Stamattina

I do not like when my job feels like work. I get grumpy, irritable, glum, wish I was elsewhere, and finally, not care at all about even being there doing what I am doing--and worst, begin to question my passion.

I am but an apprentice. I am in the kitchen to learn, and granted we are incredibly busy during our season, too much so for me to be learning classic preparation and dishes or butchering all sorts of carcasses, I often feel as though I am not. And then I wonder what exactly I am doing if I am not learning. More importantly, if I am not tested; no, more importantly still, if I am not creating. More than a desire (need) to learn, I am, or was when I started this, driven by passion.

Passion, i suppose, is what most chefs were one time possessed by. For some it is fleeting, for some it is constant, and for some, liek myself, it often feels stifled. Because I am but an apprentice after all, and I am there to learn, not fuel my passions (I am to keep those to myself, drawing on it to get through the tough days, I suppose, though lately I have simply been using wine for that).

But I am not learning, I am questioning my passion, and now I am talking in circles because taht is how this whole experience sometimes feels. It is hard to explain--i know what I love, and I truly do love what I do. But there is something missing, and that something would let me connect the two. Perhaps it is knowledge; experience maybe; proving myself; patience and practice--none of which, on days like today, can come soon enough, or seem to be coming at all.

Sometimes I believe that anyone could do my job, they just need to be shown how. Competence does not equal caring, however. I care; of course I care, we all do, that is why we are crazy enough to do what we do. We are good at it, we care about it, we love it. It is awful, then, when people I know put the same sweat and love into this work as I do, do not see it in me; the devotion goes unnoticed...so does the talent, the interest, the ideas, the knowledge, the trust. Still worse, is when I am not given any chance to prove those things. Stagnating squelches enthusiasm, and without that there is no passion, and without that, its just work.

Thanks for listening