Oui Chef
This book is packed with sincerety as well as unhidden true life stories from the tough atmosphere in the kitchens, I worked as a line chef. It contains pictures of the 43 own crafted dishes and the anecdotes, written by my own self, driven by passion and enthusiasm to hopefully inspire colleagues and those who are about to make that decision to become one of us.
The Purpose...
“The purpose of human life is to serve, to show compassion and the will to help others.”
Albert Schweitzer
The inspiration behind this book was the sense of purpose of completing a referral of my own past. The joy and suffering behind those written lines are the encounter I chose, to compramize my family and the entire private life, unfortunately even until today. Being a chef from the old days where heated arguments and foul language ruled the kitchen, I need to say that only passion kept me going, when a lot of times the thought of quitting, dominated my mind. Time changed and I would not say it is for the worse, but the profession of the white jackets is in danger of promoting and continuing the art as it used to. It becomes more and more difficult to make youngsters understand that the basics have to be learned first before building clouds and making spheres. The translation of that is the lack of aceptance for most mentalities to work the way up from the bottom of the line. Not only people change – the ever evolving technology surrounding us makes it easier for business owners to replace and save payroll costs, willing to compromize the delivering quality, while still abusing customers to charge prime rates.
In hope to serve and to show compassion as I wrote this book to inspire chefs and those who would like to become one.
Behind the scenes...
Well,.. this is it!
I am not a professional photographer, rather a hobbist trying to make things happen, using what I have. I was lucky to have had the kitchens and ingredients available, as well as a boss who allowed me full access. The only thing I forced to make available is: TIME. With the job I have, it takes more than just an idea to realise such project. A mixture of persistence and drive pushed me 3-4 hours after my regular 12-14 hour day, until early in the morning to do what I wanted to achieve. The total production of this book took around 2 years: creating dishes first on paper, than in the kitchens, picturing them in our office rather than a fancy studio, writing and designing the book along with the clean up of the format at the end. The longest part of it all is the publication, for everyone to see and somehow make use of it.