by Victoria Lister, Brisbane, Australia
For six or so years, across the mid 1980s to the mid 90s, I trained and worked as a chef. One thing I’ll never forget is my first day in a commercial kitchen. I was completely overwhelmed – by the sharp banter of the staff as they prepared for the busy weekend ahead, by the controlled chaos of the kitchen itself, by the pungent, unforgettable smells of simmering stocks and chopped, fresh herbs, and by the stern-looking, mostly silent head chef and the glamorous restaurant owner.
Both the head chef and owner were famous – the restaurant I’d been lucky enough to score a day’s work experience in was at that time widely regarded as Australia’s best. It was out of town and could only be accessed by water, but this did nothing to prevent local and visiting foodies making the inconvenient trek to its doors. It opened for a limited time each week, with staff staying on site for the duration. I was daunted by the rather basic accommodation, and the fact the restaurant would be lived and breathed for days at a time. But I could also tell that the ‘privilege’ of working there out-weighed any disadvantages in the minds of the staff.
Although I found the whole experience overwhelming, I allowed my dreams of somehow becoming a part of this elite coterie of high-end chefs to override my doubts. There was no opening at that particular restaurant, but I did go on to work in a number of respected venues, for I had made it my personal mission to work only in those restaurants listed in the city’s good food guide. Although the era of the celebrity chef had yet to seriously arrive, the food scene had a glamour of its own and like many, I was determined to make a name for myself in the kitchen.
And therein lay my big mistake. Never once during that time did I stop to ask myself if what I was getting into was right for me, both in terms of career choice, and in terms of being a chef and the kind of cooking environment I was choosing – after all, there are many contexts in which one can work with food. More importantly, was it right for me personally, and as a woman? These questions never crossed my mind.
Not that it was all about the excitement of being a chef: I had a very genuine love of food (and still do), and it is very much part of my expression although I no longer work in the industry. And a few years in, I did in fact leave the restaurant scene to work in the food manufacturing business I established with my then partner, also a young chef, at first juggling both apprenticeship and business. The latter was certainly a better choice for me – the hours were friendly, the work day consistent, and we did well. But once I decided to move on from both the business and my partner, I returned once more – now fully qualified – to the rigours of the restaurant scene.
And it is a hard life: the realities of commercial kitchens are far from what we see on TV and in beautiful cookbooks. Kitchens are hot, sweaty and often dangerous places. You’re asked to move super-fast, all the time. There’s a lot of heavy lifting and long, late nights. You get sadly used to having rough hands – often marred by cuts, burns and constant exposure to steam and spitting oil – and build up a resistance to pain in order to get the job done. Stress levels are high and tempers often fray, as has been strangely romanticised on TV with the likes of Gordon Ramsay. Many, if not most, kitchen staff smoke, drink heavily and/ or take drugs to manage their stress or to be collegial after hours, or both. Some staff had serious drug habits and were thoroughly unpredictable and hence dangerous to be around. You usually work when others don’t and as a result see less of your non-chef friends and family and more of your dysfunctional workmates. Ironically, good eating habits fly out the window – you’re so busy so much of the time there’s little time to eat or sit down: bread rolls and strong coffee become staples. You get addicted to running on adrenalin, which peaks and troughs. ‘Up’ times occur during ‘service’ (when the doors open to customers), ‘down’ times are spent prepping for the next wave or cleaning up for the night. This down-time is of course still super busy. What drives all this frenetic activity? It’s hard to make money from food (the profit margins are typically low) so it’s all about getting lots of bums on seats. And beyond that, there’s an ingrained expectation that you should be able to walk into a restaurant and have your entrée in front of you within 20 minutes.
How did I ever think any of this was a good thing for me, or my body? It amazes me now, but I never questioned it: it was just the way things were, and I either had to ‘toughen’ up and get on with it (which I obviously did), or find something else to do… which I also eventually did. (Don’t laugh, but my next career stop was in advertising, where similar conditions often prevail except everyone has better hands.) But it took being frequently ill and chronically run-down to realise I had to get out.
And it’s taken me a further 20 years to recover from what I often referred to as my ‘post-traumatic kitchen stress disorder’. For years afterwards, whenever I ate in restaurants I made sure I sat with my back to the kitchen (restaurants with open kitchens were particularly challenging!). I had frequent bad dreams, reliving the most anxious moments of my working past – usually service, when all those orders were coming in, or the moments I’d stuffed up during a big function. Cooking for myself felt like a chore, as if all the joy had been sapped out of it, and I continued the typical chef’s diet of Vegemite toast and baked beans and other such lacklustre offerings long after I left the trade. And I rarely cooked for friends or family, something I had done growing up. I remember as a small child loving my play set of cook’s things. I would trail Mum around the supermarket, planning my own dinner parties in my head.
A significant step in the healing of my ‘post traumatic kitchen stress disorder’ was the time I spent volunteering in the brand new kitchen of the conference centre where the Universal Medicine 2012 UK Retreat was held. I recall walking into the kitchen and immediately going into ‘assess’ mode: in my last year as a chef, as I was transitioning into ad-land, I worked for a hire-a-chef agency, which meant a lot of emergency cooking jobs. During this time I learned to walk into kitchens I’d never seen and assess the damage, so to speak. First task, get briefed on the situation to hand; second task, investigate the oven and work out how to turn it on; third task, try not to panic; fourth task, proceed with the (often flimsy) resources at hand. So as if the intervening 20 years had not even happened, I stepped into the conference centre kitchen, took stock of the situation, and well, started to panic.
Thankfully, and with the assistance of some sane friends also there to help, I realised the task of feeding the 250 retreat attendees for 4-5 days was actually not my responsibility – there was a catering manager for that, and a large team of local students of Universal Medicine who had elected to forgo the retreat in order to serve us. So I eventually settled down and did some cooking with some of my fellow students and just enjoyed it. My husband arrived to help run the new crockery and cutlery through the new commercial dishwasher for the first time, a job that was to take most of the day. He and another student worked together, devising a beautiful, calm system for getting it all done, even though they had never before worked with a commercial dishwasher in a commercial kitchen.
Over the course of the retreat – as an attendee, and on the couple of occasions I volunteered some more – I enjoyed watching the whole business of feeding 250+ people three times a day unfold in a way I’d never before seen. OK, I’m sure there were some hair-raising moments for the team (it was their first time running such an event, and on such a scale) and that was to be expected. But on the whole, I witnessed a way of working that was 180 degrees from my own experience of ‘professional’ cooking. It cemented a deep questioning of my own – of the validity of the restaurant scene as a whole. Hmm… let’s see… rich, indulgent food prepared by potentially drug addled ‘stress cadets’, versus simple, delicious food prepared by gentle people who shun any form of abuse… I know what my preference would be!
Having said all that, I have no doubt there are those who are more suited to busy kitchen work and can and do handle service with ease. But that person was not me: I now feel my ongoing struggle was just a reflection of the lack of truth in the type of work I was attempting. While I have a genuine flair for food, the arena I chose to express my creativity was just not right. It therefore was not natural to me, so I lacked a true and easy confidence in what I was doing. I had allowed myself to instead be seduced by the possibility of learning from the best chefs and becoming one myself: I was operating from an ideal, with scant regard and nil love for myself on every level.
It has taken me many, many years to realise the truth of this situation. In hindsight, I can also see how every role I have undertaken since has been a version of the same: never, ever, have I chosen a job or industry (other than the times I have been self-employed, which have come closer) that has been truly right for me – in different ways they’ve all been the equivalent of trying to walk to the South Pole – an exhausting, debilitating, ‘personal challenge’.
