Tag: culinary

Don’t Write What You Know, Write What You Feel

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In an interview with Esther Davidowitz, the food editor of the Bergen Record recently I mentioned that I approached my culinary creations as way to express my writing passion. She asked me to explain but I had never really thought about it I just always did so I gave it some consideration. I had a passion for writing since I can remember and I developed a passion for food because of that passion. Creative energy flowed through me into the dishes I created much like it did from my pen when I was young. When I was a young lad I carried a spiral notepad around with me and wrote whenever I felt I needed to express something. Truth is I have had no formal writing education. Yea I know, hard to believe until you actually read what I write and then it becomes painfully obvious. But then again it worked to my advantage because I had no structured rules to follow I just write how I feel. I don’t write to be right I write to be me. I write to release burning creative energy that constantly bounces around inside my brain looking for an escape hatch. So how does that relate to the career path of chefdom I roamed through? Well let me write you about it.

From the very second I came out of the womb I wanted to be different. When the doctor smacked my ass I didn’t cry, I laughed. Okay maybe a bit of a stretch, I don’t actually remember my coming out party but I was there. The real point is from a very young age I enjoyed disregarding the rules and practicing the art of uniqueness. I didn’t just color outside the lines, I made up my own lines. I added things that didn’t belong and used unrealistic colors, like green suns or purple trees. I wanted to color my own way. For me, that was art. When I went to school and entered my first art class it was painfully clear my talents where limited to making Ducco cement balls and really interesting stick figures. A future back windshield artist for young families aside, I had no apparent talent in art class at all. I couldn’t draw the most basic of structures. In fact I failed penmanship up until the third grade. Still I had an urge to create so I stuck to writing, illegible though it was. I started out writing silly poems. My idol at the time was Hallmark, because the poems in his cards were spectacular.

When I got to junior high school I took typing for three reasons. First the penmanship issue, second I knew it would help me in my writing, and third and most important it was full of girls. I failed typing because I focused too much on the third advantage but I had a fantastic year and the long term what little I did retain from typing class would help in the years to come. I was still writing, the poems took on a bit more maturity, politics began to form, and I started testing the waters of short story writing. In high school I had an assignment of writing a short story so I had an advantage. I actually wanted to do the assignment. I went with the tale of a couple of youths with liquid LSD robbing a cop car and losing the LSD when they crashed the car into a reservoir. The reservoir it turned out fed the towns water supply and all the families began tripping. It really wasn’t very good or well written and I feared the content would land me a visit with the principal and perhaps even a shrink, but I wrote what I felt. Instead of lecturing me about drugs and off color topics my teacher found it extremely creative and convinced me to take her creative writing elective course. I did, and I failed. Unfortunately the class was right after lunch during the ritualistic handball court marijuana smoke break and I missed too much of the class, either coming in late or missing it all together. Not really my fault, the weed in my town was always very high quality and hard to resist.

I talked a lot in school about going to college for journalism to learn how to write but as is often the case in dreams life got in the way and I changed course. I had been working in kitchens to make money to buy the great weed I mentioned when a thought occurred to me. I finally realized it would behoove me in my life to have a career so I went to culinary school and embarked on a gastronomic journey to find my culinary Zen. It was really the only thing I was good at but as it turned out I was really really good at it. I was working my way up to become a chef when I met an established chef who would become my mentor. Chef Patrick was a cutting edge French chef who was poised at the helm of the kitchen during the New York City culinary renaissance period. Food was beginning to change and long standing cornerstones of culinary traditions were being stretched and tested. No longer were parsley and watercress the only garnishes, imagination ruled the day. Red wine with fish and foods such as grilled grapes and goat cheese salad replaced the tried and true recipes that had worked well for over a century. Sorry Mr. Escoffier, but its time to move over and let the youth of culinary communities take over and deconstruct the classics. Cultures of foods were clashing and mashing and a slew of new creations appeared in top restaurants around the world. It was the ideal time for me, chefs were now coloring outside the lines, adding things, and painting purple trees and green suns in their dishes. Patrick taught me how to take my passion to write and inject that creative flow into my cooking.

I approached cooking the same way I approach writing. I see ingredients, colors textures smells and tastes and rearrange them to create biodegradable art that tantalizes all five of the senses. I know different ways to alter them and I pair them with other ingredients by my feeling not by a cookbook. I just imagine how different things would work together and instinctively know the right ratio or combo. Much like the writing. I see words, I know how to use them and what they mean, but its up to me to choose the ones I want and arrange them how I like to get across the feeling I want to share. Maybe it’s a concept to convey, maybe it’s a moral I want to impart, or maybe I just hope to elicit an emotion from anyone who reads it or tastes it. I don’t write what I know, I write what I feel. The truth is as much as I would enjoy reaching a wide audience I’m happy and grateful for the few people who take the time out to share the energy along with me. As a chef cooking was my Zen, but now as I no longer compete with young chefs but have my own little food niche, I have more time to focus on my first passion, my true Zen, writing.PEACE

Jewels Hollandaise Sauce, The Happy Culinarian

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Jewels Hollandaise Sauce here on Foodie Channel Network with my new show, The Happy Culinarian (THC). Today I am interviewing the once rising star in the cake industry, Bae King Powder, who just recently wrote his tell all culinary confesional book, “Batter Up, The Rise and Fall of A Cupcake Empire.” Welcome to the show Mr. Powder. Let me begin with the scandel you recently found yourself in with the purchase of illegal products that authorities gave you such sought after top shelf cupcakes. How did it all go down, what toppled your empire?

