hug a chef week

Back before it was fashionable, I had a relationship with a chef.

He worked in the kitchen of a starred hotel, part of an international chain. Each afternoon he’d iron his uniform, ready his knives and polish his boots. He’d leave the house smelling of Paco Rabanne, returning 11 or more hours later stinking of sweat, fat and god knows what else.

It wasn’t a glamorous job but it had its compensations. On the rare night off when he’d cook at home there’d always be the juiciest steaks or exotic delicacies like frogs legs, courtesy of the big hotel. Not that they knew.

The pay was lousy, despite being years out of his apprenticeship, made slightly better by penalty rates from working unsociable hours. Though I had a mate who worked nights as a rubbish collector at the time who was paid more and came home smelling a darn sight sweeter.

Knocking off late at night, when a city like Wellington was all but closed, he had three options to wind down - get pissed, stoned or fuck someone. Often all of the above. And at times I suspect all three before he left work.

From our liaison I got an appreciation for sharp knives, learnt how to make nifty little bundles of carrots held together by their own ring and became rather wary of sexually transmittable diseases.

And that was before Anthony Bourdain wrote Kitchen Confidential.

I’ve always felt a little troubled by the cult of the celebrity chef. Working split shifts in commercial kitchens are often dangerous, poorly paid and crap for your love life. When Jamie Oliver and Fifteen became popular, I queried the wisdom of putting damaged kids, often with a history of substance abuse, into such a dysfunctional work environment.

There’s little glamour in the kitchen for the average chef. Most don’t get to own an eponymous restaurant, flash their face on television or publish cookbooks. The cycle of sex, drugs and alcoholism in kitchen is apparently not a myth in this city. Of course not every chef, cook or dish pig has a raging habit and some do manage to balance healthy relationships with antisocial hours. Though I’ve got to say the healthiest and happiest chefs I’ve met are ones who’ve taken a back step from the relentless kitchen grind and diversified their skills.

Despite the sanitisation of the professional cook on television, it still looks like an adrenaline fuelled, dirty job to me.

But without them, no matter how skilled we are in our homely kitchens, eating would be a much less interesting sport.

So hug a chef today and tell them you appreciate them.

I’ve cyber stalked the long time ex to no avail. Last I’d heard he’d gone from working in prestigious kitchens to stints of cooking in Kalgoorlie and other gritty mining towns. Despite the pride he took in what he made and the exacting professionalism he once had, I get the feeling life hasn’t been easy for him since our paths last crossed.

Then again, he may have married, had kids, moved to the suburbs and become a respectable sales rep, for a pharmaceutical company.

And despite all the fancy things he could do with carrots, the ice sculpting and butter carving, I’ve not found a cookbook with his face on it yet.

GFWS 2009 -the good, the bad and the downright sexist

If you love big exhibitions, buy those supermarket-chain food magazines and watch programs like Masterchef – you will love the Good Food and Wine Show. However if the term “foodie” gives you heartburn and you find the cult of the celebrity chef distasteful this event might not be your thing.

As for me, I left the GFWS feeling a tad queasy.


The Good

Most exhibitors were generous with samples. You could more than recoup your entry fee on the wine tasting alone and after work on a Friday and that was what a fair few people seemed to be doing in the grog enclosure.

Food-wise two products stood out and both involved people doing things with real food. One exhibit did a great job of demystifying quinoa from cooking it in vegetable stock as a base for a casserole, to creating a delicious salad. The second standout was an avocado promotion. The smoothies made with pineapple, avocado, honey, orange juice and a little desiccated coconut was so good we went back for seconds.

We were given currency to use in the restaurant enclosure. Four chefs devised a simple menu with an entrée, main and dessert each. Of them, Gordon Ramsay’s simple and healthy offerings were the only ones fitting my criteria. Just as well because his salmon was a standout. It was while we were polishing off an early meal we were approached by an employee desperate to give away tickets to Ramsay’s next show in the kitchen stadium. We said no at first, neither or us a fan of the man though when we heard he’d be demonstrating how to cook the salmon we were sold.

The Bad

Product warning! Later in the year a Tasmanian company will be launching their Australian grown and canned tinned salmon. I wanted to like it but to be honest, I suspect there are cat foods on the market that taste better. I am their target market, with a stack of Wild Alaskan tinned salmon in my cupboard but the local product was so unbelievably foul I shudder just writing about it.

Speaking of cat food, as always there were far too many exhibits devoted to off theme products – pet consumerables, wash cloths, really pushy Asian massage hawkers that created a kind of visual and aural spam.

The Ugly

Gordon Ramsay doesn’t have a pretty face (even if it may or may not have been made less mobile thanks to botox). But that is not what makes him unattractive. I don’t own a single cookbook by a television celebrity and unlike the women whooping loudly in the front few rows – I am not a fan.

We rocked up to the half-full “Celebrity Theatre” just as the show was getting underway. The person seated next to us whispered they’d been sold out last year. Had Gordo lost his mojo with the GFC, infidelity and all? We endured the never ending warm up segment where audience members willingly humiliated themselves in the hope of winning show bags, until finally the man himself arrived with only moderate cheering from the audience and not a single pair of knickers thrown on stage.

Oh boy, what a big disappointment. Minute after aching minute of woman-hating rhetoric in the name of comedy spewed out of his mouth. He continually dissed Tracy Grimshaw, Susan Boyle and womankind generally to lukewarm response. For a man so keen to rub his genitals against the opposite sex, his blatant disrespect for the gender was from a different century.

With over half the allocated time now wasted he finally started cooking and attempted to redeem himself. Yes the man can cook. He knows how to dumb down a recipe for the public and what he created ticked all the boxes for simplicity, good produce and even health.

But the man himself, like the canned salmon left me feeling quite nauseous.

Disclaimer: I attended the show and ate at the restaurant courtesy of Stellar Concepts. Entry prices for Melbourne and Sydney are $27.50. The Ramsay Salmon dish with a glass of wine is available for $24.

Tickets to Gordon Ramsay ($47.50) were provided independently, by the event management on the day.