TV chef can go ahead and stuff it
We’ve all had them — bosses, teachers, coaches, team mates, spouses and even parents who think they’re doing you a favor by snapping at you.
“It’s a wonder my foot doesn’t get carpal tunnel syndrome from the repetitive stress of kicking your butt.” Thanks for the life lesson, coach.
“Here’s an idea — do the opposite of everything you just did and maybe things will work out better.” How could I ever do it without you, boss.
Some days it seems as if there’s a contest going on to see who can take the most joy out of living and there are lots of people out there trying to win First Prize.
It was a shock to find out there really is such a contest. It’s a reality TV show called “Hell’s Kitchen,” starring a dotty, maniacal, unbalanced, screaming British chef named Gordon Ramsay who seems to think the secret ingredient missing from most food preparation is hate.
I didn’t watch it long enough to figure out all the rules, but one of them seems to be that Chef Ramsay must scream at all the contestants at the top of his lungs for making extremely minor mistakes, both real and imagined.
Another rule is that every day for Chef Ramsey is a bad day, and it’s the contestant’s fault. If he doesn’t like what a contestant has prepared, he might take the plate they are working on — full of food — and throw it on the floor when a simple, “That’s not correct” or “There is a better way to do that” would do. I don’t know if he throws plates all the time, but he did it three times in the 10 minutes I watched.
He likes to get into the contestants faces, screaming at them from right in their faces while his face turns red. It is like watching a drill sergeant work over the recruits. Except in the army, making a mistake could get you and your buddies killed. In “Hell’s Kitchen,” it means you put the garnish on the wrong side of the plate. Which would cause diners to suffer untold horrors — you worthless worm, you ninny, you twit. Would you pay a hundred pounds for that? Would you? WOULD YOU? What made you think you can cook? You’re not qualified to wash the dishes. Let’s find out. Tonight you wash the dishes. You won’t be head dishwasher; you’ll help the dishwasher. If you don’t screw that up, maybe we’ll let you back in the kitchen tomorrow night.
You can see how inspiring a speech like that might be, how it would make you want to try all the harder to be worthy of kissing his feet. Did I mention that Gordon Ramsay is a chef, not a brain surgeon, a rocket scientist, an RN, a college professor or a religious scholar? One of millions of talented chefs around the world, most do quite handsomely without screaming at the help.
Ramsay cooks fish. He puts it on a plate and sells it to you for 20 times what it would have cost you to do it yourself. He’s rich; he’s famous. So why is he so unpleasant and unhappy? He seems to get no joy at all from being a world famous, talented chef.
And why do we reward his bad behavior by putting him on television? Someone must have forgotten to send me the memo that if you can make a nice sauce bearnaise, it’s OK for you to act like a childish rock star trashing his first hotel room.
I didn’t see enough of “Hell’s Kitchen” to figure out all the rules, but I’m assuming the first contestant to quit wins all the money because, obviously, that person would be the smartest contestant. Or maybe it’s first one to say, “This is nonsense, you don’t have to be an obnoxious bozo to fancy up shrimp scampi and put it on a plate.” Or maybe it’s the first one to say, “Life is too short for this kind of nonsense. Take your halibut and stuff it.”
Jim Mullen is the author of “It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life” and “Baby’s First Tattoo.” You can reach him at [email protected].