There are some rumors going around insinuating that chefs are crazy. If you watch Kitchen Nightmares or Hell’s Kitchen or any Gordon Ramsay show, you may agree (I do not watch those shows, so I hope he’s on at least one of them). You might believe in a world where all chefs have exploding personalities and you should just leave them alone. I don’t think this is true and I’ll tell you why.

Last week, I began watching Chef’s Table on Netflix and I’m now on the 6th or 7th episode. If you aren’t watching this show yet, you need to start now. Take a break from OITNB and watch some Chef’s Table, then get back to OITNB if you really need to. I like that each episode of Chef’s Table keeps you jumping around the world following one master chef at a time (not to be confused with the Master Chief). Also, each episode is completely different from the last because each chef has a different story, personality and culinary style.

If you want to know who the real crazies are, it’s definitely not the chefs. Of the 6 or 7 chefs I’ve seen so far, only one was a little crazy. He wasn’t exactly crazy though, he was just an Argentinian hippie. Another one was a bit angry, but he did say he needed to work on that. So, at least he acknowledged his faults.

The real crazy people are the food critics who make a living talking about these chefs. Who are these hipster food scientists, dissecting each meal to write a column about it? And what gives them the authority to say what food is better than the rest?

I’m asking because I would like to have this job. Just eat food and talk about it, all day. I’d also get to create my own strange wardrobe by taking stuff from Urban Outfitters and thrift stores into a secret lair, then sewing them together and create a hybrid clothing line specifically for myself. According to the food critics I’ve seen so far, If you’re all about writing about food, you also have to be all about fashion, but not other people’s fashion. You must create your own weird costumes, that only you can pull off.

Maybe the food critics create these outrageous outfits in order to stand out when they come into restaurants. They want the chef to know who they are. I’m a critic, give me the good food! These aren’t this new breed of yelp reviewers, Chef’s Table doesn’t believe in yelp (and neither do I!). These critics probably attended culinary school, but not to learn how to make wild dishes. They wanted to be able to write about other people’s wild dishes.

Of all the food critics I’ve seen in 6 or 7 episodes, I think only one of them looked like an everyday human. The rest look like they belong at Mos Eisley’s Cantina. They aren’t weird-shaped or goofy-faced, it’s mostly just their clothes that makes them seem different. “And people always scared of what’s different,” someone said that in Remember the Titans (and probably some other movies too).

Since I’ve only seen 6 or 7 episodes, that’s all I’ve learned so far. Also, just from watching Chef’s Table my culinary skills may be improving. Last week I bought some sashimi tuna at the Fresh Market and I made a super gourmet, culinary chef experience out of it. I even had a beautiful presentation worthy of a Kaiseki dining experience. (Episode 4: Niki Nakayama – n/naka)
Watch Chef’s Table and learn some stuff…