BKP… Thanks for having me here Jewels, You’re a sharp interviewer, I see you like to get right to the point. Yes its true, I was busted, Leavening Agents took me from my bakery in handcuffs. Really no knead for that. But they had been watching my bakery for quite a while. Apparently some of my shcmuck competitors tipped them off I was using illegally obtained PH in my batter. The batter accusation hit me hard! They were way off base and it came out of left field. First let me go on the record, I had no idea PH from Thailand was illegal, and yes it’s true I used it. The cost of inflation was rising but my cupcakes weren’t. After the Cupcake Wars ended and it was revealed that no whip pans of mass induction were hidden in rebel bakeries. Aside from the politically aligned bakeries all cupcake makers were left flat, mine included. Mission Accomplished my ass!

JHS. Of course, we all remember the bad intel The Food Channel got from Halliburton Lard Distributors that lead to the Cupcake Wars but lets get back to you. As I remember it you claim you were targeted because of your sudden cupcake rise to fame. Exactly how did your cupcakes rise so much?

BKP. Well yea, my batter was much different than most other bakers. With high quality ingredients and hard work my cupcakes rose to near cult status, some even referring to them as ‘crack cupcakes’ because they were addictive. Most of those other shmucks were using short cuts. That’s the reason we rose, not because of some illegal powders in my recipe. I got a much fluffier and porous product and that made me a target. All my competitors wanted to see my cakes fall so they set me up. Just about everybody jumped on the Baking Soda bandwagon and that made their products all seem like cookie cutter copies of each others product. People couldn’t tell the difference between Crumbies, Mack Nola’s, or that new place, Two Broke Chicks. They all tasted the same, looked the same, nothing special. I tried to keep my secret ingredient under wraps like the sandwich industry, or like Coca Cola or any other product that wants to keep their secrets contained. The brand of PH I used was as much intellectual property as my recipes, I had no idea we had broken ties with the Thai’s on PH trade. I had agents dumpster diving on my property while my bakery was closed but that didn’t work so they snuck a mole into my kitchen. Once they had their mole in place they called the Health Department. Shut me down because of a blind rodent that was planted in the plant! Mission Accopmplished my ass!

JHS. So after the clandestine garbage hunting failed they snuck a mole on your property then called the Health department? That’s a serious allegation Bae.

BKP. Oh its more than an allegation Jewels, its an accusation. The other bakeries wanted me destroyed and they lobbied with the Cupcake Icing Agency as well as the Felonious Bakers Investigation pitting both the CIA and FBI against me. They sent Leavening Agents to me looking to get a rise out of me by offering me bribes. I had it on camera but the government had it erased. Of course now I can’t prove anything but if you really look at my pudding, you’ll find the truth there. That was my mission accomplished.

JHS. Proof in the pudding? Conspiracy by government officilals? I mean really Mr. Powder, you want us to believe that all these people conspired to bring your cupcakes down?

BKP. You can believe what you want but if you read my book I have no doubt you’ll see I speak the truth. No one is outside the reach of our government. My cupcakes got too big, rose too high and they didn’t like that, felt threatened. That’s what my book will tell you, all about the conspiracies that took the wind from my sales. If tearing down The Cupcake Dude was their mission, I suppose it was accomplished. But the Dude won’t go down without a fight, I’ll take my batter and come out swinging, slam them for a grand at least.

JHS. Okay Bae, THC wishes you good luck in your plight. Well you heard that folks, buy Bae King Powders new book, Batter up to find out the truth behind the conspiracies. I have to tell you Bae, I usually have my staph read these books for me but I actually read this book in two days. How you built the empire was riveting, I was fascinated the entire read. Not only by the conspiracy but by the whole story of your rise to cupcake stardom. One last thing before you go, what’s next for the Cupcake Dude?

