Jobs and Food

Food is one of those things that instills passion. . . obnoxiously so!

A year ago I spent an evening at an event where the internationally acclaimed Canadian Chef, Susur Lee, was hosting a special dinner. I really enjoyed the meal, and the company; conversation never dropped, even when one of our dining companions swung her arms backwards, perhaps a little too exhuberantly, contacting a tray of Champagne designed to accompany the fourth of nine courses that, until that point, a waiter had successfully navigated from the bar six tables away.

And then to my right I heard someone ask "and what is the smear?".

Now, to that point in my life I had only associated the word "smear" with things that invariably led to some degree of clean-up. I wasn't even aware that "smear" was a noun, let alone one that described a culinary technique. But such is Passion - it invokes visceral feelings that . . . that can create new words.

Passion drives behaviour. A few months back I had a great opportunity to do something new that offered the added benefit of feeding my passion for food. I was fed fuel for five months before reality emerged and the whole thing came crashing down.

In 1994 my work took me to Singapore. This was a food epiphany for me - I went exploring one evening alone and ended up in a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant where the cook just kept bringing me food. The food was native to Nonya Baba - which was entirely new to me - and something I would not have experienced unless work had taken me there.

But passion also drives sacrifice - you make trade-offs for things you love. The idea of exploring new food adventures, discovering that Nonya Baba experience, or walking through the evening markets in KL - risking eight hours of booth duty in 20 minute intermissions so you can process the previous evening's satay samplings is something for which I would pay alot.

So, whatever the reason for killing one opportunity, another one arises - and there's nothing that's going to come between me and my passion a second time around.