[Sca-cooks] Rant: And speaking of cooking equipment...

Michael Gunter countgunthar at hotmail.com
Tue Apr 3 11:45:36 PDT 2007


>     Sorry once you made your living in any field of craftmanship.Being
>referred to as a hobbyist is personally down grading at best.

I really think it depends on your viewpoint. I have made my living
cooking for people. If I still did that by working as a chef,
catering, writing books, or even if I spent most of my working career
as one of these then maybe I would still consider myself a professional.
But I don't get any money for my cookery anymore. I can have a
professional attitude about my cooking and teach classes and all of that
but now I'm a hobbyist.

I also think what Master Adamantius was partially ranting about is the
fact that cooking shouldn't be an "expensive hobby". With decent gear
that lasts a while you should be able to make pretty much any dish in
a professional manner. $400 stock pots are the results of the industry
taking advantage of these new enthusiastic real hobbyists thinking they
have to have the very best of everything in order to justify their lack of
real world experience.

My great-grandmother's 150 year old skillet/dutch oven combo cooks
better than the best All-Clad. Lodge gear, when properly seasoned, is
about the best cooking stuff you can find and is very cheap. Of course
I would love to have a set of Le Cruset or All-Clad because it DOES cook
well. I'm also looking to spend far too much money on a very nice chef's
knife. But I don't have to have the very best and latest titanium/copper/
diamond encrusted cookware that Rachel Ray is schilling for me to consider
myself a cook.

I think that may have been a part of Master A's rant that we overlooked.

>  I would hesitate to add some one out there among your friends in the 
>feast
>hall is paying for it. So does that make feast a hobby or professional
>situation ?or maybe some where in between?

But I don't make money when I cook a feast, in fact, I often spend a
bit of my own cash. They may pay to cover expenses and maybe benefit
the group hosting the feast. But I get nothing out of it other than the
satisfaction of using my art to make people happy.

Therefore, I'm still a hobbyist who shares with 100 - 500 of my closest 
friends.

>  Cealian

Gunthar

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