Chef’s Widow

No, he doesn’t rustle up gourmet meals for me every night, he cooks maybe once a year, if that. He’s never home to cook.

If he does cook it’s more likely to be instant noodles than some little fancy whatnot. The pay isn’t great either, we’ll never be rich.

His perpetual and unpredictable absence is one of the reasons we eventually quit the rat race to travel the world. Likewise homeschooling works well for us. School timetables, weekly and termly, just don’t fit with chef’s hours.

What It’s Like To Be a Chef’s Widow

5 reasons chefs don’t cook at home.

• Chefs are always in work.
• Chefs have had enough of cooking by the time they get home.
• Chefs are unable to use domestic kitchen equipment and flounder around helplessly cursing pans for not being hot enough.
• Chefs do not go to the fridge and decide to rustle up something quick with a bit of broccoli and a lump of week old Stilton. They can’t function without ready made pots of stock and every ingredient known to mankind within easy reach.
• I don’t let him, he’s messy and very uneconomical and it’s my budget he’d be blowing, not the hotel’s.

Actually, 6, he likes my cooking.

The reality of being married to a chef

• I see very little of him.
• He has 1, sometimes 2, days off a week and they are unpredictable, erratic  and rarely on the weekend.
• Shifts and hours are subject to change at very short notice. ” I’ll be back at 9pm” can often turn into well past midnight depending on staffing, awkward customers, equipment failures and punctured bike tires on the way home.
• I am sometimes woken at 3am by phone calls from the hotel when the breakfast chef hasn’t turned up. He usually goes in to cover this sort of emergency, even on his day off.
• He works Christmas Day and New Year, every year. He will be working while the world is partying.

This is why they call us chef’s widows.

But, honestly, I rather enjoy being a chefs widow, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that, so we really appreciate it when he is home. The boys scream and shout ” Daddy!!! ” and hurl themselves in his general direction if they hear his key in the door.

Perks of being a chef’s widow.

There are perks, we have to go into the hotel on his days off and pay surprise visits to check that everything is running smoothly and the food is as it should be when he’s not around. That goes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, across two restaurants. That’s a lot of top notch free food and the boys are learning so much about the culinary world and how hotels run. They are so proud to go to “Dad’s work”.

We usually stay at the hotel over Christmas, it’s the only way we can spend any time with Dad on Christmas Day. He has time for opening presents in the morning and takes a couple of hours off in the afternoon between lunch and dinner to swim and play with us. His current hotel is lush! We get a rather splendid lunch which I don’t have to cook myself and I have time to relax in the pool with a mojito. The boys are rather too accustomed to 5 star luxury and huge resort pools, it’s their norm, their Christmas tradition. I don’t think they’d like a good old fashioned Christmas like I used to know.

There are other foodie treats, like visiting local dairies and trying all the cheeses, the red carpet is always rolled out for such a potentially big customer. Discounts for hotel stays and food come in handy too, we once did a driving tour of the States, he was working for a big international chain then so we never paid for a hotel.

Another perk that only Australian ladies will appreciate. I’ve met Manu!

Perks aside, I like a bit of solitude, I’m more than content to get early nights 5-6 days a week and not have to worry about other adults and their plans. I’m a bit of an introvert and like my own company. I can’t be bothered to socialize much these days, I certainly wouldn’t want to go out without the boys, we don’t do baby sitters. Net result, we don’t have a social life. That would come as a huge surprise to those that know me from way back. I can go to bed with a book at the same time as the children, often all in the same bed, all with our books. It makes us a very tightly knit little group.

So, no, I don’t complain about being a chef’s widow. Some do, there are an awful lot of divorced chefs out there.

I knew he was a chef when I met him and the hours have, if anything, become easier as he has gained seniority. Juggling two careers was tricky in the early days, I worked 9 to 5 and he just didn’t, but we got through those years and the years of early parenthood and childcare.

I think our shared goals have always been a help, both of us knowing we were working hard to take us closer to a dream. The homeschooling obviously helps, the kids are always around on Dad’s days off and we can take holidays outside of weekends and school holidays which are, of course, his busiest times.

So yes, I’m a chef’s widow.  I can honestly say I’m quite happy to be one.