The cost of perfection

What is the cost of perfection?  Losing my mind?  Going insane?  I?ve worked in restaurants and professional kitchens before, where doing things half-ass was acceptable.  Cooks make decisions every single day.  It?s what we do.  We face moral dilemmas.  In culinary school, we call it interpersonal communications.  We ask ourselves things.  We make judgment calls.  A lot of these ?calls? are what distinguishes us as good cooks, and bad cooks.  You?d think (and I like to think) that most cooks do their work right, improving and wanting the best each and every day.  But that?s not always true.  Many cooks look at cooking as a job.  Get it done.  Do what they have to do and go home.

I?ll admit  that when working in a kitchen where half-ass is acceptable, its easy to become a cook that will accept themselves as just that.  ?Well, if everyone else around me, including my boss for god?s sake is okay with sub-par shit, then I don?t care.?

But this place?this place I?ve been living at for the last five weeks is different.  Every single person actually wants to be perfect.  And I?m not talking about perfect in a sense of trying their hardest, or making it pretty like frosting a dry cupcake, I?m talking about every single detail of daily life in the restaurant, absolute perfection.  From how you put away a box of salt, to the style in which you open the oven door, to picking up a piece of trash if it’s just sitting on the floor.  This ?perfection? is contagious too.  So contagious in fact, it is making me lose my freaking mind.  I?m not kidding.  The other day I was in the women’s locker room, brushing my teeth mind you, and I accidentally got a smidgen of toothpaste behind the faucet, and for a brief two seconds I was going to leave it there, but then I thought about the chance of somebody seeing it and the next day complaining about the dirty bitch who didn?t clean up after herself in the bathroom.  It was a brief two seconds to say the least?and then I cleaned it up.  With soap.

So what?  I live my work life in paranoia.  I never stop thinking about it.  I eat-sleep-dream, restaurant.  But I?m okay with that.  I think I’m lucky.  I?m lucky to work with people who care.  There?s not one person who I wouldn?t be proud to work with side by side, every single day.  Everyone?s proud to spend their day there, and proud of what they?re doing.  If all work, relationships, and family life were built around this sense of making things nice, and doing things out of respect for not just food, but people too?wouldn?t we all be in  a better place?  That?s how you become four-star, ladies and gentlemen.  Respect.  Respect for each other, respect what you do, and respect for the floor that you walk on.

Below is a day in foodie paradise with Kelsey (who is becoming a very dear friend as these externship weeks go by) all around Manhattan. We were serious.

From top the bottom: lobster rolls and blueberry soda at Luke’s Lobster, the New Amsterdam Market at South Street Seaport by the Brooklyn Bridge, zucchini parmesan bread from Bread Alone, and quite possibly my favorite thing from the day, a pumpkin-tart-bar from The Brown Bag Bakery and a waffle from the food truck, Wafels and Dinges.