It’s about 110 degrees, I’m moving faster than I ever have in my life and it’s still not fast enough. A drop of sweat that started at the back of my neck has traveled into the hollow of my knee through a channel best left undescribed. I’m being screamed at by someone almost ten years my junior with half my intelligence and who is, nonetheless, my boss. I’ve never wanted to kick someone as badly as I do right now. The shallots are burning, a softshell crab just shot searing clarified butter onto my arm, and oh dear god that was my last pappardelle and there are four more orders on the board. Saturday night in the land of D.C. fine dining. I wonder what my friends are doing now?

For this life I gave up a thriving career, four weeks paid vacation, a health plan, 401K, and a window office in which (let’s be honest) I spent a good part of the day playing computer solitaire. I wanted to follow my dream of becoming a chef. Was it worth it? God, No. But ask me again in two hours when the board is clear, the pain in my blistered arm is at a dull roar and another Saturday night of fine dining has been put gloriously to bed. Then, more often than not, the answer is Hell. Yeah. And also, please pass me that gin and tonic.

I made the decision to go to culinary school after a mini mid-life crisis surrounding my 30th birthday. I took a job that I hated for a company I didn’t respect, broke up with a man who wanted to marry me and suddenly panicked that I was wasting my life. So I read Po Bronson’s “What Should I Do With My Life?” It’s that book that everyone my age reads when they realize that job they took out of college just to get by has somehow turned into a career. That book that explains how everyone should be able to follow their dreams and do what they love for a living. It conveniently ignores the fact that the world needs garbage men and hospital orderlies and, yes, even corporate attorneys, if only to keep fine dining restaurants in business.

The choice was clear to me. Follow my dreams, of course! I love cooking. I love giving dinner parties. My friends all think I’m a fabulous cook. I’ll become a chef! This seems to be a common train of thought among career changers, so allow me to clear something up. Thinking that because you love to cook at home you will equally love and be good at cooking in a restaurant is like saying, “I enjoy watching professional football on television. I should start hosting illegal dog fights in my basement!” While the right interest is there, it’s a totally different skill set.

So I enrolled in culinary school. L’Academie de Cuisine was my school of choice (the only school of choice in the D.C. area, as far as I’m concerned). I spent the best six months of my life there learning from and working with some of the most amazing people I ever could have hoped to meet. I learned an amazing amount about cooking, about food, about culinary history, and then I went to work and realized I knew absolutely nothing about anything. My culinary school education (and this goes for all schools, not just L’Academie) prepared me for restaurant work about as well as my liberal arts degree prepared me to get a job. I knew how to act, I had some very basic skills and I could understand the terms being thrown at me, but actually cooking in a restaurant? The only way to learn that is by doing it. That’s where the yelling comes in. And the burns. And occasionally wanting to slit your wrists except your knife isn’t sharp enough because you still haven’t figured out how to use the whetstone appropriately. More yelling ensues.

People tell me all the time how envious they are of me, how they wish they could do it too. “I wish I could be that brave.” Or, “that’s totally my dream!” My old boss said I was his hero. These people don’t know how much money I make.

Seriously, though, you have to be kind of an idiot to do what I did. I know the Food Network has made cooking a glamour job – flames! white coats! secret ingredients! running! – but the truth is that restaurant cooking is not at all fun 90% of the time. It’s completely exhausting, demoralizing, painful drudgery. You work ridiculous hours and lose all of your “real job” friends. You don’t earn a living wage so you go into major credit card debt. You’re constantly being told you’re doing it wrong, you’re messing it up, I’m going to call Jean Georges right now so he can come down here and slap you in your face for what you did to those potatoes. Or words to that effect. You become an alcoholic. That’s considered one of the perks.

The thing is, though, that other 10% of the time when you’re not suppressing the urge to weep, line cooking is the most exhilarating, entertaining and fulfilling job you could ever have. When that Saturday night service isn’t going down in flames but instead you’re riding the wave, catching every order, timing things perfectly, sliding plate after plate of gorgeous food into that window. That’s the stuff that gets under your skin. That’s what makes you a restaurant person. Then you’re hooked and you can’t go back to sitting behind a desk and playing solitaire. You’re doomed.

Because as much as television overplays it, cooking is pretty sexy. I know plenty of cooks who would roll their eyes at me for that but those are the lifers, the guys who have done this their whole careers and can’t see it from an outside perspective. For a career changer like me who sat in that air conditioned office, yawned through day-long power point presentations, who had a hard time telling coworkers apart because they were the exact same guy in khakis and a blue button down shirt, a restaurant kitchen is a pretty exciting new world. There’s adrenaline flying, orders being shouted, you’re dancing back and forth in some twisted ballet and the basic, carnal, prehistoric pleasures of fire and food are all around you. It can be a little, well, hot. Just ignore that person on the other side of the pass who’s calling you names that would make your mother cry if she knew. 

I work pastry now. It’s very nice. I work in a sunny bakery with people who like me and never threaten to kill me. We make pate brisee and ice cakes and talk about Lindsey Lohan and reality TV shows. My hours are almost normal. I haven’t had a plate of mashed potatoes thrown at me in almost a year. I won’t go back to line cooking. Not today, anyway.