Love Letters to Chefs: Seeking stars, seeking validation - By Ishwariya Rajamohan

We are pleased to welcome, Ishariya Rajamohan, author of Love Letters to Chefs to The Staff Canteen blogger family this month.

• Click to read more from Ishwariya over on her website: Love Letters to Chefs

What does a healthy relationship with validation look like? Pastry chef and blogger at Love Letters to Chefs, Ishwariya Rajamohan considers how striving for validation in the kitchen, whether this is a Michelin star or a simple compliment helps with motivation or if this simply contributes to increased pressure?

The quest for Michelin stars

Even though we’re shocked by stories of chefs returning their Michelin stars, we have to appreciate how much courage it takes to decline what everyone in the industry covets. And while it might appear that they’ve lost something, this is the reward they’ve gained from taking that risk: the power that comes from standing in your truth.

This is not to dishonour the masterful work of those chefs who meet the standards that Michelin celebrates. But you know you’ve arrived when you don’t need someone else to validate you. It’s perfectly human to want approval and affirmation for what we do.

Ratings, criticisms and reviews, oh my!

Even a simple compliment means so much because kitchens totally isolate us from the impact of our work. But it’s our relationship with validation that we need to review: when we hand someone our self-esteem on a plate. Ratings, reviews and food criticism give us much-needed recognition and visibility, hold us to higher standards and motivate us, but they’re essentially judgements. What they place value on is how the customer spends their money.

They’re not really telling the whole story about our food. But how did we get to a place where we give so much weight to those judgements that they influence our identities and how we think and act? When we’re young, meeting the approval of teachers and parents means safety or a reward. But that demands walking on eggshells and not really being who we are most of the time.