Opportunities?

I've just been offered a chance to run my own kitchen again. It's a small cafe. Lunch crowd. Steady dinners, weekend breakfasts. I turned them down. The idea of being the boss is tempting. The whole making 'my food' bullshit. But I don't want to be called a chef because I am the boss. I want to be called chef because I have mastered a cuisine. I don't want to be another substanceless dandy like so many media friendly chefs talking about 'their food', 'their philosophy'. I still have too much to learn. I still am capable of making bad food and bad food decisions. I still don't have an encyclopedic index of recipes in my head. I still don't command all the techniques I want to. Of course I still don't have benefits, I still don't make enough money. A chef position would provide that, to some extent. Yet I have gotten along so far. The other reservation I always have about turning these things down is the fear that opportunities won't arise again. I went through such a horrible streak of restaurant closures, bad scenarios, unemployment etc. that I worry that these things won't come around again. Of course the reality is that this is, hopefully, the tip of the iceberg. That my skills and value in a kitchen are just know becoming evident and that I am a commodity. It's still tough. It's been a long uncertain road, and those promises of stability are definitely alluring.