Now, it feels like time to re-assess. How about work that is supportive and nourishing instead? And on a broader level, how about restaurants and cafes that put their people first? I feel there’s a whole new model waiting out there for how they could be run. Love in work and love in hospitality – now there’s food for thought.
Further related reading:
From Ideals and Beliefs to Making Loving Work Choices
Stress & Work: Learning to Trust Myself As a Woman
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
My experience of 9 years in commercial kitchens is the same. The way it is currently set up is not supportive of the staff. We used to have buzzers in one place to tell us to go pick up food and when out with friends to eat I’d hear that buzzer and flinch or look around to get up! Over time the more I cared for myself, the more I realised that hospitality, as it’s currently run, was not for me. It needs to be about all people first, not just those paying.
Goodness hearing about your experience in the professional kitchen certainly offers food for thought ( 🙂 ) about where you eat and what work conditions you want for your fellow human beings who offer you a paid service. I am sure food made with love and without that level of stress tastes so much better than food made with stress and intense pressure.
“How about work that is supportive and nourishing instead?” This line totally changes how we look at work, instead of it just being about performing, it becomes about the quality we express at work and how we feel at the need of each work day. I don’t feel anyone would consider work ‘supportive and nourishing’ – but why not, it is possible!
One of my sons is a head chef in the environment you describe in this post. I had not realized how full on it was, 24/7, until he started in this profession about 10 years ago. He loves it, but as you say, his wife, and family hardly see him.
Having worked in a few commercial kitchens at every level I full relate to what you have shared Victoria, and having also experienced a Universal Medicine event from a kitchen. So the love at a Universal Medicine event is poured into every aspect, offers true nourishment for our bodies and Soul. Our responsibility then becomes one of not over-eating such yummy foods, as this is my great lesson this life, maybe listen to a fully connected body will deliver less food on my plate!
We have such a long work life and examining how and why we choose the work we do feels very important. It isn’t such a common conversation, nor is talking about love and self care at work. There is enormous potential for so many industries and occupations to change if we were to put people first, and to support staff to work with a foundation of true self care.
This is a great story that asks us to ponder on what true success is. We might strive to become something or get somewhere in our career, but when we get there, who and what will be doing that job?
I agree – who would want to eat food cooked with anger and frustration, and pay for that?
The environment that you describe at the start of your professional kitchen career seems harsh and confronting, relentless and imposing, and yet you decided to stay and to make this you place of work. I can relate to this decision, in that there have been so many times when my first reading of a situation would be spot on accurate, but my other more subtle and needy motivations would take over and override any sense of clarity that I had, enabling me to push headlong in to something which perhaps in hindsight would have been better to have been left alone.
The questions we pose and those we do not pose are in sync with our movements. They precipitate only what its level of vibration allows for.
Each time I read this article I feel something different in its offering. Reading how the intensity of working in a commercial kitchen is so stressful tonight, I felt how important it is for each of us to know our worth and our strengths. With such solidness of knowing ourselves those stressful moments and situations in life will be much easier to navigate.
Food has been thoroughly glamourised and so have the people involved; the work is stressful and the divide between the floor and kitchen staff unpleasant if not acrid. Does anybody really want to put the end result of that into their body?
The saddest thing is that the pace of commercial kitchens is simply a reflection of the pace of society. Until we all take stock of our racy lifestyles and truly feel the harm they cause our body and all others we are in contact with, the model we now have will continue. However as Victoria has shared there is another way to work in a kitchen and to live in society. For those who are willing the benifits to ones body will be great and the service provided to humanity will be based on people and not on profit.
Putting people first, regardless of what work we do – feels so important. When served with love and care simple food can be truly nourishing.
Glamour comes with a dark side. When we buy into it, we buy into the whole of it.
“Rich, indulgent food prepared by potentially drug addled ‘stress cadets’, versus simple, delicious food prepared by gentle people who shun any form of abuse… I know what my preference would be” – and mine too! If what you share here is the reality of what goes on in commercial kitchens in order to serve the public at large and meets our needs, it begs a question as to what our demands are.
Our craving for recognition can all too easily take us on a deviation and up a long and false path only to find that at some stage we have to acknowledge how empty and insatiable this way can be – the blessing being our awareness of this allows us to correct it.
Yes, our craving for recognition and acceptance, can take us far away from who we truly are.
Why do we run away sometimes in the completely opposite direction from what is being truly asked of us? Recently I’ve become much more aware of this running away, really speaking running away from who I am and what I was to bring through my chosen work letting go of all those avenues that were trying to entice me into in one way or another. I feel much more at ease with myself keeping things simple and much more with myself honouring my body and what feels true to me. I know and have always known what I am to do in my work… I just needed to not hold back and take responsibility wholeheartedly for that which I am to bring to the world through my chosen profession.
Thank you Victoria, I reckon so many people, and very much me too, can relate to this experience of knowing deeply something that you wanted to do or a certain way that you wanted to contribute to life, only to find yourself caught up in an industry that at first seemed to promise all that your expression was looking for and yet when lived, turned out to be so far from what you felt to be true. I experienced this with art and after going to college felt so disillusioned with what the art world had to offer, even though my original impulse or inspiration to create works of art had a purity to it that actually never needed to be educated in the way it was, but rather simply nurtured as an expression, and even supported to remain playful and joyous. As with yourself, this has been a great lesson for me in learning not to look to the world to provide an avenue for my expression, but rather to take responsibility for this myself, and to bring my expression into my every way of life. Therefore not making anything that I do be owned or controlled by any industry, but determined by what I can see as truth.
Yes and I wonder, just wonder as I don’t know, but I do wonder if that could contribute to how many people are having trouble digesting food. There are definitely restaurants that I love to be in and there are others that I just don’t digest well afterwards – and it can be the same meal apparently. How we do what we do is felt by the recipient – I know that from other industries so why not the catering industry?
There is so much in this blog that I would love to comment on!!! I also volunteered in the kitchen that retreat and was blown away by the simplicity of what was being asked and what was done. All I had to do was chop and the humour and playfulness was a turnaround for me. I remember how there was no crashing and banging of plates going in and out of the dishwasher, there was no-one screaming at anyone else, if we needed a break we had one. It really should be a model to repeat. Working hard without the abuse.
My first job as a teenager was washing up in a commercial kitchen of a small local restaurant and it was a total shock to the system! It was exactly how you’ve described Victoria, and my hands used to flake off skin for days afterwards after washing up with no gloves (everything was done at such high speed the gloves just filled up with water and got in the way). While my hands might not be flaking to bits these days, fine-tuning the relationship between what needs to be done, and giving my full attention to it, while not abandoning my body, is an ever-deepening process.
“the arena I chose to express my creativity was just not right. It therefore was not natural to me, so I lacked a true and easy confidence in what I was doing.” I completely get where you’re coming from here. No matter how hard I try to make it natural and flowing, it continually seems to allude me and I generally finish my shift with some level of frustration. Waitressing is a true art in itself, let alone being a chef or kitchen hand. The environment is all that you have described here, and I find it difficult to work in those stressful conditions.
I just can’t imagine how it could be any other way. To hear of your retreat experience sounds wonderful and extremely unique for a commercial kitchen.
