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February 20 - February 28, 2025
'Doogie, you syphilitic, whitebread, mayonnaise-eating, Jimmy Sear-ass wannabe — next time you slip a special order in without checking with me first? Me and Carlos gonna punch two holes in your neck and bump dicks in the middle!'
By now, my stomach is a roiling hell broth of suppressed frustration, nervous energy, caffeine and alcohol.
Most important, Steven, suddenly and inexplicably, became the sort of person who, when he says he's going to do a thing, does it. This, more than anything else, is the essence of sous-chefdom. With Steven around, I no longer had to come in in the morning and say, 'Did you take care of that thing?' The thing was always taken care of.
these are two guys who should never have been allowed in a room together. When they're together, a sort of supernova of stupidity occurs, a critical mass of bad behavior.
He's an ingratiating bastard — totally without pretense, and you cannot embarrass, shame or insult him. He knows how bad he is.
My vato locos are, like most line cooks, practitioners of that centuries-old oral tradition in which we — all of us — try to find new and amusing ways to talk about dick. Homophobic, you say? Sub-mental? Insensitive to gender preference, and the gorgeous mosaic of an ethnically diverse work force? Gee . . . you might be right. Does a locker-room environment like this make it tougher for women, for instance? Yep. Most women, sadly. But what the system seeks, what it requires, is someone, anyone, who can hold up their station, play the game without getting bent out of shape and taking things
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Why do I, a fairly educated sort of a swine, take such unseemly pleasure in the guttural utterances of my largely uneducated, foul-mouthed crews? Why, over the years, have my own language skills become so crude and offensive that at family Christmas I have to struggle to not say, 'Pass the fuckin' turkey, cocksucker'? I dunno. But I do love it.
Externs from culinary school, working for free as a 'learning experience' — which by itself translates to 'lots of work and no money' — are quickly tagged as FNG (Fucking New Guy), or Mel for mal carne (bad meat).
Half of what comes out of his mouth is utter bullshit — the rest, suspicious at best.
I don't know, you see, how a normal person acts. I don't know how to behave outside my kitchen. I don't know the rules. I'm aware of them, sure, but I don't care to observe them anymore because I haven't had to for so many years.
If there was any justice in this world, I would have been a dead man at least two times over. By this, I mean simply that many times in my life the statistical probabilities of a fatal outcome have been overwhelming thanks to my sins of excess and poor judgment and my inability to say no to anything that sounded as if it might have been fun. By all rights I should have been, at various times: shot to death, stabbed to death, imprisoned for a significant period of time, or at very least, victimized by a casaba-sized tumor.
You are, for all intents and purposes, entering the military. Ready yourself to follow orders, give orders when necessary, and live with the outcome of those orders without complaint. Be ready to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
This business grows assholes: it's our principal export. I'm an asshole. You should probably be an asshole too.
Under 'Reasons for Leaving Last Job', never give the real reason, unless it's money or ambition.
People confuse me. Food doesn't.
My bosses, however, when they read this, will really prove themselves patrons of the arts if they don't can me right away.
I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
