The other night on Masterchef, judge George Colombaris said that the be a great chef your aim in life should be to serve. Now, I don’t know about other people, but when I think of the Great Telly Chefs of Our Time, I don’t think there is a whole lot of love of service going on.
The only thing Gordon Ramsey serves is insults, lobbed with such carefree abandon as though he was just throwing some air-aged balsamic over freshly shucked oysters. And as for Jamie Oliver, his idea of service is to take over a perfectly good bit of land that was just sitting around, not hurting anyone and get other people to plant a fully televised herb garden, while he walked around saying nubbley, rubbley, jubbley and other words he read on a packet of jelly. As for Nigella, well, we all know what service she provides.
George, people don’t become chefs because they lerve to serve. You’re confusing cooking a steak with nursing, being a social worker or curing cancer. They become chefs because they needed a job and don’t mind eating leftover restaurant gloop late at night. So let them get on with it, and let’s leave “service” to the TV chefs.
