I’m so glad Top Chef’s new season is on. I look forward to this show the way I looked forward to Lakers’ games back when the only day of the week you could see NBA basketball was on Sunday afternoons and during playoff season. And for much the same reason.
Cooking is the adult version of the professional athlete dream. Every kid wants to be a professional athlete. At least every kid I knew when I was little. We all thought we could make it too. As we grew up, everyone’s delusion was burst at one point or another. Some got fat, some never grew… I realized I was a lazy bastard. The last dream went poof just after the best basketball player I ever set foot on a court with got shot in a nightclub about six hours after he signed his college letter-of-intent.
What I’ve realized watching Top Chef is that the dream of being really incredibly good at something never dies. I watch these people cook things that I’ve never dreamed of and think, “Maybe I should go to culinary school.” Nevermind that I favor meals that can be cooked in one pot. Nevermind that I have yet to figure out what you do with these leeks that seem to go in every dish. Nevermind that I have not once roasted anything that I can recall. If I only put my mind to it, I too could be hanging with Padma and Tom… not to mention Gail Simmons (but let’s leave my mousey brunette fetish out of this).
It’s nice to realize that dreams of the extraordinary never really die. They just reshape themselves into new delusions of grandeur. I don’t think these are bad things. I think they are what keep us pushing on to do great things. And that can’t be anything but good.
Oh and because no mention of Top Chef should be without one. Here’s a picture of Padma.
