I chefed for a whole lot of years more than I care to remember and for that whole time we were just the stinky boys (and girls) in those funny checkered pants. Now we're the new sex symbols, the new super stars, we're the celebrity chef. Now I follow them to work on the back of buses. What the fuck is going on and most importantly where's my slice of that pie?
Jamie's done okay for himself hasn't he? But for me he's just too sterile, too white meat if you know what I mean. There aren't many real hard school chefs that put him up as a chef to admire/worship. Nah us old schoolers have only one god....
Marco Pierre White
He was the original celebrity chef enfant terrible, way before they had their own TV shows, the youngest dude at the time to earn 3 Michelin Stars (age 33), he trained Gordon Ramsey and Mario Bataliand and it is said he had a heart attack at age 28. Chefs don't lead healthy stress free lifestyles on the whole. When I was cooking in England I had contemplated trying to get a job at his restaurant (Harveys) but I was simply too much of a coward. I did meet a guy who worked there who had come into our kitchen for a job. We listened to tales of Marco from him as if he was Hans Christian Anderson reciting one of his fairy tales for the first time. How could someone so angry and so arrogant be so good we thought? How naive were we? I soon came to understand that in the chefing world those 3 things go hand in hand.
So step aside Jamie and Gordon and whatever that Aussie dudes name is, the one who goes on Oprah. There is only one truly great celebrity chef and his initials are MPW.
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He was the original celebrity chef enfant terrible, way before they had their own TV shows, the youngest dude at the time to earn 3 Michelin Stars (age 33), he trained Gordon Ramsey and Mario Bataliand and it is said he had a heart attack at age 28. Chefs don't lead healthy stress free lifestyles on the whole. When I was cooking in England I had contemplated trying to get a job at his restaurant (Harveys) but I was simply too much of a coward. I did meet a guy who worked there who had come into our kitchen for a job. We listened to tales of Marco from him as if he was Hans Christian Anderson reciting one of his fairy tales for the first time. How could someone so angry and so arrogant be so good we thought? How naive were we? I soon came to understand that in the chefing world those 3 things go hand in hand.
So step aside Jamie and Gordon and whatever that Aussie dudes name is, the one who goes on Oprah. There is only one truly great celebrity chef and his initials are MPW.
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