Don't Sweat the Star Stuff

Dear Pros,

You've got Kat this week and if I get one more email or see one more headline about how summer is coming to an end, I shall scream. If we're gonna get technical, summer is on the books until the autumnal equinox on September 22 and I fully intend on eking every mote of sunny joy from it while I can.

This has been on my mind a lot — the notion of making the most of the time I have, no matter the weather or the season. That's in large part due to some generous and open conversations I've gotten to have with some chefs on the Tinfoil Swans podcast over the past few months. I haven't worked in restaurants like so many of my Food & Wine colleagues have (and you can read about some of the best things they learned from that experience here), but something I've found I do share with these folks is a tendency to be really hard on myself if I don't do things exactly right. But does beating myself up actually result in a better experience for the people around me?

Not according to Kevin Gillespie, the chef-owner of Gunshow and Nàdair in Atlanta, author of Fire in My Belly and Pure Pork Awesomeness, and Top Chef fan favorite. For much of his life, like so many of his peers, Gillespie threw himself into his work in part because he loves it, but also, he admits, in the pursuit of accolades and perfection. That worked for him — until a cancer diagnosis and brutal years of recovery completely upended his idea of what was truly important, and how he wants to spend his time.

"The study of being a chef and the pursuit of perfection is a manifested crisis. It is us making something more important than it actually is," he told me on the podcast.

"I know that there will be fellow chefs who disagree with me, 'cause in their mind it makes me sound like a cop-out. But what I mean isn't that you shouldn't strive to do your best work every single day; it should be that you can recognize the difference between what we do in our job and reality. We are pursuing a craft or an art or a passion that is meant to bring joy into people's lives. It is not meant to be accompanied with the burden that so many of us have put on ourselves to win Michelin stars, to win awards, and to somehow achieve perfection that we know doesn't exist."

The antidote, Gillespie says, is to focus on why you started doing this work in the first place.

"If you can take a step back and remember your early days, it was the joy that it brought you, and that it brought other people. To work in the service of others, to do something that has the capacity to improve people's lives. To — in that very fleeting moment — make that moment of that day better than the rest of the day has been. To manifest hospitality not so much as a nebulous concept, but in actual practice and form."

"You will make something that — even in its subtle mistakes — will be better work than when you were just toiling for perfection for the sake of perfection. And I also think that it will fulfill you on a very different level. I've got a wall full of awards. They mean very little to me. I'm thankful for the recognition, but I remember and care a lot more about the times that I have impacted people's lives positively."

Gillespie's recently-opened Nàdair is the manifestation of his hospitality vision, his love letter to his Scottish heritage, and a legacy he plans to leave to the team that's helped him create it. You can learn more about it on the episode and I imagine that like me, you'll be moved to reprioritize a few things before the end of the summer, and consider making a trip to Atlanta to experience it for yourself.

Until then, I hope you take a moment to be imperfectly happy and if you have a moment, tell me what you did to get there.

Kat