What does washing dishes have to do with it?

      In 2004 I finished my freshman year at Appalachian State.  Like many kids I was on my own (truly) for the first time living on my own with no structure to my days and no money.  I got two jobs that summer.  The first was at a coffee shop where I learned the hard way about people that will take advantage of you whenever you give them the opportunity.  It's a hard lesson to learn at 19, and I still find myself forgetting it, because I WANT people to be good and kind.  I want to give them the opportunity.    The second job, though, that was a real game changer.  I was thinking tonight about how much different my life would have been had it not been for one man who let me wash dishes.
      I get it, you are probably thinking, "What does washing dishes have to do with it?" right?  Well come to find out everything.  That day I went into Outback to apply for a job as a server.  Why a server? Well because women don't cook in professional kitchens- that's painfully obvious from all the grungy, ill-mannered, inappropriate boys out there cooking our food every day.  Most of the boys in that kitchen were certainly of that quality, and I didn't want to be a prep cook, not really.  I wanted to be a "real cook", but girls just don't to that . . .
      So my friend and I went in to apply, he was going to work in the kitchen, because Matt claims (and is probably a little right) not to be a people person.  After applications were filled out a manager came over and asked what position I was applying for.  "A server. . . I guess" And bless you Trevor, you asked why "I guess" was part of my response.  After explaining my trepidation you said that everyone starts in the kitchen washing dishes and I wouldn't be any different.  So wash dishes I did.  I washed those dishes for 3 months.  And during those 3 months I watched and I learned. 
      I learned that boys in the kitchen are rude, and have very dirty minds (not all of them, some are gentlemen with dirty minds that know when to keep their mouth shut) I learned the quickest way to scrub potatoes, and I got a good workout from punching potatoes through the fry cutter.  I found out that if you soak onions in ice water they don't sting your eyes quite so much when you have to peel and cut them, though mostly I just got used to having to do it.  I learned that if you have to peel more than 5 carrots you need to wear gloves, or your hands will be orange for at least a day.  During that time my hands got really pruney and I ruined a couple of pairs of shoes. Before I learned about kitchen Birkenstocks which you can pull the insoles out of and run through the dishwasher to get the gunk out of the bottom.
      All of these things and the things that I have forgotten I learned or forgotten to mention sometimes feel way more important than the things I learned when I went to culinary school.  The 3 (or so) years I spent at Outback really changed my life.  It was tough.  I had to fight my way up the ladder, but I was lucky I had friends to catch me as I started to slip.  I had to prove myself time and time again way more than any of the guys had to.  I trained myself on the next station because it seemed that if I went to the boss without already knowing it he just couldn't believe that I (a girl!) would want to do more than salads.  Making blooming onions is dirty work, and working the sautee station is hot, and you get burned a lot. Though by the time I was to be trained to work the grill and middle they had figured out that I was able and willing to do anything and they let me do it. 
      During this time, though, I was still in school, studying music, loving every moment of that as well.  I can't help but think, though, what if he had made me a hostess, what if I had been serving tables?  Would I have kept it up, would I have wanted to be in the Kitchen in the end, wanted to be a Chef?  Would I even have the same dreams I have today, be the same person?  I daresay I would not.  Maybe I would be at a Church somewhere as a choir director.  Maybe I would have practiced piano a little harder, and been actually useful playing the darn thing.  Maybe you would know my name off NPR, and maybe you would have one of my CDs on your shelf.  I doubt it, honestly. There would be no plans for a restaurant.  No menus stirring around in my head.  No floor plans drawn up, and certantly no lists of little things to make a space more comfortable and easier to run.  In the end I need to say Thank you. 
      Thank you to all those people in that kitchen, in that restaurant on the side of that mountain that didn't say no when I asked for something more than the status quo.  When I worked there I didn't learn to be a great Chef (I still don't consider myself to be one) but I learned what it is to be a cook.  It's something they can't teach you in culinary school.  Knowing all the sauces, fancy techniques, all the french words for things can never prepare you for what's happening out there in a world, as Anthony Bordain claims, is full of pirates.  Where we (yes I have become one of those oft grungy, dirty minded "guys") know we are part of a team, but you still have to look out for yourself  and sleep with one eye open.  Where you are as comfortable with a blade in your hand as most are with their cell phones or cup of Starbucks and even if you don't smoke there is always a lighter (or torch) near at hand. 
      It's not a world for the feint at heart, but in the end I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I wish I could thank each one of those guys who pulled me aside and told me some trick, some life lesson about what it is to be a cook.  I wish I could thank them for not taking it easy on me.  I do wish there were some dirty jokes I could unlearn, and I wish that everyone didn't describe basil chiffinode by starting with, "roll the basil up as if you are rolling a joint", but that's the world I live in. And I wouldn't have it any other way.