what he was proud of, what he wanted his son to be. He never said anything but "good job" to me. But to my mom he raved later (at least according to her). He told her he was so proud of me, and how professional I was and how well i spoke.

So anyway back to the topic.
I've been thinking of going to law school now that my media career doesn't seem to be blasting off. I consulted with my News Analysis and Journalism adviser, who is also a retired lawyer, and she told me that being a lawyer is written all over me and I should pursue it full force.
So I'm thinking I'm gonna go ahead with it. But I can't lie, school, work, decisions has put a huge burden on my social life. I seem to have none of that left. The stress of taking out huge loans, going into a field I know little about and working in a job I'm not sure I'm even going to like, all while devoting 3 years of my life, so at 31 i'll be a lawyer and I may love or hate my job but have to stick with it.

WHOA

Now that's stress.

What you see here is a young, cocky, 22 year old in his first executive chef job in a restaurant in NYC. This was my office for many years, not the same place but places similar to this is what I call "office"; located in the dungeon, that level underground beneath the beautiful restaurant you walk into... or as I like to call it "where the magic happens". My typical day would start as I'm walking through Times Square at 7am grabbing my coffee, get in to work and find my Irish bartender passed out on the floor from drinking too much the night before, wake him up and remind him he needs to go home and get ready for his shift that starts at 4pm. I then proceed to the kitchen to say hello to my prep cooks which have been working since 6am. I taste a few of the daily soups to make sure the flavor balance is ok. Then I proceed down to the dungeon. Go into the walk-in fridge (think home fridge just a lot bigger) and check my meats, produce, fish and temperature to make sure were ready to go. I spend the next hour in my office comparing my three vendor price lists for the week seeing who can give me the best product at the cheapest price. 11am, the owner walks in and greets me then complains about how much he hates his wife and how everything was better when he was on cocaine (he's a former cocaine addict). Lunch starts, I go up to the expo line (basically the final place food gets checked before its distributed to your table) and we have a decent lunch of 80 people. Lunch is over, uneventful and I continue with dinner preparations. I noticed this morning that I had salmon in the walk-in that is good for another day at best. I need to brainstorm on how to get rid of this salmon by the end of the night. I quickly think of a solution... Just throw it in parchment paper, with a bit of julienne vegetables some white wine garlic and serve it en pappillotte style. I bring the servers in and inform them of the special, let them taste it and tell them that whoever sells the most gets a free bottle of wine by the end of the night. Problem solved. 4pm the monsters arrive. These are no culinary school kids these are the real deal from Mexico. Perfect craftsmen of cooking these guys put any culinary school grad to shame. I go over to Francisco as hes perfectly cleaning a beef tenderloin (removing all the silverskin etc.) Francisco is my sous chef and good at what he does. I see the rest and take a moment to step back, they're like a fine tuned machine just cranking out orders everything goes perfect, until someone fucks it all up. Usually a server but I'll admit sometimes its our fault. This is the moment where everything comes crashing down like a set of dominoes when one tips over. Suddenly all chaos breaks loose, people are getting wrong temperature steaks, plates are breaking, my cooks are falling one by one, I jump back to the line and try to rescue each of them as best I can and finally the big dinner push is over. It's 10pm, I'm exhausted, I feel like I've just won the war of us against them. I go to the bar where Peter greets me with a "good shift a" my response is one not appropriate for this blog. We have 3 beers and 3 shots of Jameson. I catch a cab home at 1am. There's my typical day for the 10 years I've worked in the industry.