BKP. First of all Jewels, my cupcakes will rise again, like The Phoenix. No breads, I don’t knead the dough, but I am working on a new line of alcohol based cupcakes and deep fried mini cupcakes. People today are all concerned about all the GMO crap so it’s a perfect time to sneak the fried foods craze on them. Also, suddenly half the world thinks it has gluten allergies so I’m developing a cupcake made exclusevily with edible plastics. My first attempt was a C4 cupcake which blew up in my face, but edible plastic is the next wave of the future. I’ll be launching a line of cupcakes with Polyunsaturated Urethane Styrene as well as a number of other substances people won’t even be able to pronounce. Plastics are the future and edible plastics will take over the entire culinary industry once everyone realizes what a brilliant concept filling people full of plastic pleasure truly is. Thanks for having me Jewels, and remember, Never Underestimate The Power Of A Cupcake….Peace

Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Mire (From The Potsink Diaries)

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It wasn’t that I wasn’t used to the fecal matter hitting the rotary oscillator it‘s just I wasn’t thinking the fecal matter would figure into my life. The closing of Cumberland restaurant was a lot to deal with and frankly the furthest thing from my mind was me needing a new job. No longer was I an apostle to a culinary madman, no more waitresses to flirt with, no more free beers or paychecks. I was now saturated with disappointment and disillusionment believing the universe had let me down. Maybe I needed to seek another avenue of employment, to shed the dry snakeskin of the restaurant industry and molt to another field. Actually field sounds right I should get as far away from any kitchen, knife wielding Chef or teasing waitress and do some fieldwork. I need a sacrificial rack of lamb. I should do what Ken suggested and go work landscaping for cash. As fate would have it and timing being everything my brother’s ex boss was in need a laborer. I can labor! So it came to pass that I had became the new landscaper laborer for Munsons Field and Dreams. More accurately put, I had become the new lawn mowing leaf raking topsoil carrying shit spreading go boy. I had chosen to become a hard working laborer having my skin scorched everyday by dermal burning threats the sun makes good on while also enjoying the hearty aroma of freshly decayed organic shit. Not just any old shit, but class A number one horseshit Munson got from the stables. Enough about the perks though, there’s also a downside.
Every day ended the same, my arm and back muscles pounding out a rebellious beat building to a painful crescendo.I try and cool the aches and pains with an ice cold beer but it seem as though all my muscles tightened up into ball of overworked subdermal tissues and tendons screaming at every movement. My skin radiates a pinkish aura from hours spent unprotected by those relentless threats of the harsh sun. It left my neck and shoulders feeling rug burnt adding to my misery. As if that weren’t enough there was an omnipresent stench of decaying crap implanting its neverending carousel of stink deep into my nasal cavity. Deep! One of my less enviable jobs was to take compost, decayed animal shit and who knows what and spread the malodorous mixture across a field. At first the smell of evaporating morning dew so earthy and rich comes up off the ground like a wisp of warm steam in a pleasant tease just waiting for its replacement. Breathe deep and enjoy that nature while you can because within seconds the dank aroma of compost rises triumphantly up the nasal passages. Its a blend of some of the most offensive smells I could ever imagine, if dogs smelled that stench when they sniffed another dogs ass the species would go extinct. The steaming stench of a mountain outhouse combined with a quarantined fraternity bathroom joining forces with week old spoiled milk creating a cacophony of disgust that slowly creeps up my nose making an all out aerial assault on my entire being. The assault continues for hours even after my work day was done. Like pigpen the stench takes on an identity of its own following me everywhere even stalking me all the way to the shower where it finally meets it’s match and scurries defeated into the drain. A small portion of it sets up camp in my clothing as a rank reminder of my newly acquired hopelessness that was eased but never eradicated by the cold beer.
