An individual still supporting his family via the fishwrap industry (I know) asked if I thought the Rocco piece in last week's DI/DO was more torch and hatchet or kneepads and chapstick (I may be paraphrasing). Evidently, both responses have been popular. I have not folowed Rocco's career closely, and don't watch reality TV, but on perusal and reflection, I have to say my inclination is to neither. By all accounts, Rocco is a talented chef. The question the article raises is if it is incumbent on someone blessed with talent to manifest that talent in the realm where it manifests itself, or if it is acceptable to leverage that talent to pursue a more nebulous, and more lucrative prominence, in other areas, such as Dancing with the Stars. The discourse around chefs treats the talent like an artistic one, but I am not sure that that is the right analogy. We could condemn a great chef for screwing around on reality TV shows in the same way we might lament Caruso's late-career foray into yodelling, as similar wastes of talent, but I'm not sure if that's fair. Being an actual chef in an actual restaurant is actual hard physically demanding work, and repetitive in a way that other arts are not. A more apt analogy might be to a boxer or running back who quits while they still have possession of their faculties. In any event, it's not clear what obligation Rocco has to people who would like to eat food he might cook, if he stopped supporting himself in less demanding ways.
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