Always a Prep Cook Never the Chef

A kitchen work journal of sorts.

You can’t half do restaurant work. I have tried to circle the periphery with merely a love of cooking and desire for a good bacchanalian gathering. But the rigor and physical demands of a professional kitchen is not for a casual dalliance. Eventually, I think I found a way in that sated my hunger.

Restaurant work started for me with my very first job as a teenager in southern Minnesota. I worked as a hostess at Vincent Wang’s. I was thrilled to work at one of my favorite restaurants in town but alas, Vincent was a…