You're a chef?! By Jason King

Food, water, shelter. The essentials for survival. So carpenters and cooks provide two fundamental services for humanity's proliferation. Of those two trades, the average person is more likely to cook for themselves, than build their own house.

Everyone has cooked at least once. We have all cooked a grilled cheese sandwich, or made a bowl of ramen at some point. Cooking is not particularly hard to grasp at a novice level.

As a home cook spreads their wings a bit, perhaps make a sauce or two - their passion grows.
Then they meet a kitchen guy.

They almost always give you a promotion by asking where you are a chef at. My humble opinion is there is only one chef in the kitchen. If you aren't him, you aren't a chef.

Cook, is my preferred moniker. Though for sake of schematics, I usually just say where I work, rather than explain the tradition and gravity of the word chef.

Then comes the "scenario"... As if they have had it memorized for months, waiting to meet a professional culinary representative. The delivery is as calculated as a cold call sales rebuttal.

The novice leads with a casual reference to something they do regularly, to qualify themselves as more talented than an average home cook. Something like how they make fresh mozzarella the day before they make eggplant parmigiana. Whatever the statement, the intention is to let the pro cook know this guy is no slouch in the kitchen.

Then comes the crux question... How do you use... What's the best way to... Every time I... Always the questions are honest, and my answers to anyone are to hopefully help them. I just always wonder if carpenters get these queries.

"Shit, you're a carpenter?!, I was digging a footing for the slab I'm pouring for my shed. HOA says I gotta use complimentary material for any out buildings. So we used recovered lumber from an old barn for the facade of our home. I'm not trying to drop that kinda coin on my shed though. Do you have any tips on distressing 1x6 oak? or know of a good MDF that has that look?"

Now don't get me wrong, Home Depot would be out of business if people didn't try to do what carpenters do. It's just more intimidating to build a mantle over the fireplace, compared to making a box of Zatarain's red beans and rice.

While at the core, cooking is what cooks do for a living, it's so much more than that. The ability to put a great meal on the table for your girl or some friends, is awesome. Now do that hundreds of times in a night. This is after you busted ass for hours to get your kitchen line ready. Prepping unnatural amounts of product. Then after the rush, clean it all up like it never happened. That's cooking for a living.

Food, water, and shelter... I wonder if people that work at a water bottling facility consider themselves in the trifecta of noble, essential trades? Eh, probably just glad to have a job with benefits. A rarity in the cook and carpentry fields.