You’ve unpacked a lot here Victoria, how far off our true ‘calling’ many of us end up and we do things without fully taking into account ourselves and our bodies. If we approached life from our bodies it would be very different, we would choose different jobs and be very different in how we operated in them.
Loved reading you blog and your experience Victoria, there is a huge amount of stress in commercial kitchens, they are all about producing the end product as quickly as possible, yet when you start to appreciate staff, and build up communication between them they are extremely efficient and food starts to have its own flow as they all work together. When we work from love first the rest takes care of itself.
Putting people first and making work about love is all we have to do. The rest takes care of itself. I have seen this in practice in my daughters cafe.
Yes, being love in and with everything we do is key.
The hospitality industry could do with a huge injection of love – the stress is unbelievable and the way people treat each other mainly abhorrent. Jealousy is rife as are poor eating habits, lots of alcohol, smokes and drugs. People are buckling under the pressure but the investment can seem too big to do the sane thing and either change the scene one step at a time or get out if you can’t.
I can relate what you share about working in famous commercial kitchens Victoria, one of my son’s has chosen that as his career, so all you share is so true. The day is usually16-17 hour shifts under pressure, and without a decent meal or break, and can be 5 – 6 days consecutively. My son has a genuine love of what he does, but I do wonder what the long term implications of working under such conditions are as you point out in this blog from your perspective, “post-traumatic kitchen stress disorder”. Great that you had the opportunity to work in the kitchen at a Universal Medicine Retreat and so could feel and appreciate the difference of how this kitchen was run.
That’s a thesis of the food and industry hospitality trade, and therefore all industries. I especially take note of how work was for you Victoria – “the lack of truth in the type of work I was attempting”, “It therefore was not natural to me, so I lacked a true and easy confidence in what I was doing”, “I was operating from an ideal, with scant regard and nil love for myself on every level”. Many people in work could benefit from this intelligent perspective. Are you in the right industry that ‘feeds’ you back? Does it naturally flow? Are you in an industry when your not at work you ‘work’ to set yourself up to bring all of you when you actually clock on to work – this is passion and we all have it for something, and we certainly feel it when we receive this quality of service from another. Work is life.
Thank you for sharing this here Victoria – a great opportunity for me to deepen my appreciation of those who are working in that very same kitchen on this years Universal Medicine UK retreat – which is on right now. Seeing, tasting and experiencing a plate of beautifully prepared food is a wonderful thing – but it seems clear that the visual feast might not always be a true mirror of the conditions many kitchen staff work in.
It amazes me how it is romanticized. There is so much physical abuse. I think the more open kitchens we have the better. So the staff are accountable for all they do, because they are on show to the public. This seems extreme but it feels like time for these measures due to how abhorrent it can be in a commercial kitchen.
There are most definitely areas I’ve worked in and been active in in my life that I can relate to this Victoria. One is music. How often, rather than honour myself and what I knew to be ‘off-kilter’, did I take the preference of instead pushing myself and indeed expecting myself to ‘be more’ in order to ‘do the job’? The answer, is many, many times…
It took many years and a far deeper energetic understanding of the ‘product’ I was dealing with – i.e. music – to see past any lack of worth issues I had brought to the table, and actually recognise the harmfulness and self-abuse inherent in much of what I had been doing, and striving to ‘do better at’, for so many years.
Exhausting, isn’t it… and then what is to be celebrated, is when we can see the truth of an industry/situation and actually then know that there is a different quality that can be brought to it, founded in absolute harmlessness, love and integrity.
This relates to so many industries and areas of life Victoria. How often is there a ‘carrot dangled’, that we wilfully grab onto for all that it purports to promise us – only to be left at the mercy of a lot more than we actually bargained for.
To actually step outside of the square and see it for what it is is deeply empowering – that then we may choose whether or not to stay in that industry or related activity, and how we may bring ourselves to it.
Re reading this article tonight what really stands out is the difference of the energetic quality of those chefing in stress, overwhelm and pressure, as opposed to those working with steadiness and presence. From my own experience when working from steadiness, presence and openness the achievements in the day are often way beyond that we could achieve when under stress and pressure.
I have been of the mindset that I thrive of busy, stressful environments where there is no time to even go fo a pee when needed. The result of that was to get seriously exhausted. It took me over a year to recover from the level of exhaustion I had driven myself into, but now I can look back and appreciate how far I have come in my willingness to put myself first. And if I slip into old disregarding ways, by body instantly reflect this back to me so I am cannot just push on through as I once did.
The first part of your blog describing the kitchen made me feel exhausted just by reading it!!!! I have worked in restaurants as waiting staff and I have also worked as part of the Dining Room Team at the Universal Medicine Retreats and agree with what you share, the difference is about love and the quality in how tasks are done with the understanding in how they are done affect the customer. This is the philosophy of Universal Medicine .. how we live, including how we work affects both our health and well-being and also others as everything is energy and so has a knock on affect. I know I would rather have a meal prepared by someone who took care with themselves and the quality they are in, saying no to abuse than have a so called ‘amazing’ dish prepared by someone who was stressed, rushed, abusive and taking drugs. Reading this ‘And therein lay my big mistake. Never once during that time did I stop to ask myself if what I was getting into was right for me, both in terms of career choice’ is something I can really relate with as well. Of spending half my life in a career that was not what I wanted to do at all. When we make it about connecting to our truth and essence first a lot less time is wasted going off on a path that is not in line with who we truly are.
A wonderful sharing Victoria. I can relate and fully understand every part of your article. No, I have never trained as a Chef, but I have spent some time helping in a commercial kitchen, preparing food to feed up to 150 odd people. When you are on, that’s it, there seem to be very few breaks and a tired body at the end. It took me a bit but over time I learned that when I choose to be steady and present the job was nowhere near as hard or tiring. There is much to be examined when it comes to how we work our bodies, with presence, grace and respect, or with push, drive and disrespect.
From my own experiences in the hospitality industry I can agree it is sadly void of the love that would either nourish its staff or its customers. I can only imagine the profound effect it would have on the world if the industry was run with and embraced true service… offering all who walked through its doors a healing rather a perpetuation of abuse.
Loved reading this as one of the other participants on those retreat cooking experiences in 2012. I’ve never worked in a commercial kitchen before, and while it is hard work, with lots of dangerous objects moving at speed, at the same time its about bringing the love to the food that is the all important ingredient… not just something that looks and tastes good but has been abused all the way through its journey to our plate!
Yes, I had helped chop and also stack plates and it was such an incredible experience to consider the impact on others of the way I did something, the way I moved down to the level of if I was present of not! I had never even considered how I worked and the impact of that till I had experienced a very different way of working at that retreat.
I love your idea for a new model, it feels like you are the perfect person to pioneer such a change in the world. What if we brought true care and true love for people into our work places? Our health and our stress levels would dramatically improve, the ripple effect throughout our whole lived would be massive.
‘To make a name for ourselves’, what an interesting expression, particularly given that we already have a name that carries a specific vibration and that this is all there is in a name. When you are driven ‘to make a name for yourself’ it means that you are totally prepared to move in a way that harms you all the way in the name of that which you want to get to try to feel the fact that you (and your vibration) are not enough.
“Love in work and love in hospitality – now there’s food for thought.” And a beautiful thought. I would say the Lighthouse and Cafe Nouveau near Frome in Somerset UK have that as their ethos. The service is amazing.
