SOME THOUGHTS ON CHEFING
SACRED CHOWSometimes people ask me for help or suggestions about how to chef, or how to open a restaurant. Keeping in mind that this is extremely fleeting and personal, I will try to explain here everything that I believe about the love of cooking. I hope it is useful. It's what I've learned.
I believe that – if you are serious about chefing, or about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a sacred calling. I became a chef the way other people become priests, rabbis, monks or nuns. I made a vow to bring
Sacred Chow to life. I built my entire life around
Sacred Chow. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a chef. I had no connections to the world of cooking. I had no clue. I just began.
I went to The Natural Gourmet Cookery School, and began immediately working for many other restaurateurs. I found that I had my own unique culinary style, sense of discipline, work ethic, morals, drive, divine inspiration, and I didn’t really want to be working where the goal was less than conceptually changing global food consumption. Even if it wasn't going to happen this day, this week, this decade, I wanted the work to be to this end. So I went out on my own, and opened
Sacred Chow. It was and is abundantly difficult work. I didn't know the first thing about growing a business. My moral culinary pulse was everything. I had to hire other folks to help run this endeavor, but none of them were coming from the same place. I was immediately viewed as an imperialist, not an artist or moral guide. A constant antagonism, "the tension of capitalism", as Karl Marx wrote, seemed to pervade their view of me. It was very disquieting. The underlying tug of Marx was everywhere. "He takes it all, and we're like his slaves". The truth was: I earned nothing, and I just wanted to share it all equally. Well, as we know, Rome wasn't built in a day, everything important takes time and understanding; and
Sacred Chow is going on its 14 year, and I am still fastidiously
chipping away at the marble stone searching for David. I have not seen his face, but I know that he is in there. Pieces of him reveal themselves, an elbow or a knee pop out, emerge, and I can hear him say, "I am here, I am here, keep chipping!" I've created 1,000's of my own low-carbon, plant-based recipes. I read and write constantly, collecting experiences, making mistakes, and forgiving myself over and over again. My life probably looks discombobulated to outsiders (not that anyone is looking that closely) but my experiences were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could build my food concept into
Sacred Chow's philosophical purpose.
Back around the age of 28, I had started sending my creations to folks and businesses for tastings. My goal was to open
Sacred Chow before I died. I read every cook book and cooking magazine I could get in my hands. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be a great chef. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to dream up these non-violent, earth balancing creations: why not me?” I didn’t like being rejected, but my expectations were low and my persistence, patience and hard work was high. (Again – the goal was to open
Sacred Chow before death). And I was strong and healthy. It could never understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of rejection. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So get it out there! Send your work off to restaurants, global food brands, magazines and chefs as much as possible, feed it to your neighbors, family & friends, plaster your recipes on the subway walls – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the big shots never answered, I'd take a deep breath and try again. I'd often hear people say, “If it only had pork, beef, chicken, cheese, eggs & milk for g-d's sake...” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: I know the moral argument for treating all life with awe and simplicity is the key to greater love, peace and kindness. Just don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to cook your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.
The more important virtue for a chef, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your craft will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to create new recipes every Tuesday,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I'm a stupid, pathetic, horrible mess. I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to create after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging fatherly love). The other thing to realize is that all chefs think they're losers and pathetic. When I was building Sacred Chow, I had a very strong voice of I AM A LOSER ringing through my head as anyone does when they build anything. But I had a still moment of truth during the process. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly low and miserable I felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised g-d that I would cook brilliantly; I only promised g-d that I would build Sacred Chow. So I picked my head up and moved through it, pursuant to my sacred vows.
I heard of a film maker, after years of struggling to get his films made, he sent a painfully anguished letter to his hero, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog. He complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste... Herzog wrote back a personal letter to him that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat these words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to Sacred Chow: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to build Sacred Chow…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Here I am now, right now, stop your inner saboteur from destroying your work, and get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place. At least try.
In the end, I love Sacred Chow. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Throw out your will, and then cut the line. Try, also, not to go insane or suicidal in the process. Insanity and/or suicidal thoughts is a very tempting path for most of us agonizing to finish our dreams, but we don’t need this in the world at the moment. We need beauty, love and kindness from non-violent creation, not more destruction. We need our chefs/artists more than ever, and we need them to be sane, happy, sincere, honorable and brave – they are our warriors, our hope. If you decide to cook, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a soldier, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great American poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”
i was so proud of 