Why I cook
The culinary mind behind SMOKE Black Mountain cooks for a living and lives to cook
Brian Hough
Guest columnist
The Valley Echo
January 21, 2020
Brian Hough, the general manager of SMOKE Black Mountain and Black Mountain Kitchen + Ale House, has worked in the restaurant industry for more than 20 years. Photo by Fred McCormick
As the smell of SMOKE Black Mountain wafts along Broadway Avenue, Brian Hough reflects on why he cooks for a living. The general manager of SMOKE and Black Mountain Kitchen + Ale House, formerly the executive chef at the Biltmore Estate and Sierra Nevada Taproom and Restaurant, is behind the new menus at both eateries. The food truck, adjacent to Black Mountain Brewing, unveiled its menu of smoked meats and vegetables — including smoked lobster rolls; smoked mushroom, arugula and provolone paninis and smoked duck pastrami — earlier this month. For more information or to view the full menu at SMOKE Black Mountain, visit the website here.
It is no surprise to me that Irma S. Rombauer, the author of one of the world’s most widely read cookbooks, The Joy of Cooking, was never a professional cook. In fact, it is a widely accepted “open secret” that she wasn’t a particularly good cook for a large portion of her life. It often occurs to me that only a person who doesn’t cook professionally would be able to title a book The Joy of Cooking without a tremendous amount of sarcasm.
As someone who has spent the better part of two decades cooking for a living, I can tell you that being a chef, like most jobs out there these days, sucks a lot of the time. I constantly find myself asking the question, “Why do I do this to myself every day?”
It’s not the money. I have been an executive chef at a few prestigious places and the pay was middle-middle-class — as opposed to upper-middle-class — at best. It never got me that villa in Italy I always wanted.
The hours are terrible. Usually the work days are at least 12 hours, and many of those hours take place in the evening, when loved ones have finished their work for the day. When they have a moment they text you all the little details about what you’re missing out on while you’re working.
Holidays aren’t a real thing for restaurant people either. Those are the days when the public needs restaurants most, so they can talk about food with their in-laws, a change from the usual politics or the housing market or the proper way to raise their children. The work is exhausting, hot, painful and scar-inducing. It feels very much like an endless cycle of lovingly building a beautiful house only to watch it be devoured each night by the people you built it for. And when they’ve finished devouring it, you start the process of building it all over again.
So why do I do it? Why would anyone do it?
Because food, like all the other great things in life, is extremely personal. It is transformative. From the lowliest cheese fry to the perfect sauce, how we taste it, how we feel about it and what it evokes and diminishes in all those nooks and crannies of our existence are all very specific to who we are.
Maybe it reminds us of our mother. Maybe it reminds us that we’re going to propose to our partner tonight with a ring in a glass of champagne — yep, people still do that all the time — and it’s important that we order a dish we’ll remember for all eternity along with the moment our partner says “yes.” It will likely be equally as memorable if our partner says “no.”
Maybe someone is a little bored with life and kind of sad about it, and they want something to be excited about – and picking an item from the menu I have written for that night might do the trick, and they’ll forget for just a second about what can feel like the oppression of existence and the feeling that life sometimes doesn’t seem to mean very much without something delicious and new to taste.
SMOKE Black Mountain, which specializes in smoked meats and vegetables, launched earlier this month behind Black Mountain Brewing. Photo by Fred McCormick
Or maybe someone feels incredibly alone even when they’re surround by others, and their emotions are lifted because they took a delicious bite of whatever combination of sauce was paired with whatever the main ingredient was that night, with the assistance of a handful of underpaid cooks who made this person feel like part of a community that often relies on food to feel better.
No matter what the reason may be that people go out to eat, what I do for a living offers a distraction from all those nasty tidbits of life that get us down, that rob us of excitement, creativity, hope and yes, even joy. Food needs us as much as we need food.
Food is powerful because we use it during the occasions that have the most power for us. It can change our entire day. When we celebrate life, food is most often there. When we gather with family and friends for the holidays, we gather around a table. When a person’s whole world has just been shattered by the loss of someone they love, we bring them food.
And, when there’s a worldwide pandemic that makes us question everything we thought we knew about our lives, food is still there to remind us that even in times of uncertainty and fear, there is still something that can bring us comfort.
I don’t have many gifts. I never excelled at sports. I’m not the best student, friend, hugger, listener or entertainer. I’m not the one people call for sympathy or advice. I’ll never learn the skills needed to heal the sick or educate the uneducated.
Brian Hough, the culinary mind behind SMOKE Black Mountain, explains why he cooks for a living and lives to cook. Photo by Fred McCormick
But, somewhere in between cooking for a living and living to cook I discovered that food is something that I can do, and that little discovery, whether I like it all the time or not, brings me joy most of the time.
That’s why I have to stop typing now and get my day started. That’s why I’m hungry right now and I have a sandwich in mind that might make it on the menu. Regardless of how my day goes and how I feel about it, someone is going to order that sandwich – and maybe it will make their day a little better.
I do it because it’s the best I can do.