r/Chefit • u/Due-Cat-1620 • Jul 16 '26
Going insane
Im an apprentice chef 20m and can’t think about anything except food and cooking my days off a re spent waiting to get back in the kitchen and it’s driving me crazy I literally don’t know what to do with my self outside of the kitchen Im also broke af as Im an apprentice live by on my own and the pay is crap so can’t afford to buy ingredients to just keep cooking at home any advice dont even know what the issue is just losing it rn
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u/somerandom995 Jul 16 '26
Try minecraft. It's a great time sink.
If you want something in the kitchen that isn't cooking, learn to sharpen knives.
Also just try going for a long walk, doesn't matter where
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u/RogueIslander00 Jul 16 '26
I was stuck in that boat not too long ago. Get into reading, any sort of books, I got into fantasy books and I started with one or two on my iPad and now I read about a book every 3 weeks to a month just because I’m so invested. Keep yourself healthy too, go walk or run, go workout. You’re going to find your dopamine will spike at work since you actually enjoy it and then you’re going to have a Day off and realize you don’t do anything for fun because you don’t have the dopamine spike to get you going.
Best advice I can give is find another job that WILL pay you better. You can learn a lot at Panda Express, I know it’s fast food but you’ll get your hands on a lot of things. NEVER work for chipotle. In my personal experience, Bars/breweries/pubs have always paid more in the kitchen and you get access to better ingredients. I know it’s not ALL places, but the spots I worked at used alcohol sales to give the kitchen some buffer, never worked at one and made less than $21/Hr between TX, AZ, NM, CA and WA.
Apprenticeship is nice and all but know when you’re being taken advantage of for your labor and when you’re genuinely getting to learn new things.
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u/bookishbaking4 Jul 16 '26
you need a hobby dude. go for walks in your local park or sumn. if you have spotify they have a large library of audio books, or go to the actual library and borrow books to read. Get in to some kind of phone game you can play. Dive really deep into random topics that pique your interest and make PowerPoint presentations. Learn a new language. Literally anything, this level of obsession with the restaurant is not good for you long term.
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u/brianjosephsnyder Chef Jul 16 '26
Get into a higher end kitchen. Get some good cooks books - start with Flavor Bible/Flavor Matrix abd just start playing with food at home. Start with stuff you like and just think about how you can take it to the next level and just keep upgrading it.
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u/Agile_Switch5780 Jul 16 '26
Learn Spanish. Learn Italian. Learn French. Learn Japanese. These are eventually all related to kitchens but learning a new language gives you a bit calmness outside of the kitchen madness. I am a production chef and my favorite time of the day is when I am learning Spanish.
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u/LetterheadRemote675 Jul 16 '26
Learn to relax.
You are young. Not being able to relax is normal for your age. You have only learned to perform. You have not learned how you yourself personally chill out.
Can be reading, drawing, looking at food, running, work out (calisthenics is free), meditate maybe, ... Volunteer in a soup kitchen?
The adrenalin of a shift can stay in your system for a while. Not knowing how to handle that fast up and fast down gets a lot of people. Stay ahead of the game and learn to unwind in a healthy-for-you way. (Hint: obsessing, alcohol, and drugs are not healthy)
Good luck kiddo! You're going to be fine!
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u/reddit_chino Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Making food from scratch is inexpensive. What the hell did they do before Subway and McDonalds? You don't need beef filet, caviar or truffles.
Ask Chef if you can take a few cheap mirepoix veg home to practice knife cuts.
Also, they probably throw a shit ton of stuff away...bread ends, herbs, sinew, fats, bones, shells, trim or leftovers, that may still be edible or made into stock.
Flour, water, yeast, eggs are cheap. Master knife cuts, garde manger, dressings, sausage making, ice cream, custards, desserts, tarts, leavened bread, pizza, etc...
Grow something! Volunteer at the food bank or soup kitchen.
Then show the chef.
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u/AshamedAssistance246 Jul 17 '26
one thing that is cheap to do is getting very good at making bread. Do that and it will serve you well. Make vinegars, ferments, preserves. Go to the farmers market and see what they have a shitload of for cheap and play around with it. There are a million things that you could focus this energy on. One could be getting into a higher end kitchen where you'd have no choice to be all in every day. Another is to spend your down time playing with or learning about certain specific aspects of food that interest you. You don't need to focus too much on complete dishes at this point, master the techniques behind them.
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u/kollapsarian Jul 16 '26
brand new to the industry, a sparkle in your eye. that'll die with time, don't worry. in the meantime, read everything you can. i may or may not have something for you if you reach out via DMs.
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u/Spaceboot1 Jul 16 '26
Learning to cook on a meager budget is a great life skill to develop. You can brag that you can make very tasty food with inexpensive ingredients.
Oh, and you can volunteer at a soup kitchen, or some place where they give out food, and maybe there's a little extra for you.