Its interesting that so many restaurant kitchens operate in the same disregard, stress and driving that you describe, yet why? How do they all become so similar? As they are mostly hidden in the background I wonder how so many follow the same stressed out template of operation? As you have shared the Universal Medicine retreat kitchen experience was totally different although they faced significant demands, it was abuse free (including self abuse free), and I’m sure other kitchens out there operate on better principles too. But, I have to wonder how so many commercial kitchens automatically follow that same pattern? I’m sure this is the same with other industries and their patterns of how they work, it seems that stress and disregard spreads so easily and is accepted, yet love and care is not.
Brilliantly said Victoria and yes bring back the love. Hospitality has been eroded of love and so has our health care. There needs to be a shift back to the truthful ways. Truthful nourishment and Truthful healing. As people once lived like before. A way of being beyond old fashioned, but Ancient.
Bring back the love in hospitality – the world is hungry for it.
A great sharing Victoria and a good example of ‘it is not WHAT we do, but the WAY that we do it’. The true role of food is to support and nourish our bodies so that the beings within them are able to best express the love that they (we) are. The problem arises that we also have a separated part of this being, the human spirit, that is not impulsed by the love and light of the Soul (our true being) and so it steps in to take over the show, so to speak. Governed by the spirit we are continually pushed to move, move, move with such a frenetic pace we skips bits in the process. This is because the spirit avoids accountability at all costs, hence the eternal run… This is relevant here because we can see the forces at play that have us living less than the love that we are. Even the very act of eating becomes corrupted when living in this constant drive because instead of going for foods that truly nourish us, we go for foods that will either have a dulling or stimulating effect so as not to feel the harm we are causing ourselves which can only be felt the moment we are brought to a stop. Perhaps this is a clue as to why there are so many accidents in kitchens…
Having spent many years working in the hospitality industry I too have experienced the chaos and anxiety that is considered ‘normal’ in commercial kitchens. I have just been to the UK retreat and experienced first hand the students working in the kitchen catering for around 200 people. A very different experience as everyone works in a very supportive and loving way, and as a result the food is delicious it is obvious everyone is enjoying what they are doing – all without any busyness or stress whatsoever.
Thank you for raising the thorny but very real issue of the ugliness of many modern-day working environments that promise prestige on any CV just for being associated with the brand when the reality behind it is far from sustainably nourishing and demands we stretch ourselves beyond normal resilience in gratitude for the opportunity. Were we all to be entirely truthful and walk with our feet, such organisations would quickly have to re-assess their cultures and ways of working in order to remain sustainable. Nothing changes when we remain silent and complicit through compliance.
I enjoyed reading about your experience working as a chef, and as I rarely eat out I can appreciate I’m not missing out on much based on your description of the energy a lot of meals are made in, in restaurants. Thanks Victoria
Thanks Victoria – your blog certainly raises questions for all of us about the choices we make regarding work – paid or otherwise. Are we doing something for some sort of recognition and identification etc or are we doing something that comes with a love filled purpose?
Great comment Jane. I am inspired to make this true for me too’. I now know that work for instance is for me as nourishing and nurturing as going for a walk, or a swim.’
“I had allowed myself to instead be seduced by the possibility of learning from the best chefs and becoming one myself: I was operating from an ideal, with scant regard and nil love for myself on every level.” I don’t work in kitchens but this line resonates for me too. So strong is the ideal of ‘climbing the ladder’, I have gone for jobs that will get me to my desired destination quickly as opposed to what feels true. Great to expose it. Thanks Victoria.
I can see how easily it would be to become caught up by the glamour that revolves around working in a ‘good’ restaurant. Thank-you Victoria for this insight into how it really is behind the scene. When we allow ourselves to be ruled by an ideal it is so easy to override what is obviously not best for us and as you so rightly express there is no love or consideration for oneself in that. “Love in work and love in hospitality – now there’s food for thought’.
This is a lovely story of re-visiting a once horrendous work pattern to taking simple steps, with support, to re-imprint the whole idea of cooking. Loved the detail you explained.
Work where love is the main ingredient sounds like a good recipe when it comes to making career choices and a path I wish I had followed because I can really relate to how many of my work choices have led to me abusing my body in the name of getting the job done. Thank you for your honesty Victoria and the insight into the lovelessness of so much of the hospitality industry. Somebody was sharing with me yesterday that they eat out a lot where they live in London but that they can feel the toll it takes on their body and have to have breaks from it to allow their body to recover…
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog Victoria, I had no idea of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ lives of kitchen staff, it sounds like it’s an easy place to lose yourself. As we begin to change our relationship with food, the preparation and cooking of it is of major concern too. The food at the 2012 UK Retreat was really fabulous and what a great opportunity that was presented for you to be involved in.
I think you (or someone) should do a movie/doco about you Victoria. I was so with you in your story and I loved that you ended with… “Love in work and love in hospitality – now there’s food for thought”. It is indeed time to change.
Is there a possibility we have a new book waiting to be written called “Love in work and love in hospitality”. Over to you Victoria.
I agree Joshua when love is the main ingredient food becomes healing medicine that enriches life and nourishes the soul.
I find the key ingredient in any cooking is Love – and lots of it! And with that comes the playfullness, the fun and the freedom that we truly seek with cooking. Your experience shows how full on it is in an industry where the cooking is often lacking of this key ingredient – far from the glamour of what we often make it out to be from the many TV shows on cooking.
Victoria you provide some great insight into what a busy commercial kitchen can be like. It does seem the opposite of the glamorous image portrayed on TV. If the cooking was simply for the nourishment of others then the pressure and stress to be the best and admired needn’t be there.
After watching T.V chef’s and certain ones in particular I can feel their frustration, angry outbursts and indeed their attitude appears very controlling over others. Not a recipe for success to me. All that pent up emotion cooked/stirred into the food being served is certainly going to be felt by the many diners? Now in complete contrast to that fast pace, it felt like a breath of fresh air, as you shared Victoria your experience in helping out in the kitchens at the Universal Medicine Retreat. Very briefly I helped out in the Kitchen at such an event – the experience was amazing and not a drop of alcohol in sight, a swear word, or loud shouting frantic/hair raising moments – just everybody going gently about their preparation of food. Appreciation is what I felt big time as catering for this large number of people could of led to great overwhelm. Not in that kitchen. A great sharing Victoria.
I love the contrast of the simple food prepared with love at the Retreat compared to your previous experiences, Victoria. The volunteers can be felt as a group of people with a whole lot of self-worth and no need to impress.
I started my journey into the kitchen from my second ever tax paying job, if you don’t count the summer cutting grass, the winters shoveling snow off driveways and the paper route… I was the dish and pot washer for a large local family Italian restaurant. This job started in my first year of high school as a summer job. Three years later, and my last year in school I was almost working full time. I was not a chef but on Tuesday and Thursday nights I ran the kitchen. Weekends the cook and number two would have a water picture full of rum and coke and would go through a few of them on weekends while working. Years later I was posted to Iceland for a year and got a part time job working in the enlisted club cooking. I worked every other day for the year I was there. Smoking and alcohol was and ever present part of the job. The person I worked with, we functioned like a fine watch when things go busy. Work hard party harder comes to mind. I too have experienced working in the kitchen at retreats and courses from prepping and back to pot washing. I just love being with myself and serving others.
Victoria this is a telling expose of the restaurant industry that has been constructed. It’s like we are trying to recreate the feast extravangas of the courts of old – our own personal experience of importance and indulgence, without consideration of the costs to those that work in the industry. On the otherhand, simple food prepared and served with love – shared with beautiful friends/family – what could be more enjoyable?
