I call all chefs 'cooks.' They're all cooks. That's what we do, we cook. You're a chef when you're running a kitchen.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'
'Chef' doesn't mean that you're the best cook, it simply means 'boss.'
Chefs are at the end of a long chain of individuals who work hard to feed people. Farmers, beekeepers, bakers, scientists, fishermen, grocers, we are all part of that chain, all food people, all dedicated to feeding the world.
Cooking is for chefs. Science informs us and lets us cook while knowing what we are doing, but it is not a replacement for the skills of a chef.
As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.
While some people may think being a chef only entails making enticing dishes and pushing the culinary boundaries, being a part of the food industry involves much more.
I sometimes think the chef end of cooking is not the real end of cooking. Cooking is all about homes and gardens, it doesn't happen in restaurants.
Most cooks try to learn by making dishes. Doesn't mean you can cook. It means you can make that dish. When you can cook is when you can go to a farmers market, buy a bunch of stuff, then go home and make something without looking at a recipe. Now you're cooking.
No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers.
Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.