Greenhorns.

I've worked in kitchens for 17 years. That's 1-7 long and largely thankless years but I still love it. I've been cut, burned, overworked, underpaid,yelled at by crazy chefs, spit at by insane Dominican dishwashers, and sweated on by co-workers who I wouldn't let into my own home in any real situation. I've worked with some of the most talented people to pick up a knife and I've worked with shaky tweaker criminals. In two cases that was the same person. It would be safe to say that I've been around the proverbial block and paid just about every due that I've come across. So, knowing all of this, you would be safe in assuming that I wanna cut the throat of some jerk off that just walked out of some bullshit school and wants to tell me his method of making pate de choux. Or ice cream. Or sorbet. Or any fucking thing.

Fuck rookies.

Due to the bizarre success of shows like Hell's Kitchen (crap) and Top Chef, (utter garbage) being a chef is now becoming the hot new job and cooking schools are opening as fast as they fill up. And where the fuck do these dickweeds go when they "graduate"?
Right into the goddamned world to show it that they learned how to be an honest to god CHEF. The problem there is that most of these retarded mouth breathers can't function in an actual kitchen. They've been so gassed up by the people who run these schools that they come out of there thinking they're gonna turn the culinary world on it's ear and "really show 'em how it's done". These mooks are fucking up my flawed, but ultimately life affirming version of paradise (which, incidentally, is a cramped, noisy, hot, loud, submarine like hell hole filled with people as crazy as me.)because they can't cook worth a shit.

Don't get me wrong here, friends and neighbors. I know that truly great schools exist and people do go to them and can come out changed for the better. But there's like three. In the whole country. And those aren't very easy to get into considering that they require some kind of real world kitchen experience (good) and an assload of money (bullshit). So tell me all about Johnson And Wales some other time, nerd.

Cooking schools have become the new truck driving schools promising a life of adventure and high class. They fail to mention that the "high class" is happening in the dining room while you break your ass trying to feed people who wouldn't piss on you if your hair was on fire. The fact is.....the guy working the grill just got out of prison. In El Salvador. The prep cook is drunk and two of the waitresses are so coked out that they can't get their orders together, let alone their collective shit. And that's on a Tuesday. Lunch. Make that equation a Friday night and everything gets multiplied by a gajillion. It's just not a safe place to be for some dewy eyed cocksucker that wants to play in the big show.

I know some folks that went to these schools and aren't total fuck-jobs. But that's only because they knew that dedication and hard work are your only worthwhile routes to actual learning. Not just the receipt from your tuition payment.

So, to answer your question.....No I don't "totally love" cooking shows. Rachael Ray can eat a bowl of dick up and hiccup. Gordon Ramsey threw away the career of a lifetime to take his shirt off on TV. Jamie Oliver is only getting a pass because he works with kids and anyone on Top Chef is marked for death by legions of tough ass grinders who throw down night after night for the love, not the fame.

So watch your backs, greenhorns.