zen and the art of cooking.

I've lost more than a few cooks to the heavily structured environment of my corporate kitchen. Most of the truly passionate ones are in the game as an outlet for their creativity. They turn every mound of mashed potatoes into a rosemary masted galleon, no protein is complete without some overthought (and usually over-reduced) reduction and if the vegetables in house somehow survived beyond baby years to childhood they're too old. Most of these guys haven't mastered the basics, and few can see beyond their aspirations to the skill level required to do what we do well on a daily basis. It took a long time for me to notice it as well, because most of it had become unconscious for me. I started noticing when I took on more of a coaching role.
It starts with the way a cook holds a knife. Invariably they all cut wrong, every slice taking them one blood gushing heartbeat closer to a severed digit. So I'll gently correct them, show them the grip that for me has become so comfortable and watch them struggle with the awkwardness of it. I'll watch them tear into a pepper or an onion like a TV chef, then pass by their waste buckets and show them that they're throwing away half the usable product. I'll show them that the best parts of most vegetables are what they're habitually discarding, show them that in some cases one quarter of an item's size can amount to three quarters of it's mass and most of our usage. It moves on to everything; cooking temps, the color of a protein as it moves through different stages, the sound it makes in a pan when it's ready to turn or finish.
Then, on the days when I'm finally able to step back from coaching, step back from the paperwork and the cooler checks and the inventory counting and the hiring and firing, on days when I'm able to cook again I get my zen on.
The back of the knife blade slips easily into the the calloused path between thumb and forefinger, you can feel the life still resonating in a pepper or a mushroom, turning it and considering how best to maximize the potential for it. Gas flames burn a soft blue, occassionally flickering orange and the heat is no different than the heat off the first fires of the first men gathered around a fire for survival and fellowship. Soon the knife is chopping, and other knives are chopping and there's a stillness and a calmness that settles over me, and it's all stuff that I've done so many times that I slide into an almost meditative state, concentrating on improving knife skills on every stroke.
There were days working in the sewer when I'd daydream wistfully about being back in the kitchen. Freezing cold, rain/sleet coming down, 12 hours into your day with another 12 to go and never seeing the horizon until the end of the day, and all I could think of was how nice it would be to have those gas fires at my back, a knife in hand, chopping away quietly and quickly, my only purpose to make each slice as perfect as the stillness. Stayed up too late again...