Dear Eeyore --
I feel your pain -- literally.
I quit a restaurant kitchen job (line cook) rather impetuously when I realized that I just couldn't keep up any more. Of course I regretted it. What I didn't realize was the reason I couldn't keep up was that I was starting to go through menopause! Boy oh boy, did that mess up my ability to concentrate.
I'm through that now, but out of kitchens. What did I do? I took inventory of my skills, looked at how I could use them, took a few Continuing Education courses, and now I work for myself, getting hired by publishers to fix cookbooks (make sure the spelling and grammar are correct, that the recipes are written properly, etc.). I'm still in food, I'm using everything I ever learned, and I love what I'm doing. Best of all, I can do it, sitting at home, until they carry me out feet first.
But think about what jessiquina said: there are a lot of other jobs where you can use your food skills and a lot of other skills you may not even realize you have.
Birmingham is not a tiny town; there are probably hotels where you might have a reasonable schedule if you want to stay in the kitchen. But there are a lot of other kinds of businesses that could use your food knowledge. There might be food distributors: how are your organizational and/or selling skills? Distributors LOVE to have representatives who actually know the products and can talk to other chefs. Are you a good supervisor? There are schools, hospitals, and other institutions that need kitchen managers. Probably some food manufacturers that need managers. And, of course, there's teaching at the avocational level, in high schools, tech schools, Continuing Ed, and for any number of institutions.
Don't sell yourself short. There's a whole big world of food outside the restaurant kitchen, just begging for you!