I agree, hartanne60, and yes the feast extravaganzas of old were done so at the expense of all the many servants and staff and, as you say, here it is continuing on. Generally the modern-day customer DOES have a sense of entitlement because of beliefs around paying, but it’s without a sense of equalness and respect to the fellow humans who are preparing and servicing their feast. There’s a disconnection everywhere to the fact that it could be you or me working in the kitchen or the retail shop or on the phone – a disconnection to the fact that we are all in this together and we all want and need the same things and we are all equal.
A great blog Victoria, I recall working in restaurants when I was younger where the chef was always angry and the other kitchen staff scared to put a foot wrong. There was no love or care with their preparation of food or that the energy they were in could have an effect on the people they were serving. What a beautiful experience to work at the UK Retreat where it was about putting people first and the importance of your quality and presence with everything you did.
Thank you Victoria, for your story, I was a waitress in a Service Mens Club for a few years and would often witness the turmoil and stress that went on in the kitchen. There was so much anxiety around getting the meals out as fast as possible making sure everything was right for the customer. Not the food energy I would want to be eating today.
As you said Victoria – everything about the life of a chef was the opposite to what felt natural to the body. Our natural cycle of ‘early to bed and early to rise’, allowing things to unfold with ease, exempt from push and pressure and fully investing absolute presence in selecting, handling, preparing and consuming. In reflection of the whole scene I am pondering our ‘treats’ in the form of a night out to a restaurant and what that opens us up to receive as everything holds a quality of energy. Thank you Victoria, for sharing insight into this way of life and deepening my awareness.
Thank you Victoria for sharing your experience of working in a restaurants kitchen: “And it is a hard life: the realities of commercial kitchens are far from what we see on TV and in beautiful cookbooks.” I find it really eye opening to hear about the kitchens and their staff. What I have learned is that you can make something that looks good, tastes good etc. but when it has been made with stress, no attention and just to get it done in time, the quality is not good at all. Instead of preparing a meal with care and love considering the person who has to eat it as well.
Victoria there was one line which really stood out for me in your story “an exhausting, debilitating, ‘personal challenge’.” I have also had to stop this year and look at a pattern of behaviour that was driving me to keep choosing jobs that were challenging rather than jobs that I found easy. I am always up for a challenge and make sure I am developing my skills but had to look at why I found easy jobs boring. I came to a realisation that it doesn’t have to be boring because it is easy – it may just be that this is something that I am good out and I don’t always need to be stressed out to feel like I am challenging myself, or doing a good job. I can do a brilliant job at something that I find easy and easy is not less than or lowering a standard.
Your blog took me back to the time I was working in the hospitality business and my partner at the time was a chef. I can relate to all you are sharing and the stress and overwhelm seems to be there for everyone involved. This is why the substance use is so widely spread in this business and why after a couple of years bodies start to break down.
This is not something that can or should be sustained and the need for a different way is prevalent. Not only is such self abuse and neglect deeply damaging it is living and working in this way that you are actually serving to your customers. If we fully understood this who would choose to eat a plate of stress, hurt, pain, exhaustion and adrenaline?
These days I can taste the energy behind the preparation of food and, can feel the way food is prepared. It surprised me. Sometimes it looks good, which is deceiving, but the body never lies.
The celebrity cooking shows have allowed us to see just how stressful and emotional a commercial kitchen can be, yet instead of being repulsed by it, we glorify their struggles and ‘achievements’. I had never really thought about the time demand we place on the chefs to get our meal out quickly – it just the norm. But if this means it is made with stress and rush, is it really worth it? Perhaps if we considered going to a restaurant more as a time to connect with people rather than to have a comforting reward we would be happy to wait.
Victoria, what a great blog. Reading it I can see we’ve set it all up wrong, it’s about getting it done as quick as possible, and quality, well yes the food will be cooked right (in most cases), but at no stage have we taken into account how the person cooking the food is feeling or how they’re being treated. We really need to be a lot more honest about this, and as you say, why do we have to have an entree in 20 minutes? Who decided that? And what if you entered a restaurant and they explained to you, that you would get amazing food from staff who work together and take care and time to produce it, without pressure, but not slow either – such a difference for the staff and also the customer, who gets to sit and be with themselves and their dinner companions while they wait, a time to be together and not just rush into eating and using it as a distraction from being together. When you consider it and question it as you have, you really have to say, it’s a set-up, it’s not about people at all, either staff or customers but about function and looking good, and it encourages us all to use food to distract and numb ourselves (and of course if we have it prepared by stressed checked out people, even more so). Definitely time for a change in how we approach food, eating out and how we treat people.
What an eye-opening exposé into exactly what goes on behind the doors to the kitchen in a restaurant. Reading this I can feel the full-on, and not very loving, energy that goes into producing the plates of food that seem to magically appear on the diners’ table, and it’s enough to deter me from ever eating out again! No wonder I love to cook and eat at home where I know that everything is prepared with love.
What the Universal Medicine UK retreat staff achieve in not only the food they deliver but the way they work together is beyond extraordinary. There is a deeply beautiful loving teamwork and gentle preparation that I have also never seen nor experienced in the hospitality industry. They are a beautiful reflection to the rest of the world of how to cater for hundreds lovingly. Just gorgeous to witness.
Thank you Victoria, your blog shows how the meaning of work is loaded with an orientation towards certain outcomes that do not take the people into account who work towards those outcomes. Work has to be always about the people first and then about what is being produced and this includes everybody taking responsibility, also the customers not expecting something to be ready in a timeframe that creates stress and pressure onto others.
I love your question Victoria: “How about work that is supportive and nourishing instead?” I recently had to re-assess my work situation and leave my job as it was too abusive to my body. Reflecting back on my work life I realize that I had never really allowed myself to feel and explore what I want to do but always went with what was offered to me. This is a new approach for me and your question will be my guideline.
Victoria, I feel that the way in which the retreat kitchen was run will thankfully be the norm in our society one day. When we eventually return to a time when everybody discerns everything by how it feels energetically then no food outlet will be able to hide what is going on in the kitchen and the Gordon Ramseys of this world will be out of a job!
This was a great blog for me to come across and re-read as I have volunteered my services at an upcoming retreat. I have little experience in this field so in a way I was kind of kind of bracing myself. I know it will be fine and everything will taste great if we do everything with love.
Another beautiful blog Victoria! What it called my attention while reading were the questions you never asked while you were in the job. They reveal the fact that we barely stop, assess and regather. Instead, we override whatever we need to override in order to keep going even if in doing so we go down the hill.
It does not make sense that someone who is stressed, on edge, smokes/drinks and/or takes drugs is going to cook me a loving, nourishing meal. No way – impossible.
Yes. It’s not like we’d want to turn up at a seedy nightclub demanding a hot meal, or at a dealer’s den or meth lab doing same. Kitchens are sometimes not too far removed from this reality, with the truth concealed behind a glamorous front.
Now there’s a thought. A restaurant that puts people first. A place to eat that comes from gentleness and love. Feels like a great deal of re-education in the hospitality industry would benefit us all. Go for it Victoria!
I’d love to Janne! It’s a big project that would demand a big cultural shift. But one day, it will happen – too many people will start to want it so.
I have worked in kitchens and restaurants and also noticed the stress and fast pace which often seems to dominate. I became aware that this way of life did not support me. I have also always enjoyed cooking but I have become aware how much the way I cook and that I used to seek recognition from others and connected this with any self worth I imagined I had. Cooking from our true selves, from love and being present feels completely different. Food has the potential to be healing and the way that we produce, create and serve it can make all the difference to it quality.
