It wasn’t meant to be like this. I should have left tough weeks like this one behind me. But here I am, reeling after 70+ hours spent at the stove in six days. The holiday I’d taken to recharge my batteries after an invigorating 12-month slog faded into distant memory within days of the wheels touching down.
A two-day airlock – organized to re-enter work life with a full reservoir of energy and creativity – was savagely upended by jetlag, several days without sleep and the post-trip chores. Laundry, unpacking, pets, the administrative burden forever in the wing-mirrors of the self-employed. Before I could even attempt to recall the delicious morsels I experienced abroad, I returned to the kitchen, heaving stockpots back onto the stove, restocking fridges, ticking tasks off the prep list once more, for a full house. It was like I’d never left.
My team is small, the benefit of which is a manageable wage bill. The downside? Other staff members’ illness or leave means I pick up the slack. Even at full capacity, I log 50+ hours at the coalface per week. You might recoil in horror at that, or think it paltry, maybe Sisyphean. Having slogged for years for almost twice that number, I’m feeling pretty Goldilocks about it, but it rises proportionately when the team is down one third.
Truth is, now I really feel it. In my bones, my fingers, my knees – my soul. I’m in decent shape, but it is evident I am far from a 20-something, a decade when my body could take the strain, pinging back like an elastic band on (sometimes half) a day off a week. My joints and muscles could take it, but the strain on my psyche was heavy.
Giving everything
Those years burned me out, left me questioning every choice. I worked constantly, earning almost nothing. I told myself it didn’t matter; the story I needed to make it bearable. If I could afford my half of household costs, I didn’t need – didn’t deserve – anything more. I ate most of my meals at the restaurant; ends of bread dipped into resting juices, and so much fried chicken. On Sundays, we cleared and cleaned the fridges. Anything that wouldn’t last the weekend came home with one of us. I’d cook côte de beouf, turbot, eight fillets of mackerel or half a dozen scallops for my partner and I. A double negroni in hand, another sloshing in my belly and dancing with my shattered synapses.
That was my life, the subtotal of it, daily. I’d wring myself dry, then push even further, closing out the week knowing I’d given it everything. Strangely, I find myself missing those years. Something deep in my ruthless Lutheran soul demands to feel like I truly pushed as hard as I could, and every now and again I get the chance to prove it – to myself over anyone else.
So here I am, northside of 40, nursing suspected tendonitis in my hands and a pervasive clicking in my joints, a bone tiredness, sitting down after a brutal week. My current establishment was set up with the ethos of a modern, sustainable hospitality venture, that didn’t require the toil typically associated with high-end restaurants. So, no, it wasn’t meant to be like this. But honestly? I quite like it. Do I want to do it again? Not for another six months.
The Secret Chef