I began doing diet pills every morning to keep me awake and give me the energy to bust my ass out in the shit fields. An expensive proposition because on days that it rained I would be sent home making no money for the day, needing beer and weed to calm me down from the pills. Between the pills, beer and weed I went through all my savings after just one week of solid rain. Penniless I was gloomily staring out Munson’s tool shed listening to the rain wondering how the fuck I got here. As if on cue fate suck its fat foot inside the door forcing its way in. Out of the blue my friend Patrick came by with an offer to become an assistant groundskeeper for a local dude who owns three nursing home properties. It’s a full time job despite weather and Patrick was quitting. The job was open and he promised to recommend me. Think how cool it would be to be able to use my newly acquired skills on three locations where you get paid even if it rains. That’s how it was that I became something different. Now I would be a shit spreader with a title. The assistant groundskeeper of the Vieros Health care facilities. I was still in charge of manure movement but now I can add garage cleaner to my resume. Whatever, I was working and making money on a regular basis again. Besides the work wasn’t nearly as exhausting so life was good again. Adios Munson, now I can concentrate on saving up money to get the Hell out of here.
I found myself spending most of my time at one specific locations, Mimi Dee’s. That was the nickname used by the staff at the Miriam Deegan Adult Home owned by the Vieros one of the richest families in town. They also owned two other homes but I only worked at each once a week. Vieros Ault Home was a full scale nursing home, and the Lighthouse was a health related facility, which is a fancy name for old folks home. The only difference in the two being that about eighty percent of the “patients” at The lighthouse and Mimi Dee’s could care for themselves. Those at Vieros couldn’t even wipe their asses but that was already too much information for me. My concern was making sure all the properties were well kept, trimmed and mowed so the families of the patients would believe that no expense was spared in the upkeep of their parents dwelling. Mimi Dee’s was sort of their flagship home so most of the attention was bestowed on that property. But I was happy mowing lawns and raking leaves, even trimming the shrubs which I knew by name. Not the Latin names, the names I made up for them to keep me sane while spending hours alone caring for properties. Big Zebra, Burning Bush, Sticks, just weird names to entertain me. One great benefit was not having the shit stink hanging around me all day and night.
So here I was in a quaint little Long Island community called Cool Springs working on a property of a former Pratt Mansion turned Rest Home. Tending to the chlorophyll producing zoo of colorful organic plants and flowers busy enjoying their days photosynthesizing away and looking pretty. My boss, Fred drove from property to property and left me alone most of the time. He drove me to Mimi Dee’s, gave me daily chore lists, and went about his business. A questionable bonus was being invited inside for lunch everyday. Not the taste bud tingling foods Jimmy made but it was decent and best of all free. Maybe that wasn’t the best part that would have to be the company at lunchtime. I sat around the table with two other guys, six cute young nurse’s aides, and two nurses. On most days I was the center of attention and I dug that. The free meal was back, the flirting was back, and the paycheck was back. What could possibly go wrong?

