Settle down

My husband became a hotel chef for us.  Lily was a toddler and I was newly pregnant after two miscarriages and I think he just did not want to put in the hours and energy anymore.  He wanted to spend time with his family, something he'd dreamed about for years.  Lily was so young and adored him and it was difficult to spend so many hours apart.  There just wasn't enough money in running his own business that justified his being out of the house for so many hours of the day. 


I knew that it would be difficult to take the joy he found in creating recipes, executing ideas, and working with a team of young cooks, from him but I also saw that he was tired.  Never did I expect that we would come to Barbados and see him worked to the bone.


He'd spent years training in France and came to New York 20 or so years ago and worked for and with some of the best chefs in the business.  He is a good man and a good chef and anyone who has worked with him in the past can attest to that.  Self-promotion was definitely not his bag and I think he suffered for appearing aloof at times, when in fact, he is just quite shy and disciplined.  I have an overwhelming sense of guilt when I see him suffer the bureaucratic nightmare that is his job right now.  True, at the New York hotel where he served as Executive Chef there were union issues and red tape, company protocol and answering to a higher authority, something to which many chefs are unaccustomed, but somehow, that was not enough to prepare for this chaos.

In the heat of the Caribbean sun, he is working in a kitchen without air-conditioning, with no real inventory controls, and a staff of untrained cooks.  He has no sous chef and works long, grueling hours, with little acknowledgement of his efforts.  He is suffering for us and I would be blind not to see it.

Somewhere in the quest to find suburban, middle class success, we have forgotten that we are artists.  We have that sensibility and want our kids to have it as well.  Maybe in this day and age, for most, it is impossible to chase that dream and "settling" is not only the norm, but encouraged by your family and friends.

Didier had a successful little restaurant back home and we loved being a part of that family.  Here, not only have I have not been well received by the executive team, but I think they do not realize what they have in this incredible, talented man who slaves more than 12 hours a day for them.  It is because of this, that when I find myself taking care of the girls alone and the house alone and being left alone for hours and hours, I don't want to nag him for some peace of my own...because I encouraged him to do this so that we could be more secure...and I have never felt worse.

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