I've finally finished reading Kitchen Confidential - which is fun for research, especially the chapter where Bourdain writes about one day in the life of an executive chef. It's practically a walk-through for me.
Now the real test is whether I can write a scene of a restaurant kitchen on full service convincingly. The chaos, the adrenaline, the heat and camaraderie and feuding between line cooks, their runners and all the while telling a story about these characters, their relationship with each other.
Why is writing this scene important? I ask myself. Because it sets my sous-chef in her natural environment. Here is a well-brought up young woman, educated - something of an artist and a thinker. She enjoys all the advantages of her upbringing, yet something made her choose to work as a chef.
I'm using this story as a way of thinking through one of those questions I like to think about: what leads us to the choices in our lives? When everything in our life points in one direction, there are some of us who would choose another.
But first - how to write the scene? I need to think this through.
No comments:
Post a Comment