Chef

To be a chef is to live in a world where flame, flavor, and feeling collide—where the heart beats to the rhythm of knives on cutting boards and the sizzle of dreams meeting steel.

🍳 Dawn: Before the city breathes, the kitchen stirs.

The world is still dark, but your apron is already tied.
You’re not just waking up—you’re awakening ingredients.

There is poetry in the prep.
The way you slice shallots into translucent moons.
The way you crush garlic with the side of your blade, releasing not just scent—but memory.

Your hands are stained with turmeric, lemon, time.

🔥 Heat is your paintbrush.

The grill whispers. The sauce simmers.
A flame flares up—not by accident, but invitation.
You do not fear heat. You flirt with it.

One second too long, and it’s overdone.
One second too short, and it’s a lie.
Precision isn’t discipline. It’s love in its most brutal form.

👂 The kitchen is a battlefield and a ballet.

Orders shout in from the pass. “Table 6, fire mains!”
Your crew moves like dancers with scars.
Elbows dodge. Oil spits.
And through it all, you hear it:

• The clatter of pans.
• The rhythm of the ticket printer.
• The heartbeat of hunger.

You command with a glance. You apologize with a perfectly cooked scallop.

🍷 Every plate is a confession.

You don’t just serve food.
You serve reasons—for people to forgive each other, to fall in love, to remember who they are.

A spoonful of broth says, “I understand your grief.”
A warm tart says, “Here’s something sweeter than silence.”

Even when they don’t know your name, they carry your soul on their tongues.

💧 Burnt hands. Sore feet. Full heart.

You’ll never have perfect skin.
You’ll never have enough time.
But you have stories—dozens of them—hidden in spice jars, between herb stems, under cracked fingernails.

You’ve wept in the walk-in freezer.
You’ve danced to jazz while deboning a duck.
You’ve remade your grandmother’s soup five hundred times until it finally tasted like her last hug.

👨‍🍳 What it feels like, truly?

Being a chef is being a scientist in love,
a psychologist with pans,
a servant and a king at once.

It’s running a kingdom of chaos where the only rule is pleasure—
and every night, you give your all to strangers…
only to start over again at dawn.

And somehow, when you see a guest take that first bite and close their eyes—you know:

You’ve fed more than hunger.
You’ve fed a soul.