Another One Bites The Dust (The closing of Cumberland Restaurant)

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From The Potsink Diaries

Cumberland Restaurant was more than just a job to me it was my Mecca, a culinary cathedral where I was transformed from just another punk kid to an integral cast member of a gastronomic theater. I was important there and having put in many hours of work in the kitchen from scrubbing floors to stuffing mushrooms to making and plating deserts I had become an equal. We were all the same in terms of importance, all pieces of a whole. I adore my time with the staff we even hung out sometimes after work. I had seniority over the weekend warriors, the kids from high school who were mere part timers. Hordes of classmates had come through those doors searching for restaurant enlightenment but few achieve it. To me Cumberland was the Taj Majal, my place of worship. I had earned my position of cooks assistant and head suds buster at Cumberland having dominion over all the kids that came to work were to be trained by the master, the holy soapsud king. It gave me a sense of purpose, the staff was my family without the blood relation drama. Alone we were circus sideshows, totally misunderstood, but when the Cumberland family was together we were a unit, a force to be reckoned with. I was looking forward to going to work on this warm spring evening if only to get away from the chaos that cluttered my daily life. Being a central figure in the restaurant absorbed my inner spirit projecting me to another world.
I had learned so much at Cumberland, not just about cooking but about life. Jimmy had taken me under his wing though he’d never admit it, and I alone was privy to his paternal side. He had become my sensei, my benefactor of chefdom. Even Andre had begun teaching me things although I suspected his motives were more about getting me to do his work for him. Either way I had become the kitchen protégé in line to one day have dominion of my very own kitchen. All the basics plus some tricks of the trade on soups and sauces. The more he taught the more I absorbed. I had became a gastronomic sponge soaking up everything they offered. Plus I was earning as I was learning.
The second I walked up to the back door of the kitchen finding it locked I sensed something amiss. I peered through the grease smeared window but it appeared all the lights were off. I double checked my watch then looked to the parking lot. Jimmy’s car was parked in front with a few other cars so I walked around. Fuck man I hope Jense isn’t gonna yell at me again for using the front door but what else could I do? I could just hear him in his condescending European accent, “Chay Dee! Vat do joo tink dis iss here? Zhew tink we air r-r-rrunning a pup-you larraty conest? Deese eess a r-r-r-r-r-eeeerrrrestarant!“ I opened the front door staring at the scene perplexed. Across the dining room at the bar sat Jimmy, Andre, Didier, and Rod the bus boy with John behind the bar. I walked up and noticed an almost deathly glumness on their collective faces. “Hey guys, what’s up? The back doors locked.”
Jimmy broke the ominous silence and said “Zeet down JD. We gots some bad news today. Johnny, give JD a beer.” My happiness was rapidly sneaking out the door allowing concern to take its place as John poured me a cold beer. It was Didier who spoke up next. “ Vucking Jense und Laura have run off with all zee restaurant money. Zey broke into zeee safe, took alla da cash.Tooka zee cash fromma registers und dezzappeared.” My face turned a whiter shade of pale. “WHAT?” If I told you I was stunned I would have been doing the emotion a terrible injustice. More accurately I was stunned, shocked, astounded, flabbergasted and blown away. My entire world and every world within a hundred light years had been rocked to Hell! I looked intensely from face to face hoping one of them would reveal the fact that they had played a fabulous joke on me but none offered a scintilla of a smile. “Jeeeeesus fucking shit! When did what, how did they, fuck man did anyone call the cops?” While Didier explained everything the news slowly seeped into my cerebellum aided by the cold beer. He came to work this morning and found the front door open and the alarm shut off. The cash register was open and empty, there was an empty bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne on the bar with two empty glasses. He ran to the office which was also wide open as was the safe door. He called the cops first, then Jense. Jenses wife said he left for work early and should be there by now. Didier started doing the arithmetic and called Laura whom he had expected of having an affair with Jense. The cops came and took away the champagne bottle and glasses but it was pretty obvious what has happened. “I put all zee numbers togezzer, und she come out four.”
Man this was a lot to digest. So many things raced through my mind. Classic restaurant scandal, Maitre d’ and head waitress give each other head then rip off the restaurant running off together. “Wait-What?! Laura and that fucking airhead asshole Jense did it? The bastards took all the money? They took ALL the money? Wait, what does that mean?” I turned to my mentor, “It means JD my boy that we ain’t got no more restaurant. No mas trabajo amigo.” I looked at Jimmy with an empty confused stare. So that was it man. No more job. No more Laura. No more money coming in. No more Cumberland. It was painful. Didier explained that the restaurant would have to withhold my paycheck until the investigation was over. The six of us sat at the bar and drank for hours until it was time for everyone to leave. We said good bye to each other, Jimmy and I talked at his car for another 30 minutes where he assured me when he found another job he would call me. A nice gesture but I knew this was the last time I would ever see of Jimmy again. Or any of the other people who had become such an integral part of my life. Now they would all just be in my rear view mirror, a speck of dust in my memory bank. Feeling sad and somewhat broken I walked home. Actually I sort of stumbled home having consumed more than my share of the free flowing beer. The summer was barely beginning and Cumberland days were over already! I stopped off on the way at Kens to score some ludes to ease the pain.
When I got to Kens room he was flying high and slurring even worse than me. “Hey bro, what’s the matter? You look like you been crying or something. Here man take these, they‘ll cure anything.” Ken had handed me two white tablets that looked like huge aspirins. “Jesus shit man, what the fuck are these monsters?” I trusted Ken to the end so I downed the tabs without waiting for a reply but still I was curious. “Morph tabs bro, gonna kick your ass six ways to Sunday. So what’s eating you bro?” I pulled a joint from my cigarette pack, “Oh man, fuckin’ Cumberland closed down man, like forever. That chick Laura ran away with the dickhead Maitre d’ and took all the fuckin’ money. They even downed a bottle of Dom Perignon before running off. Now I ain’t got no job. Sucks man!” Ken seemed shocked but was so stoned he had a hard time convincing his face to respond. Almost vacant. “Whoa! Holy Jesus fuck man! That does suck. Hey man, I hear Munson is hiring, you can mow lawns right?” Ken’s eyes were tiny slits and he was nodding. “Dude how many of them morphs did you take?” ken held up four fingers and accepted the joint from me which we puffed halfway down. In the middle of talking Ken fell out so I laid him comfortable in his bed. “Maybe you’re right Buddy, maybe I need a break from restaurants. Tomorrow I’ll go check out Munson’s Landscaping.”

