Chefs and Corn Dogs

Last night, I went to the Monday Night Football game with some friends—Ouch! That Steelers run defense is for real!— and once we got into the stadium, somehow the talk turned to food, which is a little odd, because we just finished tailgating in the parking lot and were well and truly sated.

One of the guys started talking about how nice a corn dog would be with his beer, and then he turned to me and said, "I guess since you're a chef, you don't eat junk food." And this, just after we finished downing tequila-lime chicken wings and pizza roll stuffed with Reuben sandwich ingredients.

Is that how the rest of the world thinks of us? I know that almost nobody will invite a chef to dinner because the food couldn't possibly be good enough. Did you know that most good chefs are omnivores? And that we appreciate any food that we did not have to cook? And that on our salaries (our lack therof), a free meal is a free meal? And that on our day off, the last thing we want to eat is restaurant food?

Come on, I'm the guy who used to spoof corn dogs on our tapas menu by dipping diminiutive Surry sausages into blue corn and Hatch chile batter, frying them, and then serving them with local maple syrup.

So, yeah, that corn dog with my beer sounds just great!