old news maybe...

Young Idols With Cleavers Rule the Stage

Michael Pollan Trades Barbs With Stephen Colbert

The War on Alice Waters

Chefs on Drugs

I guess I find the last one the most interesting or inspiring right now. I used to tell people taking a tour of the culinary school the truth about our industry. That we have a high percentage of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, divorce, etc...etc...and they would look at me, these bright shining young minds, and their parents, with a look of horror, or shock, or 'I cant wait'.

Why?

My very first job in a restaurant, there was a pot deal go down in my wait station in front of me...no big deal right, pot...who cares...but it opened my eyes to how prevalent drugs were in the town I grew up in versus my view of what I thought that city was like.

And since then...every single restaurant I have worked at, including the culinary school, has had some sort of drug use...whether it is pot or speed or crack or extasy, or whatever. The exec chef popping prescription pain meds all day, or the instructor trying to score pot from the students, or the after hours blowing smoke up the hood, to even the waiter who bought a big bag of pot and used the kitchen gram scale and vacuum sealer to cryovac his dope for resale. I have seen GMs do coke off the expo line, have had managers and fellow cooks drop 30 pounds in 2 months from doing X every night, have discovered the cooks' bags of whatever on the floor where they fell out of their pockets...etc...etc...

It happens.

Even I have my addictions...Red Bull...coffee...the occasional cigarette with coworkers.

So what is it that drives us to do what we do?

Blah blah blah, everyone always says its the pressure and the rush and the adrenaline and the etc, that feeds the monster that needs release. And the easiest form of that release? Chemicals. A large portion of the cooking world smokes...I mean, I even smoke after standing over a roaring smoking fire for five hours (you would think I was smokey enough)...I would say 90%+ drink every night...some to a stupor, some on the line, some just have that downer cocktail and then hit the road. And more than half...closer to 75% of the peeps I know...do other things.

Is it true that the pressure and the lifestyle produce drug and alcohol seekers? I know it produces egomaniacs and chauvinists and feminist and etc...etc...

But why? Why do we need that release?