Born To Cook (Culinary Nirvana Begins At The Pot Sink)

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“I got a job!” I was so excited, no more paper routes, no more Deli boy, now I have a real job, one that pays decent money. Mom was excited too, “A job where?” Beaming with a sense of pride I uttered, “At Cumberland’s Restaurant on 25A.” Mom looked a bit disappointed, “ A restaurant? So We’re going to have a chef in the family? I was really hoping you would be our doctor JT.” I wasn’t letting her deflate my enthusiasm, “Mom, I’ve told you, I’m not smart enough to be a doctor, and besides its just a job, not a life. I’m only sixteen I have no idea what I wanna to be yet.” That was true, all I wanted was to make some money so I could party and buy stuff for my girlfriend. I had no plans of staying in a kitchen for the rest of my life, its just a job. Fates plans however differed from mine which was clear on my first day.
“Hey chef! Da new boy is here, you want I should show him around?” The chef came walking over holding a huge knife in his hand an a scowl on his face, “So youda new kid eh?” He lifted the knife up so I could see the shine of the blade, “Jus don pissa me off boy and you be okay. Grab a apron and shirt and get washing. Take himma downstair Ernie.” Ernie was an old dude, real skinny and wrinkly. He made me nervous at first, the stereotype image of a pedophile or serial killer with a slight emotional handicap. “Foller me son, whatsa you name?” He had a slight limp as he led me down the steps to the basement. I followed hoping this wasn’t where they stored the dead bodies or something, “I’m Justin, my friends call me JT.” We stopped at the bottom and Ernie pointed to the left, “That’s a walk in over there, dry food there, and this is the lockers. The shirts and aprons are over there JD, take any locker you want.” I walked in grabbed a shirt and apron and changed while Ernie stood and watched. A tad creepy. “It’s JT, not JD.” Ernie looked confused, “Wha? JC? Likea Jesus Christ?” He laughed, I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, “No, it’s JT, not JC or JD.” We went back an forth a few times before I just said, JD is fine.” I didn’t care man, I had a j-o-b, I was a pot washer.
Despite all the bad karma that seeped out of the sink drain I knew instantly that nothing would drag me away from this. Maybe one day I’ll be the Chef, I’ll be the raving lunatic who screams at anyone unfortunate enough to be within range of my booming voice. The insane culinary Guru who proudly sports a tall white hat like my chef Jimmy. Like him I’ll probably have a huge vein popping out from my forehead that can intimidate people all on its own. Mentally deranged king of the kitchen who is permitted by law to carve up carcasses with an array of razor sharp knives of all sizes. I can’t help thinking how proud that would make Mom and Dad. Oh the hell with being a surgeon Mom, I wanna slice up dead animal carcasses and cut the muscles into edible portions of food. I want to carry big ass knives around and scare the shit out of the dishwashers. My gastronomic voyage would be completed once I became the all powerful illustrious kitchen Buddha, The Chef.
I was born for this industry, lured by some mystical force. I wanted to be one of the “restaurant people!” A cosmic group of mix-matched misfits. I was spellbound by this diverse group of dedicated individuals, who work together in a form of impromptu performance art centering around biodegradable remnants of the tastiest and most orgasmic morsels of nutrition I had ever indulged in. Each one plays an integral role in this daily drama. Like an experienced stage hand I would set up the props over and over, so the chef could turn organic ingredients into edible works of art, perfectly arranged on the plates I keep clean. Our lead waitress, Laura would put these recently cleaned now presently food adorned plates on a large oval tray (also cleaned by yours truly) and with swanlike grace effortlessly carry it off to be placed in front of some alcohol saturated patrons. The patrons would then eat the wonderful dish of blissful organic delight, inadvertently leaving something on the plate that would eventually become my responsibility. The waitress would entertain them with a variety of skits, ranging from cute and flirtatious to downright suggestive. The performance continues. Meanwhile, backstage, the chef, Jimmy ( his given name was too hard to pronounce) is performing voice exercises and using my deer in headlight eyes as his focal point. Rapidly building to a spit filled ear shattering crescendo. I listen intently to the chefs advice, disregarding the part where he assures me I should leave this God forsaken establishment or die. He further suggested I engage in a sexual act with myself I felt to be physically impossible. (Not that I wouldn’t try) That too I chose to disregard. Once sufficiently emasculated, red-faced, and disenchanted, I returned to my post, my pot sink, in a highly evolved state. Taking a “the show must go on” attitude, I needed to ready myself for the onslaught of table remnants that our patrons found objectionable. In walked the lovely leading lady, flashing me that piercing knee buckling waitress smile. I began to daydream, or maybe fantasize until Laura began emulating the chefs thunderous performance. Thankfully, it was not directed at me, but rather on the only person here that was as lowly as me, Rod the busboy. Now I got an opportunity to view my peer’s reaction to a brutal lexiconic work over so I might gain some insight on how to deal with it or hone my anti-beration skills for the next portioning of verbal abuse. No doubt it wouldn’t take long before I resort to my improvisational skills of defense. The burning narrowed eyes of the seductive angry waitress met mine and for just two seconds held me in a frozen state. Her face made a remarkable quick change while flashing her signature come hither smile her eyes softened and in that songbird voice, asked, “JT, sweetie will you set up my next tray?” With a wink, she was gone, the busboy was fighting back tears, the chef was deciding my fate, and I of course, was setting up Laura’s tray, like it had never been set before all the time thinking, “she called me sweetie.” As the chef pondered the proper English translation of various swear words and insults to more effectively crush my spirit, I arranged Laura’s tray oblivious to my surroundings. The chef began to explain to me who I was working for, but fortunately for me his lung pounding performance was interrupted by the appearance of an enigmatic presence. The next character to enter, stage left, was a tall, tuxedoed, and very suave Frenchman, bearing the title restaurant manager, Didier. Didier’s job, as I understood it, was to make the entire cast miserable, so we would reach deep down to our inner selves to come up with the performance of a lifetime. I wanted to reach deep down and pull out a Smith and Wesson.
