Do you consider yourself a "Cook" or a "Chef"? (ingredients, restaurants)

[Hunter Wold]

Now boiling this done to it's basic meanings...

The homemaker who "cooks" the meals. Or,
someone who cooks might be like a person cooking at a fast food restaurant.

Or, someone who is a "saute-cook", someone who is responsible for the preparation of sauteed items and sauces.

Now a Chef by defination, is someone who is responsible for every part of a foodservice operation, including menu planning, purchasing, hiring and staffing, is part of a head chef's job description. That means he or she also has overall responsibility for all the food that comes out of the kitchen.
However, a Chef doesn't always do the "cooking". That is left up to the line.

Having "dealt" with many chefs and seeing the best to the no so good, I have a lot of repect for those that are chefs in the large operation restaurants because I have seen first hand just what they have to go thru on a daily bases...it ain't easy folks.

There are different types of Chefs.
A "Sous-Chef".
A "Chef de Partie" (Station Chef).
A "Pastry Chef". And so on....

So;


But to me I consider myself a Chef because: I love food, and I love to cook, grow my own vegetables, buy my own ingrediants, and even catch my own seafood.
I can look at many different receipes and close the book and then create something similiar as to what I have read. I have to do the planning, the purchasing, the preparation and the overseeing of what "I" do.

Then the actually cooking is similiar to what a "Sous-Chef" does and or what a line cook does, and making sure it has the presentation, taste and content to what I had planned.

I liken it to someone who can hear music and then play a tune on a piano etc.
Vs. someone who reads the music and then plays the tune.

So, when someone says to you, do you just cook, you might reply, no I am the Chef at home.

Happy trails,

HW

[laorbust61]

Originally Posted by Hunter Wold

Now boiling this done to it's basic meanings...

The homemaker who "cooks" the meals. Or,
someone who cooks might be like a person cooking at a fast food restaurant.

Or, someone who is a "saute-cook", someone who is responsible for the preparation of sauteed items and sauces.

Now a Chef by defination, is someone who is responsible for every part of a foodservice operation, including menu planning, purchasing, hiring and staffing, is part of a head chef's job description. That means he or she also has overall responsibility for all the food that comes out of the kitchen.
However, a Chef doesn't always do the "cooking". That is left up to the line.

Having "dealt" with many chefs and seeing the best to the no so good, I have a lot of repect for those that are chefs in the large operation restaurants because I have seen first hand just what they have to go thru on a daily bases...it ain't easy folks.

There are different types of Chefs.
A "Sous-Chef".
A "Chef de Partie" (Station Chef).
A "Pastry Chef". And so on....

So;


But to me I consider myself a Chef because: I love food, and I love to cook, grow my own vegetables, buy my own ingrediants, and even catch my own seafood.
I can look at many different receipes and close the book and then create something similiar as to what I have read. I have to do the planning, the purchasing, the preparation and the overseeing of what "I" do.

Then the actually cooking is similiar to what a "Sous-Chef" does and or what a line cook does, and making sure it has the presentation, taste and content to what I had planned.

I liken it to someone who can hear music and then play a tune on a piano etc.
Vs. someone who reads the music and then plays the tune.

So, when someone says to you, do you just cook, you might reply, no I am the Chef at home.

Happy trails,

HW

LoL. I'm a COOK when I use my seasoned iron pot in the kitchen, I'm a CHEF when I have my large shallow skillet, sauteeing veggies with a theatrical flair, in the grand tradition of Tommy Tang and Emeril Lagasse.

[hueyeats]

I absolutely love food.. to eat & to cook.
Have been exposed to many foods & food cultures (brought up that way in a multi-national cross junction melting pot) in a small country at that.. thus cannot avoid foods from other culture even if one wants to.

Also ate out more that eat in growing up... thus exposed to multiple taste & cook methods from others (hawker centers, kopi tiams aka coffee shops etc.), not just honed from a single entity (of the family cook). Equivalent to why my country is really a foodie paradise.

I love to cook, never trained as chef (many inspirations from food network, the shows and the internet) but is a "chef" in my creativity to my DH nevertheless as him & many others love what I bring to the table. Ask him... he'd surprise me even sometimes at lunch to have me prep him even a plain sandwich he would love more than at a restaurant's... just because even more than a restaurant's my food is prepared full of "love" (just like mom's I would say, the way he likes it) just for him (the way why Italian men always say's when asked where is the best place to eat and the popular answer will be "at my mom's")... but I do cook better than him mom he'd openly admit.
Oh, and to top it off... I am his best waitress, his best conversation company & his most attentive doting restaurateur... him my extra special patron.

[springfieldva]

I suppose I'm both a chef and a cook.

I've been doing a lot of recipe reinventions lately and I must say that many of them are turning out really well. So at times I am a chef - concerned with how my dishes are prepared and the freshness of the ingredients.

But at times, I'm also a cook - when I'm flipping grilled cheese sandwiches or boiling hotdogs, for instance.

[lubby]

I would say I am both. During the week I am a cook but If i am having a dinner party or hosting a holiday then I am a chef.

[DawnMTL]

Now a Chef by defination, is someone who is responsible for every part of a foodservice operation, including menu planning, purchasing, hiring and staffing, is part of a head chef's job description. That means he or she also has overall responsibility for all the food that comes out of the kitchen.
However, a Chef doesn't always do the "cooking". That is left up to the line.

I'd love to *just* do the stuff in bold and call myself a chef!

I won't call myself a cook, though, because I do the menu planning and purchasing, too.

I'll just call myself a slave and leave it at that.

[Debsi]

I like to think I'm an accomplished cook, but I am not a chef!

[JustJulia]

Chef just means chief, so that's me. I'm by no means a master chef, but I do nearly all the planning, shopping, preparation, and cooking. I enjoy it.

[Ohiogirl81]

Yes, I do the hiring and staffing. My cat Checkers sets the table, and his sister Cookie cleans up after the meal.

[mainebrokerman]

If my guests like the food, I'm a chef, if they don,t I'm a cook