I have used mistaken chef as my “handle” for as long as I can remember. I thought that it was just a fun play on my last name, but it seems to sum up so much of my life. I fought a career in the food industry as hard as I could for as long as I could. I was sure that if I were to cook for a living I would end up hating everything about it. For some reason seeing so many who hated their jobs convinced me that I would hate it. I was a jackass.
I wasted so much time insisting I was right that I seemed to miss how much joy it brought me when I was cooking or eating. My formerly 290 pound self will validate that I loved eating. I just kept pushing the possibility of being a chef away before I even had any clue of what went in to it. I was very lazy at that point in my life so the long hours might have scared the shit out of me. I am glad I took this path to get here. I wouldn’t have been the same person or met many of the people in my life if it weren’t for my reluctance to join the culinary field.
I laugh when I think about how lucky I am to have found a career like this. Places will pay me to express my love of food and booze. That’s crazy. Are you kidding me? What the hell was I thinking?
I know that some people are wondering, “how I can feel so confident and passionate about a field that so recently kicked me to the curb?”
That’s just one job. I didn’t fit there. It was a place that claimed they wanted to be from scratch. They just didn’t know what they were saying when they told me to, “take it and make it your own.” If you tell me that, I am going to do it and I am going to love every minute of it.