I did however find myself motivated by the threat of that French penguin. That, and a paycheck, and another opportunity to allow Laura to know what an awesome dude I really was. Didier began to roar at all of us, and yet then again, to no-one in particular. It was delivered in a language foreign to me that sounded oddly complementary. Rod the busboy assured me that those seemingly sweet words that came thundering out towards the entire cast were in fact foul French slang that could make the50 pound sack of onions break down and cry. Didier loudly explained to us how important it was that we comprehend the significance of his tirade as a team while we all just looked down at the floor. Even Jimmy looked worried when Didier was in the kitchen. Oddly, the only one that was not intimidated was Laura, the vivacious waitress, who seemed to render our fearful leader speechless using only her eyes. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, Didier disappeared in a puff of smoke. Or maybe Jimmy was burning something, I really don’t remember. But he was gone, Laura’s tray was set to absolute perfection, Rod the busboy had regained his composure, and Jimmy was ready with the next round of tantalizing treats arranged in artwork on my clean plates. All had performed admirably in Act 1.
Anyway, you get the picture; This performance goes on all night, every night over and over. Some of the actors change, but the results remain the same. I can’t explain why but the seething emotional combat combined with the intense pressure of service time was intoxicating. Curiously at dinner time Jimmy took on more an air of compassion that made me think of my own father on some of his better days. He would speak ever so softly and hold out a bowl of beef stew which because it had some wine in it, was referred to as Beef Bourgogne. But delicious it was. No Dinty Moore for this restaurant worker. As quickly as everything had gone to hell in a mixing bowl, the calm and serene peace of family meal changed the entire setting. I sat at a small table with Ernie, the old man who was in charge of maintenance. Funny, because he could barely maintain himself, and as I later found out, he was the 65 year old uncle of the manager. I cleverly positioned myself so I could catch a glimpse of Laura each time she entered the kitchen. It was these Zen saturated moments that made us all forget how loud and harsh the decibel level could get at service time.
My gastronomic voyage had officially begun. I dove in with a work ethic beyond reproach. I have arrived,
an almost spiritual transcendence, having a job and being part of something that lifted me to a higher plane. I was fortunate enough to find myself in the employ of Cumberlands’s restaurant, in the socially envious position of pot washer. Four nights after school, and Saturday nights, I was the lead pot washer. But, being the envy of my high school buddies was short lived when I discovered that the “lead pot washer” wasn’t really in charge of anything other than some sudsy water, and that it involved way more than merely washing pots. I was also permitted, implored even, to use my hands to scrape and clean the organic food remnants, and other indefinable residues left on the plates by our satisfied customers as well as floors, utensils, machines, and anything that neeed cleaning including the managers and the chefs cars. So it was that this head pot washer was cleaning everything in sight, in the restaurant or the employee parking lot. Poised at the suds busting helm I decided that I was going to be the best washer they ever had until that day I rise up the culinary ladder to take off to enlightenment.
On one particular night I felt compelled to let everyone in the kitchen know my lofty intentions of becoming a black belt in the art of pot and pan scrubbery. When I told the chef, the absolute ruler of the kitchen of my plan I was certain he would beam with pride. I really looked up to the chef even though he was so old. Man that dude must have been in his 60’s. I believe he always worked hard and the years had been kind to him, although not without consequence. Deep furrows stretched into spaghetti lines across his face, and he always seemed to be deep in thought. Quite fit for an older guy, and he was deceptively strong. Crazy coot could throw 50 pound bags of potatoes halfway across the kitchen with ease. He always wore a dirty and tattered black bandana under his chef hat which concealed the badly receding hairline and his eyebrows sported the thickest hair he had. Like caterpillars on steroids those eerie brows housed some very dark and serious eyes. Eyes that narrowed instantly at the first sign of anger. Like holy shit man it wasn’t only the eyes, but that bulging vein that stood out and threatened you personally. I prayed it wasn’t the angry face that was building up inside his maniacal mind. Not siree it was not the anger I was about to get a full emasculating dose of. He looked me directly in the eyes, and with his most compassionate paternal demeanor, his eyes teared up, and he laughed uncontrollably. A laugh that came all the way from the balls of his feet. In between his deafening guffaws the chef attempted to tell his sous chef Andre what my intentions were, and that was met with a roar of laughter that could cause a soufflé to fall. Regardless of their snickering daggers of contemptuous chuckling I maintained a stiff upper lip, and decided I would take charge of my own soapy destiny.
As empowering as it may seem, it wasn’t the joy of busting suds for a living that kept me coming back. It wasn’t the dream of one day being admired, no revered as the Chef, the absolute ruler of the kitchen. It wasn’t that soul warming food, it wasn’t even the lure of the attractive and flirtatious waitresses that continually tempted my teenage libido with a false sense of possibilities beyond imagination. No, there was something else about this experience that tugged at my inner Cheshire cat causing me to smile from ear to ear. They paid me.

