Melinda Dorn

We need the skills to succeed at both. I spent 30 years focusing on food, food cost, and bottom lines. I have a lot of catching up to do on how to be a human being in service to other people, in a more meaningful way.

Being a chef doesn't have to mean working on a line every day until you die. Chefs are influencers and activators. Whether an army of one or the leader of a cultural movement, the choices a chef makes can challenge stigma, break old destructive work patterns, redesign entire food systems, and make sustainability about more than just picking the right produce and meat purveyor.

take the chance. Apply for the job you're not sure you are qualified for. Taking a job you are sure you can do will lead to stagnation. Unless you are making the safe decision out of dire necessity or to be able to nurture a separate passion project, lean into the discomfort and uncertainty, then aim high.

Human beings are wired for connection, and lately I see that there are many ways to achieve this that don't rely on food or drink.

Healthy folks are teachable. I look at what sort of self-care or rejuvenation practices folks have in place to prevent burnout to measure whether they understand their own boundaries so I can trust they'll respect mine. I'm looking to see what sort of relationships they have outside of work, so I know they won't become morbidly dependent on the workplace for providing all of their social, financial, physical, spiritual, or occupational needs. I'm not buying a piece of equipment, I'm hiring a whole human being.

As well as other chefs and thought leaders who are trying to make the restaurant industry a safer and saner place to be. Folks like Maria Campbell, Tristin Rogers, and Zia Sheik, Hassel Aviles, Lauren Paylor, Mickey Bakst and Patrick Mulvaney.

As for cookbooks I’ve found essential to my career, I would run into a burning house to save my copy of Wayne Gisslen's “Professional Baking” (2nd Edition) and Dornenberg and Page's “Culinary Artistry”.