Performance Anxiety

Friends, good morning from chilly New York City, where your good friend Sarah is once again getting ready to work at the restaurant today.  I am up early, yet again, preparing for my business trip to Belgium, working on project plans and budgets for my new medical research project, along with struggling with performance anxiety. 

 

I do not have performance anxiety of erectile dysfunction, Friends, God knows that is not the case, especially thanks to the French luvaahhhh of mine, and the fact that I am not a man, (duh..just ask anyone who has to move past me in a teeny tiny Kitchen as they apologize for not being able to get past that chest of mine without at least 2-3 seconds of faux molestation as we pass each other and cannot help but laugh about it…) but today I do indeed have Kitchen Performance Anxiety.

 

Today is the day I have to cook for Chef and the Sous Chefs. I feel sick, the anxiety is so strong, and I do not want to do this, much as I respect him and these Chef teams and am so grateful to be there, in that Kitchen, learning.

 

I considered quitting, just so I would not have to do this, but I am not a quitter, and this is part of the ritual, the requirement that, for most Chefs, is fun.  Everyone who wants a job, and every stage (student), cooks for Chef.  Usually you get handed a dozen eggs or a protein and told to just…cook.  The expectation is that you will make a perfect French omelette or steak or whatever else you come up with, but it sure as hell better be good.

 

Hearing the stories of my Chef teachers is intimidating, as they make 4 preparations of mushrooms and present a dish that is unbelievable in its beauty and taste.  Those Chefs love it—the adrenaline and challenge, the competition and peacocking where they get to show their best stuff.  It is fun for them.  It is not fun for me.  It makes me feel like I need to vomit, the stress is so overwhelming.  I think it is because I am going to feel so ashamed before, during, and after, because I already do feel that way.  I do not think any of those Chefs, so talented and so much younger and fearless than me in that Kitchen, know what it is like to work alongside them and feel so...inadequate and just how hard this is for me.

 

In my medical job, I, too, would be more than up for the challenge.  I frequently get pulled into conferences and panel discussions with the top governments and experts in the world, and I need no preparation to be an expert, because I researched and helped co-write some of the laws and legal guidance under which we all work.  That unknown actually WOULD be fun for me, because I am easy and confident about it, leading discussions with real-world application and jokes interspersed with the nuances of the legal phrases and ethical requirements.  I have hundreds, thousands of stories about patients and doctors, death and life, challenges and success, because I have years of experience and have seen it all.  I love it—that world of mine, that medical research world of teams and making life better.   I love it so much, every day, and I needed to find a way to constantly re-learn it all, the mindset of being the learner, the beginner, in order to be an even better teacher and professor and leader.  This is why I chose to be in the Kitchen, where I am the worst.

 

I put myself in this position of being the worst, in the Kitchen---and not just any Kitchen, one of THE Kitchens, on purpose, because they are the best.  That is not an easy place to be, and I take it seriously.  I watch people who are excellent, to see what they do with it, when they finally achieve all that they wanted.  I watch to see if they blow it, if the pressure of being excellent makes them do stupid things and choose bad Friends to trust, if they go broke, if they lose all the things important to them, or if they find some hidden path that helps them stay true to themselves while they figure out where and how to get even better.  I watch to see if they get caught up in one moment or have a vision for the long-term and how to get good and stay good, because I am trying to learn that for myself.

 

The problem is, here, I do not want to be a Chef, and I never will be.  I do not like working on the hot line, under all that pressure, which is why I stay in the background, doing, as one line cook said yesterday, “baby work like garde manger,” which is the part of the Kitchen that makes all the lovely starters and salads—the place I feel the happiest, the most quiet, while part of the team.  This is where I am my happiest, my most comfortable, because I get to be more in the background, the place that sets up the dinner experience as the introduction, the part of the Kitchen that preps things for other Chefs, so that they can take the lead and shine while I support them, which is what makes me happiest.

 

I come to these Kitchens to watch and learn how to be a better teacher, but my real job is being next to a doctor who is performing a procedure, or leading the team that manages all the clinical data, or being there when a patient hears that they have cancer.  That, believe it or not, is where I am my most comfortable.  That is where I now spend Wednesdays---with patients dealing with infertility and incontinence, cancer, pelvic pain, and erectile dysfunction, which can be its own sort of performance anxiety if it is all in your head and not due to a physical cause. 

 

Maybe that is how I need to look at this.  Maybe I need to look at this situation as if it is just performance anxiety that is all in my head, just like the young guys looking for Viagra or Levitra samples at the urology clinic, even though there is no physical reason they need it. 

 

Hm.  I wonder if there is a Viagra or Levitra for Kitchen performance anxiety.  I think it’s called bourbon.  Bourbon is not allowed when working on the line, obviously, but what if I can find something that snaps me out of my head telling me I am terrible and instead can find a way to just trust myself that it will be ok.  Maybe I will bring with me a little sample of Levitra one of my doctors gave me as a joke, to keep in my pocket, to just reach for it and touch the bottle as I work through my own performance anxiety here and prove to myself and to Chef that I am not perfect, but I do ok, I perform just fine under pressure.  Hm.  This just might be the best idea I have had all day.  I am going to do this, don’t think I won’t, but promise you won’t tell Chef about it, ok?  I am going to get enough shit about what I cook today without getting a look of “What the hell did you bring into my Kitchen you crazy girl you?” from Chef.

 

The Chefs I work with are excellent---some of the best in the world, and I know that whatever I do, it will never be good enough, there will always be criticism, and that is all part of it, the experience, the hazing.  I do not feel joy or some bravado/competitive nature about this cooking for this team, even though I feel an incredibly strong urge to always take good care of them as my Chefs and teachers.  I will never impress them with my technique or skill, but feedback and coaching is what I am there for, and so I will do my best to just…perform, no matter how anxious I am.  

 

Friends, today I do not feel excited to cook, which is new for me.  I feel stupid and inadequate, but maybe, just like my patients, just knowing that in the front pocket of the medical scrubs which I wear under my Chef coat, that I will have this Levitra, this silly little token of my other world, my fearless world, right next to me, like a secret power, that I just might get through it after all, and it might turn out to be a delicious performance after all.

 

Wish me luck, Friends, because today is the day, and I only have one sample, so I’d better get it right.

 

With love from New York, soon to be Brussels Belgium,

Your Good Friend Sarah