Advice

[fabrisse]

I want advice.

There's an open position at the Boys and Girls Club that I'm interested in. The problem is that it would be doing something that I love as an amateur -- cooking -- and turning it into my livelihood.

The club is going to be participating in a wider program for good nutrition. The position is predominantly food planning and preparation, but will involve some accounting and quite a bit of community liaison work.

The thing is most people have no concept of how to cook seasonally. None. We've become so used to the idea of being able to get what we want when we want it (sure, we might have to pay a little more) that very few people can do the seasonal planning. I know that I can.

What's more, I know that I have recipes and resources for taking "unpalatable" vegetables and turning them into something that people can love. Part of the program contributions are coming from an organization called America's Second Harvest -- so it's completely possible that a crate of beets could be passed along to this place and need to be used immediately.

The HR person I talked with said something like "These people will be happy with a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. It's been so long since they've had a hot meal." But I watched the public schools in Belgium serve three course meals at lunch for about $3.50 per person per day. Grilled cheese and tomato soup should be the very last resort.

The downsides to this are the stresses. Physical stresses include lifting heavy pans, blisters from chopping, and fatigue. Mental stresses include "what if they don't like it," the constraints of supplies, the fear that I'll stop loving something I love.

Advice? Questions, queries, comments?

Comments

[siderea]

Unlike everyone else who has posted so far, I see a lot of reason for concern. Not that I think you shouldn't do it, but that I think your concerns are very real, and much more valid that the other posters have given you credit for.

Some factors to consider: In this job you will be exposed to two forces at potentially crippling levels of strength.

The first of these, as you noted, will be criticism about your art. Other people have said things like "if you get a chance to do what you love for money, you should go for it." That may be true -- though I'll remind you that you yourself said to me that you don't recommend doing that for your MB Type! -- but if it is, one still must be very careful with arts that one is ready to expose one's art to the world, and one must be very careful that what looks like a job in your art actually is (as many a fine artist who has taken up commercial art has discovered.)

Kids can be very blunt with their criticism, especially of food. Is your confidence in your ability and talent as a chef sufficient that you can take it in stride? Or will having to cater to conservative tastes going to essentially redefine your job from something creative to something that's a chore? Your identity as a cook is very precious to you; is the criticism of an open audience going to assail your identity?

The question here, let me be clear, is not whether you can cope with that criticism and with having to work within such parameters, it's whether you want to invite that into your life right now. You do get to say, "I could do it, but I don't want that grief right now." :)

The other force is responsibility. If you take this job, you will have a large number of people counting on you daily. What happens if you get sick? Will the guilt at not being able to do your job crush you emotionally? You are someone with a problem with responsibility; you don't seem to have any brakes on your sense of it! Will you be able to put proper limits on this job, to keep your current gains in wellnes?

It seems to me that this job has the potential to leave you very emotionally exposed. So the question is "Are you ready for the emotional challenges of this job?" You're the only person who can answer that.

There seems to me to be a very obvious solution to this situation. Ask them if you could do the job for a month. Then make a decision.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I'm cocky enough to think that I can make turnips that kids will like. Moreover, thanks to the SCA I have tons of ideas for soups and stews that will use ingredients that we're likely to get -- ingredients that many US cookbooks neglect.

But you're right, planning a dinner party and having some leeway in a budget is very different from finding myself surrounded by winesap apples and looking for someway to turn them into sauce.

So, still thinking, but I have a better idea of the questions that I'm asking -- both them and myself. Nailing down jello seems to be a big part of my life at this place.

[siderea]

On the one hand, I'm cocky enough to think that I can make turnips that kids will like.

I think you can make turnips 99 out of 100 kids will like. But that one hundredth kid is the one you -- or anyone in your situation -- is most likely to remember. Success/failure is a different axis than praise/criticism.

On the other hand, the fact that you understand the enormous scope of the undertaking -- and are properly daunted :) -- means you're likely to bring the big guns to bear. For instance, you say you have to do all the work alone; what about involving the kids? ("For a start, a 10 year old can peel apples....") You might very well wind up with your own enrichment program. (Before setting your sights on such a solution, find out if it's even permitted; sometimes liability issues keep kids out of institutional kitchens.)

[siderea]

Hmm. Some further thoughts:

I think this job could have a lot to teach you, but the question is whether it's what you want to learn right now. Or, as I've come to think of it, whether this is the butterfly you want to chase.

In the field of music, we sometimes divide the world into "pure" or "real" music on one hand, and "utilitarian" music on the other hand. Pure music is the purely artistic stuff, which exists solely for the sake of being art. Utilitarian music includes all music which exists for other purposes, including dance.

I see a very clear analogy between cooking and music in this. This job is about utilitarian food. That doesn't mean that there can't be artistry, but that the standards by which it will be judged will not be the standards of pure art, but the standards of utilitarian art. The extent to which you would be able to be happy in this job would be a function of how well you could work to that other standard.

Submitting yourself to a standard of utilitarian art is just about the best of all possible ways to master your craft. There's nothing like it for truly mastering technique and repertoire. This really is how one goes from being a talented amateur to a skilled craftsman.

This is basically the story of my life; I put my art in that crucible, and it came out much refined. I did dance music for 10 years, and the results were not only better technique in specific, but better sense of technique in general. But that has to do with where I was at that point in time. I don't know where you are in this point in time. I was at a place where I didn't need to focus on being more expressive or artistic, I needed to learn how to be more consistent and thorough, and how to produce on demand.

So taking on this job would ultimately result -- if you survived in it -- in a much deepened relationship with your craft. I expect it would be rough going at first. The adjustment is usually pretty hard on the ego; I know a lot of musicians who couldn't make the conversion. But if you made it through the first year, you would probably learn an immense amount.

The question then is: is that where you want to go with your life right now? Is that where you want to go with your art, and is that the role you want this art to take in your life?

The way it looks to me is that this job has some really big costs; it may have some really big pay-outs. The questions are: can you afford the mortgage? and is this the house you want to live in?