Samantha I so agree. As I’ve come back to enjoying cooking again, I love using my skills to produce something beautiful and nutritious for others. This was my natural impulse as a child and it remains so today. Cooking for and sharing a meal with others is one of the simplest expressions of love and connection I know.
What came across to me in your words Victoria was just how we as customers drive and support the intense conditions of kitchen workers exist in. I wonder what the hospitality industry would be like if we as customers made ‘quality of care’ our main priority instead of just focusing on speed, cheapness and taste?
This is such a good point to raise Joseph, it’s the pressure laid on by the customer to have everything just right and not wait too long for it. I for one would prefer to wait a little longer and have my food prepared in a more loving, less stressful way.
So much of this scenario is about the expectations we have as consumers. What are we really looking for when we go to restaurants? Is it a restorative and loving meal or a glamorous and indulgent experience? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, a meal we can toss down quickly before we get on to the next thing? Either way there’s a pressure on someone (or really many someones) to deliver something.
Thank you for seeing this Joseph. We as consumers are demanding these things and have created it, along with marketers and business owners. And it’s not just about fast food – eliminate ‘cheapness’ from the list and it equally describes a high-end restaurant. While the food might not arrive as quickly, the pace behind the scenes is brutal. Given a choice between working as a chef in a glamorous restaurant or as a burger-hand with a fast food chain, today I’d choose the latter. The processes are simpler, semi-automated and far less stressful.
A great point, Joseph. We seem to forsake quality of care way too easily, while speediness gets overrated. This applies to how we go about our day as well.
I too would prefer to eat something that has been cooked by someone who has put time, attention, and full presence into preparing my meal, rather than by someone who spends their life checked out on drugs/alcohol, and who rushes through cooking many orders at once, without giving each the due care and attention they require – no matter the celebrity status of the chef/head chef, nor the reputation of the restaurant.
(And I was at the 2012 UK Universal Medicine retreat, and the food was AMAZING!).
Me too Conor. I wonder what else we are consuming when we eat food prepared by people on drugs? And the rushing through orders thing is interesting – unfortunately, this is how the system has been set up and is perpetuated. Systemic change as well as individual responsibility is required.
I struggle to think of anything better than re-imprinting the food industry with a coating of love and a dollop of gentleness (:
What a delicious comment Ben!
Agreed! Bring a delicious into the industry that can be experienced by everyone – staff and diners – needs to be our focus.
Yes, there’s a lot about the current industry recipe that needs to be changed! Part of the responsibility lies with the patrons. Our expectations as consumers needs to shift, starting with the demand that a hot meal be individually served to us, sometimes from scratch, within 20 minutes in a restaurant that is extremely busy. Then there is the question of what it is we are seeking as diners in the first place. Plenty of food for thought.
Victoria your post shows us the possible fallout of a career or job ideal, and how it can lead to more of the same no matter what we choose as our next career, or even job unless we’re honest about the limiting pattern(s) based on beliefs that are occurring. In my job as Recruiter, I see that patterns don’t disappear just because the scene has changed. In other words, the grass is not always greener. It only has the potential of becoming greener with honesty and when we realise that it’s not the job/career itself, but more the way we are working in it that’s the issue. If that way is not true, and as you personally share based on an ideal, then that ideal can be what runs us to exhaustion, stress, job fatigue, compromise etc. So working truly or with joy is all about working without ideals, and as the real-us.
Zofia that is so spot on. I have come to realise exactly that – that my ideals around this early role started a lifetime pattern of working – and living – in a way that was very stressful no matter what job I was doing. This lead to adrenal exhaustion and a gradual erosion of my health. In other words, 20 years on I’ve been paying the price for my ill momentums. Looking back now, it would have been far more supportive for me to pursue my interest in food in a much gentler environment. I remember considering work cooking in a deli environment but pretty much dismissed it as ‘too soft’ and not dynamic enough. Wrong! Today it’s been my job to undo those patterns, which is definitely a work in progress.
‘So working truly or with joy is all about working without ideals, and as the real-us.’ Yes Zofia bringing our real selves to work and dropping our expectations of how we should be performing is the key to working truly.
An interesting insight into the food industry, it does feel there is room for change and the way we approach work. Reading about your various experiences, the one that stood out for me was the one where food was prepared in a loving way at the UK retreat. Who needs a stressed working environment, to be considered the best? when being more loving and caring in our choices and in the way we work offers so much more to everyone.
So true Victoria it is time to re-assess where work is supporting and nourishing. I have worked a couple of shifts a week in a small Mexican Cafe for over four years now where care integrity and people come first. What stands out to me is the key to working together as one is teamwork where harmony can be felt even in a fast pace kitchen, ocassionally there are moments when someone is draging the chain so to speak. We create the space for communication to bring more understanding so to clear and move on to the task at hand, along with an element of playfulness. The team feels more like family that is always evolving, not perfect, yet everyone looks forward to coming to work, says a lot.
There is much more to the mix for true customer service. When they leave with more than what they came for, with a big thank-you and how much they enjoyed the food and that can be felt.
It’s interesting how the catering industry gets glamourised and romanticised, when there is so much disregard of people going on.
I loved reading every word that you have written in this blog Victoria. Thank you for a real, first hand account of the food and hospitality industry.
Wonderful blog Victoria, it bought back vivid memories of the time I spent working in a commercial kitchen and I agree that there must be another model for doing this. How can we expect food to be nourishing and supportive for those eating it, when it is prepared in an unloving, unsupportive environment, by people working in complete disregard for themselves. I certainly wouldn’t want to eat it.
I’ve worked in cafes/hospitality too and can relate to the stress here. I too would love to see a different system of working where people are truly honoured and service is enjoyable. I often went to work feeling very anxious and not wanting to go because I knew the onslaught I was about to walk into.
Don’t we eat so much more than just the material? For me eating can be like making Love: to let something into my body. I learn to say ‘no’ to foods, that are not prepared with Love… so I don’t choose to go to restaurants anymore. My exception: Universal Medicine Workshops! Because I can feel that the food there is prepared responsibly with love.
Thank you Victoria, for the behind the scenes of the commercial kitchen. I find it incredible what pressure people work under in these environments. It makes actually no sense at all that the people who are preparing the food are not feeling the care for the people they serve but that they are only busy with doing the task.
Food for thought indeed Victoria. I never worked in a commercial kitchen but for many years the daily duty of cooking had become a chore which I resented. The food I prepared was not made out of love for my family but out of expectations that being the woman/wife/mother it was the thing to do. Although not entirely free of this “obligation” I now feel that food preparation and taking care of myself is another way of expressing. Thank you for your blog.
It’s incredible that until we re-learn it’s ok to do what’s personally good for us, we tend to do the complete opposite – to choose what is socially more acceptable. Love in food and work, a new model – absolutely.
That’s so true Oliver! “Until we re-learn that it’s ok to do whats personally good for us, we end up doing the opposite, what is socially acceptable”.
Fantastic Victoria. I have had a glimpse of what you are talking about through doing a little bit of work in restaurants years ago. Even then I was taken back by the lifestyle of many who worked in that field and on some level questioned how that must affect the end product which customers are eating and drinking. I realise you were also painting a bigger picture than just hospitality. Your blog is a great reminder of the importance of checking in with ourselves and how we are in our work and why we have chosen a particular job. Thank you.
