Same with me, Ricky…a cook…a good cook after many years. I have had complaints that have been legit, and others not so much. Some people just don’t like certain things. I do enjoy the presentation part most of the time. Cooking’s always been both fun and therapeutic for me from a very young age. Never would consider myself a chef and would define it the same as you. That being said, my husband calls me ”Chef.”👩🏼‍🍳🥰

The definition of a chef is that of a professional cook in charge of food production for a commercial kitchen - a restaurant, hotel, resort, hospital, etc. They may have had a formal culinary education or they may have learned as an apprentice, moving up through the ranks. IOW, they are paid to do what they do. If you cook only at home or for friends and family then regardless of your skill level, you are only a cook.

I think of chef the same way as you -- formally trained (culinary school or apprenticeship or both). I'd also add that in addition to that, I view chefs as seeking to elevate food to its highest potential, employing their creativity to stretch the boundaries of what can be done with it -- approaching it like art, in a sense.

I am a cook. DH is a chef. But he does like my cooking. :0)

The word ”chef” literally means boss. Same as ”chief”. So chef is in charge and gives orders. When the minions are here, I get to be the chef. :) I also know scads more about cooking, design the menu, create dishes and all that folderol. But I don't ever call myself that, or think of myself that way. I'm just me, cooking.

Same here. I'm a good Cook and folks enjoy my meals. I create, alter, and design food, meals, etc. I like to experiment and try new things. Occasionally I try to make one of my Grandmother's recipes. I will work at it over time to finally get what I think is what she originally made.

The closest I ever came to formal training was a 3-times course for how to properly use those new-fangled Cuisinarts Food Processors - 40 years ago. (I still have that same FP and it was a workhorse in the 80s.)

Jaques deserves the title, many don't.

I am now a VERY reluctant cook. I used to enjoy it and I do think I am good, but there are only two of us. The other half will eat about 6 or 7 things, maybe, if he is in the mood to eat, lol.

Oh definitely a cook. I have been in charge of cooking at a restaurant in the past, but I was a teenager at the time and it was quite informal, so I was really just a cook then as well.

How about a third category? Maestro? I can't think of Ann T and 2ManyDiversions (whom I miss every time I pop into this forum) as just cooks. For me they've always been in a different league.

And me? Just a bumbling cook with rare moments of grace and far less rare moments of disgrace :)

Personally - I am a Home Cook. No degree, no training, other than watching my parents cook and considering foods they may never have made, as well. I didn't always get to watch the two of them cook - our kitchens were generally small, and both worked together -- But i look at cookbooks and the better You Tube videos. And I go by some of my own tastes - some "chefs" have decided that dumping a bolus carpload of salt on a piece of meat amounts to cooking. BLEAH.

When I worked in a restaurant in San Francisco, my boss called me a pastry chef, but I'm sure he used the term loosely. I really don't care about titles for myself - I care about results.

However, I do find it annoying when watching cooking shows and the host and guest call each other "chef" instead of their names - it comes off as pretentious, and it does not impress me.

The worst offender is Ming Tsai, and I used to like him. However, he has a lot of idiosyncrasies in language that rub me the wrong way, and so I haven't watched him for several years. He always says veg or veggies instead of vegetable or vegetables, and just once I would like to hear him say "vegetable." It's not that difficult, and if one is going to use formal titles like "chef," then vegetables should be respected as well - at least occasionally. "Veggies" sounds too much like extremely casual slang. Anyway, there are other TV personalities that I can watch instead who annoy me less.

I frequently turn off a TV show if the presenter says "vinegarette." Anyone who uses that word definitely does not qualify as a chef in my book. A lot of times French and Italian words are mispronounced, and I usually just cringe when I hear that. I tend to gravitate towards watching people who are fluent in Italian or French, but then I really like Italian food. I also like Pati Jinich, and she speaks Spanish with a Mexico City accent, which is the way I learned it. Listening to her reminds me of being in Polanco, which is where I usually stayed and is where she grew up. I've also exchanged email and messages with her.

I'm an OK cook, and nowhere near a chef, but I dislike the phrase "just a cook".

One man I was teaching announced that his wife made food, implying that she could just about boil pasta whereas he said HE was a COOK!