Vocabulary

Coffee, generally, is served hot. I forgot that important point for a moment and slugged back a big gulp of fresh latte. Bad move.

Anyway, I was just listening to [the radio](http://wnyc.org) where someone was making a point about how the professional music industry isn’t really in danger of extinction the way people say because someone sitting in their bedroom isn’t the same as a professional musician. What a concept.

Not every asshole with a stove is a chef. I am sick to death of the misuse of the word chef. I was looking at a resume today where someone had listed their position at one job as “chef.” If you look to the details, he was really the vegetable guy, or *entremetier.* At another place, he listed chef and was a *commis*, which is basically an apprentice. Not everyone who puts a pan on a stove is a chef. Rachel Ray is not a chef. Ditto Nigella Lawson. Neither, even, was Julia Child. A chef is a professional who runs a professional kitchen. The word is more like “Captain” than “engineer.” In German and French, and to a lesser extent Italian, the word simply means “boss.”

Having a white coat does not a chef make.