I enjoyed reading your blog, Victoria, – so well written and deeply inspiring to stay connected with me at work. Love in work.
Work that is supportive and nourishing is a very tasty dish to offer ourselves! I have been reflecting on my career while reading your blog Victoria, and in the past often found myself stressed and exhausted. After being introduced to a new way of creating supportive rhythms into my life, each day begins and ends with some simple rituals that build gentle support for my body and mind. Thank you to Serge Benhayon for his loving and inspiring way, that offers us choices.
What an amazing and honest look at an industry that is very glamourised. I really didn’t consider just how busy, hard, hot, harming a kitchen can be! Of course there is always a choice of the way in which we work – but the catering industry itself has a reputation for being fast moving, high energy. It is lovely to read that you honoured your body enough to know what wasn’t right.
I shudder to think of the energy that goes into the food we have eaten in these busy restaurants, although the food may taste great, all the pressure and stress from the job goes into that food. I washed a few dishes in restaurants in my teens and even that was a stressful, full on job so I did get to experience the utter semi-controlled chaos that goes on behind the scenes. I have also helped in the kitchen at Universal Medicine events and I too, know which food I’d rather eat.
Well said kevmchardy for the quality of the food we eat goes way beyond just the flavours on our taste buds.
I loved reading this, thank you Victoria for being real and frank but also lighthearted. There certainly is a need for more harmony in the hospitality industry, which would benefit everyone at the end of the day; the workers lives would be much improved and the product and restaurant atmosphere would be infinitely more nourishing for the diners.
From re-reading your blog it would seem fairly obvious that the food industry is in desperate need of a new model to work from with restaurants that choose to put the employers conditions and welfare at the heart of the business. It has to be about people first, nothing else truly works.
If we are being truly responsible would we then choose to not eat in restaurants where we suspect the staff are not treated well. It would seem to make sense to make a stand against employing people in abusive ways. The industry seems to pride itself on hard work, but hard work without care is not something to be proud of. It is great to read of your experiences in the industry Victoria.
This is great to read Victoria, I can relate to so much of this, I started working in the photographic industry as an assistant and it was very much about working for the top names, never saying no, staying away, working fast, carrying heavy equipment – none of which was suitable for me, being a gentle, sensitive young woman. Reading your article makes me realise how crazy it is that I got caught up in this scene, I will ponder on what you have written, thank you.
I am really enjoying reading your blog Victoria. Having experienced your amazing presence when you worked in the kitchen at The Universal Medicine Retreat (Sound Foundation in Somerset, UK), it is great to read your background with commercial kitchens and to see how much you have changed to work without the old stress you write of – it’s such a joy to experience you in true Service.
I love how you have written, it is so easy to read and reveals much about the restaurant industry. Being stressed, taking drugs and not eating well is certainly not looking after yourself yet these people are constantly preparing food for others! I have done many jobs with a ‘can do’ or ‘have to do’ attitude completely taking me out of the equasion. From presentations, workshops and courses run by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I am now learning to care and look after myself (adding me to the equasion) in a way I did not do before.
Thank you Victoria, I am sure that there are many people in the same situation has you found yourself – having to make ‘sacrifices’ (such as your hands, and your sanity!) for the industry. As a young adult who is just beginning to work, it is great to hear your past experience as how not to be with choosing/being in a job – and to make sure that you choose it to honour yourself
This blog particularly reminded me of my sister, who used to work in ‘silver service’ dining. She would tell me stories about pretty much the same conditions you’ve mentioned above. Yes the food was technically amazing, tasty and you couldn’t fault the technique… but there was just something missing… Perhaps it was the working conditions… thank you for sharing what really goes on in commercial kitchens.
Thanks Victoria for a super blog. The great suffering of staff in restaurants kitchens is a reality everywhere : enormous stress, jealousy and competition between staff, anxiousness and panic, and long hours. And the thing is that we can often feel this when it arrives on our plate. Surely there is another way of supporting these staff who cook and feed people: more simple nourishing and uncomplicated food that can be prepared with love and respect.
This is a great blog Victoria Lister and much for the reader to learn about what really goes on. I was a regular in fine dining at thee best London restaurants for 2 decades and what you say here makes sense. To be blunt there was no quality even though the price dictated that it was high end.
How can someone prepare and cook food if they themselves are not taking care of how they eat or what they eat. You state that coffee and bread were staples – that sums it up what really goes on in these kitchens.
This blog reminded me of a famous health spa in the UK where the staff told me (whilst I was dining in their posh restaurant) that they had a staff eatery where it was all burgers and chips – none of this great healthy food that we got served. Interesting to get your perspective so thanks for sharing and not holding back.
Great story Victoria! How many of us aspire to such unsuitable careers at a young age?
Your description of commercial kitchen life is brutally graphic. One can just imagine
all the blood, sweat and tears!
The image of an almost despotic head chef, presiding over his heavily perspiring and
subservient kitchen slaves, seems to have become a universal cliche.
In your account of kitchen life, there seems to be a palpable lack of love.
Everything is driven by desperation and deadlines.
I’m sure that if that missing ingredient had been present, the customers would have
been able to taste it !
This is so true Jonathan, ‘How many of us aspire to such unsuitable careers at a young age?’ Choosing a career for recognition, financial success or being influenced by our parents, rather than feeling what is true for us.
Victoria, your story of the food industry in Australia mirrors the one of a friend of mine who worked at the most elite restaurants in the United States. I was shocked to hear his tales of absolute abuse for his body (working over 100 hours/week, him using drugs to keep going, as well as the rest of the staff, cut throat approaches to staffing and competition among employees vying to become head chefs and getting paid peanuts for “the privilege” of working there).
It all seems so backward and based on a facade of what the food looks like, instead of how it was made. If the customers could watch what goes on in those kitchens, I bet most of them would turn around and walk out. I know I wouldn’t want to contribute money towards a system that is so abusive, and you have shown with your example of the 2012 Universal Medicine Retreat that it does not have to be that way.
Great blog Victoria. Your experience is true of so many industries. Isn’t it crazy that we don’t think of the effect working with such drive and disregard is having on our bodies and well being. So much is expected of employees, people seem to hand over their lives to their work and livelihoods and as Jane says leave themselves at the door. I now know that how we are in every moment of our lives counts. It all adds up, how we are in the workplace trickles out and effects all parts of our lives.
I really love Victoria how you describe yourself as a child with a natural flair for cuisine, and then the journey this has taken you on through life.
I loved this blog, there is much in it to digest. The stress of working in the industry, what that leads to for those that work in the industry, and the anxiousness that you have carried with you from your experiences. It was great for you to feel that by offering to help at the UK retreat you got to see another way. Restaurants and chefs need to put their staff equal to the customer and start practicing self care at work as Jane pointed out, and we would all win from that.
Awesome, I love this Jane! That phrase ‘our body loves to work’ really leapt out at me – I can really feel how true that is, yet it is something we never hear expressed. Work has been distorted for so many of us and many resent having to do it. It would be lovely to see that change. Can we usher in a new era of understanding around work, based on self-care and nourishment?
Such an interesting example from Yasmin… It was so pointed to read of the beautiful story of the boss who cared about his staff like family…as opposed to the ‘big city’ experience. I can relate to the part about her son being unable to ‘stomach’ the stress. Imagine how hospitality would change if more of us questioned the ‘way things are done’ in this industry?
Yes, I thought this was a good one too. What a difference it can make to people. Watching and getting it by example. A new way of being in their life.
