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I'm not entirely sure I want to cook anymore. I like cooking, but honestly, I look around, and I see people like me are sous chefs, I know a couple of chefs, and then the field disappears-- what happens to all of those driven, talented, ambitious cooks who worked their way up the ladder for a bit? Is it really such a huge gap between sous chef and

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Most of the chefs I've talked to either go into catering, teaching or open their own restaurant. The work is less back-breaking and it tends to pay better.

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I still feel like there are a lot of 'unaccounted-for' cooks in the world. That would be an interesting livejournal/project: Life after restaurants.
Hm...

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Certainly a lot of cooks move on to different careers entirely!

Have you ever used a wok as a mini-smoker to smoke fish? I'm thinking about picking one up just for this purpose but am a bit concerned about smoking up the kitchen.

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I've only ever used 3 hotel pans! 6 inch with the fuel, 4 inch perforated with the food (lube the heck out of that one!), and 2 inch to cap. Depending on what you want, a wok could work really well. Smoking to a full cook would be easiest, but if you were doing something like a finnan haddie, where you wanted the smoke flavor, not the heat, it could get tricky. Without a strong hood/vent system, I imagine that the project indoors would be a pretty soky endeavor. Hmmm.... I will have to chew on this one, but the best advice I can give is to use flavorful fuel with a low smoke point (corn husks etc.)

Oh, and Cook's Illustrated recommends oven-smoking things using Lapsang Souchon, a powerfully smoked tea that smoulders at a low temp. Ever since the housefire though, my taste for smoked goods is spotty at best. A little is ok, but things like tea-smoked duck make me cough and spit out a bit :)