Victoria you have written a great blog your experience and honesty was awesome to read. I feel strongly about the way we prepare and serve food as it is a joyful experience in my daily life.
My son began an apprenticeship in a great, well known restaurant in Byron Bay 15 yrs ago. Before opening doors the owner/chef would have the team sit down and eat dinner together sampling the meals they were about to serve and talk about where they were at in there daily life as a family. It was an awesome beginning for a 15 year old. Until he ventured to the big city – ‘down’ the path of celebrity restaurants, where the stress made it almost impossible for him to enjoy and digest food… I feel a blog coming on…
Inspiring Victoria, love in work, all industries, and yes loving the people who work there first and foremost. Now that is, as you say, something to definitely ponder on. I can look at how much love I am bringing to my work place for myself and for the staff I manage. Thank you for being awesome.
I found it really interesting to read well-known chef-restauranteur Christine Manfield’s account of her recent decision to close her highly regarded Sydney restaurant. Although not the only factor, she did describe the toll running the establishment took on her and her staff, and how this contributed to her decision to close the restaurant.
And if you want a warts and all exposure of the industry, ‘Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly’ by chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain also makes a scarily accurate and well-written read.
Awesome blog Victoria as another chef who has walked that path I was transported down the years of working in kitchens to make a living, I never really enjoyed cooking as a chef although I was really good at it, and yes I got lost for many years into the abyss of the kitchens addictive circle of the lost and abused. Wow thank you chef for reminding me how far I have traveled.
Great read Victoria and this felt like somewhat of a catharsis for you as you confirm more of who you truly are – awesome.
I really enjoyed reading of your experiences and where you have come to from them. Even though I have not worked much in hospitality, I have worked in advertising and the similarities are just as you say. Thank you for sharing.
Delicious blog Victoria! It is such an accurate description of what it is like behind the scenes in a restaurant. I did a lot of waitressing in my university years and most of the ones I worked in had a toxic atmosphere. In a well-known Sydney bistro where I worked I saw someone take a lobster shell out the garbage can, and open a can of lobster and fill up the shell to serve to a customer (because they had run out of fresh lobster). When I spoke up about it I was fired! I have to say I do know a restaurant where abuse and aggression is not part of the menu – so it is not impossible.
I, like Rosie, would love to be a part of a loving restaurant or cafe where there is dedication to rhythm and people come first. Love in hospitality is certainly food for thought Victoria. Thank you for your honesty about your experiences.
This is a really eye opening blog, Victoria, as you have voiced your personal and insightful experiences. I have never worked in the hospitality sphere, but always knew it was high pressured with tight budgets and timelines. The dots you have joined for me are the high emotion and drama that the food is prepared in.
In my earlier years I had always thought it was the richness of the food, with its dairy content, my body was rejecting – often before I even arrived home on the night. I can now see I was swallowing the ‘vibe of the kitchen’ in all that I ate. This also explains why I have recently experienced the same effects after dining out – gluten and dairy-free.
There’s more to the quality of the food than the ingredients and our bodies know it!
Thank you Victoria for a yummy blog prepared with love and regard for self and reader.
I love this blog! I have spent years in the hospitality industry as a waitress and have had to deal with many unloving, hungover, drug induced, abusive chefs… ahhh the joys and stress of service! I would love to be a part of a loving restaurant or cafe where people come first! The things that go on behind the scenes… if people really knew, I am not sure if they would ever eat there again.
How can one not laugh Victoria! With your cheeky expression and way with words I found this a thoroughly entertaining read. Thank you for expressing this, I feel that this is the clarion call that begins the process of change. From stressed, drug-addled, hard and fast food service where people cram as much of the mouth watering food into their bodies – to the love and true nourishment that can come when food is prepared gently.
So eloquently expressed and spot on Victoria – this brought back memories of my days waitressing in a fancy hotel as what you describe is exactly how it was. Stress-city: moody, depressed, totally wrung-out chefs barking orders at others who run around madly trying to deliver what was required to meet the expectations of patrons and chefs alike.
l’ve never made the association before but my health was at it’s all-time worst during that period. Thanks for the honest, humorous and sobering insight into the industry – it is indeed time for a new model!
Thank you Victoria… I love this article. Having worked in hospitality for several years I can relate to so much that you have written here. So many chefs that I have worked with don’t eat when they are at work…even when they are doing 10 hour + shifts. Like you I have worked a great deal of time in the industry but haven’t truly felt suited to the long late nights and the general atmosphere of the hospitality scene.
Seeing how they run the cafe over in the UK is awesome, because they operate everything without the stress and rush element and the care and quality that they put in can be clearly felt in the dining experience. It is cool that there is that potential for the industry.
Awesome account Victoria, having worked in those ‘best restaurants’ myself it is easy to get caught in the machine that drives relentlessly for a small, very small usually commercial payback. The cost of the dining experience is never monetary but always people – and as you point out why go to eat where you are usually served by people dealing with high stress and a high capacity to abuse themselves in order to cope. Makes no sense. There is a different way and Love is it.
I remember your face when you walked into that kitchen, I remember the panic because you didn’t think we were where we should be for the time we had left! Then you stopped and just you saw what I saw – it was simply another way to do it and yes, we were ready and yes it was delicious.
I have never had an experience of a professional kitchen but I wish I could be there again this year to work in the kitchen again – it was the most wonderful experience of team work – even the moment where the only person who knew how to work the dishwasher was nowhere to be seen and we started a hand washing and drying routine for hundreds of plates 🙂 Thank you for reminding me of that and for sharing more of what was going on for you – it is humbling to know what I saw and to now understand how you got to that moment. I saw you come through it with no drama!
Great writing …food for thought for everyone…:-)
Thank you Victoria, as Chris James says – this post is food for thought.
We eat out at restaurants and very few of us care about the staff and how they are cared for by the owners. This article states real facts and opens our eyes to what is really going on in those not-so-fancy kitchens as shown on TV.
My question is: If the sous chefs, cooks and the washer upper are exhausted, smoking, taking recreational drugs, caffeine or whatever to cope with the stressful demands of their job – would that then have an effect on the food we then eat?
Right??? Totally respect this question Bina because as we all know food that has been cooked in a mad rush has a distinctly different taste to that of food cooked in an incredibly gentle and loving way…and if we can taste the difference, imagine the actual difference. I recently volunteered in a Cafe run by Universal Medicine students and had an amazing and similar experience. There was this constant flow, and rhythm to the proceedings and nothing was a stress for anyone, in the end there was actually a bunch of time to get to know each other and have fun….now even at the busy service time that was awesome. It felt like a family coming together and supporting each other. More of that in my food please…
You’re right Bina (and Chris James!), it is food for thought, in fact a lot of food for thought! And to answer your question Bina, yes I feel those things would effect what is served. If everything is energy, as Einstein showed, the energy of those working with the food would definitely be felt in the food!
So true Victoria, it is time to re-assess where work is supportive and nourishing. I have worked a couple of shifts a week in a little walk-in Mexican cafe for over four years now where care and people come first. Teamwork is the key, all working together as one, where harmony is felt even at a fast pace, plus there is always room for communication if someone is ‘dragging the chain,’ to bring some understanding. Our team is a family that is always evolving, not perfect, yet everyone looks forward to coming to work and there is always an element of play-fullness.
There is much more to the mix with true customer service. When customers leave with more than what they came for, with a big thank you and how much they enjoyed the food, that can be felt.