So You Want Your Just Desserts?

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www.stuffedcupcakes.comCulinary Karma

I started out my culinary adventures busting suds for a restaurant in my hometown, and from there the homicidal chef taught me to make salads and finally hot foods. An odd assortment of strange characters assured me this was the world for me. No running off to join the circus for this young lad, my destiny was to be found in the freakish family which would be come to be known to me as “Restaurant People.” Maniacal chefs, egotistic managers, sexy waitresses, drug dealing bus boys, and the legion of pot washing, shrimp peeling, meatball rolling minions of the back of the house. The rest as they say is history. Once I realized I had taken it a far as I could on my own I needed to up my game. A friend suggested I go to the CIA. When I told them I had no interest in become a kitchen spy they informed my naïve ass that I should enroll at the Culinary Institute of America. So I trotted off to cooking school for two years of studying under even more maniacal chefs who probably should never be allowed to use knives outside of the school. But what an education! I was at the top culinary university in the nation, learning the dynamics, science, and art of cooking and culinary management. After years of working for chefs with vein bulging foreheads that seemed in a constant state of sublime irritation, and two years of continuing that line of abuse at school I was ready for the real world of foodservice.
The time had come for me to fine tune the skills and knowledge I had acquired and I wanted to go straight to the top. That’s how I ended up with my first position as a line cook at Windows on the World way up on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center in NYC. Look Ma, I’m on top of the world! The work was incredibly hard and the kitchen reached temperatures approaching the sunny side of hell. I worked my proverbial ass off and could be seen ordering a new one from the ass store at least once a week.
But it wasn’t all bad, not by a long shot. Maybe it was because of the high level of the ass busting and the pressure of getting over a thousand meals served in 4 hours or maybe just experiencing the same culinary drudgery as all the other cooks but a camaraderie developed that rivals the most prestigious of fraternities. The other cooks have you covered and would give the chef coat off their backs if it wasn’t so sweat soaked. And I would do the same for them. It was a tight nit family of sweaty hard working aspiring chefs. The line, the area of cooks stations with stove tops, topped out at about 800 degrees with eight ranges blasting constant heat. It was so hot that a cold beer clause was written into the union contract. True story. We each got two cold beers at the end of service. If you did screw up there was a punishment that was above and beyond the realm of mere cruel and unusual. You got sent to “The Cold Kitchen.” The cold kitchen sucked because it was a constant, repetitive everlasting list of tedious tasks designed to send one on an asylum train. Perhaps three and a half hours of placing small pieces of chicken and scallions on skewers followed by the slicing and breading 5 cases of zucchini. It was the icy version of hell and just as feared. None of us enjoyed being sent there. We loved the high pressure of sauté or grilling and despised time in the cold kitchen.
Either way during the two years working at Windows I learned more than I would ever learn anywhere and it set me on a course which would eventually find me as an executive chef, complete with high stress level and mandatory vein popping forehead. I was certain I was headed for one of the top chef positions in the city, or at least a real good ‘B‘ level chef job. I was an excellent saucier and that was my specialty. Back then like everyone else I knew everything. Now I am older, not much wiser, and instead of the top of the world cheffing on a hot line I have become a baker. Making cupcakes day after day, specializing in cold food. I am not complaining, jut pointing out the irony. Not quite as tedious as the dreaded cold kitchen but still a kind of Karmic revenge. Yes Karmic revenge served to me as it should be, COLD!. That’s right, revenge is a dish absolutely best served cold, after you’ve had time to make your plans. But I did misspeak when I said karmic revenge because there is no such thing as revenge in Karma and I have come to love baking cupcakes.
Revenge is a human emotion. But I did want to somehow incorporate Karma in my cupcakes so I took a closer look at just what Karma is. Its something many people say they believe in. I believe in Karma but I feel it has gotten a bad rap these days. Many people believe Karma to be the universe exacting revenge, but revenge in and of itself is a negative. Karma focuses on the positive. I hear people say things like “ There can’t be any true karma because bad people get away with shit and good people get shit on.” That has nothing to do with Karma guys, that’s life. Karma isn’t payback for doing wrong or reward for doing right. Doing the right thing is its own reward and Karma is just the positive energy that goes along for the ride. The universe isn’t sitting there waiting to avenge people. That would go against everything that’s good about Karma. If you choose to do the right thing because you want good Karma to reward you don’t hold your breath because Karma doesn’t work on demand. When something bad happens don’t wish bad Karma on the person that screwed you because your just festering negative energy. Let the universe take care of things. You may not see it but lack of Karma will surround negative acts with negative energy. Concentrate on keeping your life positive. Distance yourself from negative people and embrace positive people. Walk away from negative energy and walk head first into the positive. No one should need a religion to tell them how to live the best life, the “Golden Rule” is just common sense. I’m not saying abandon your religion and stop the rituals, by all means if that’s a positive action for you embrace it. Take all the positive vibrations your religion grants you. But don’t rely only on your religion to tell you how to treat others, that’s your responsibility. When my 9 month old daughter was very sick and so very helpless a quote I heard has always resonated with me. “A person is never so tall as when he bends to help a child.” That’s Karma!
I have a deep love of rock and roll and that is reflected in many of the cupcakes I have engineered at Jarets Stuffed Cupcakes. (stuffedcupcakes.com if you want to take a peek) . When I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show way too many years ago it changed my life. I evolved politically and philosophically along with them and other rock stars and that’s where I got my interest in Eastern religions and concepts like Karma. To this day I embrace the many lessons I learned from “Eastern Philosophies” I live a positive life and surround myself with positive people. I don’t fight negative people I avoid them. They bring nothing to the table. I truly believe the positive I put into my baking remains there until consumed, at which time its absorbed by the one enjoying it. One of my best selling cupcakes is inspired by both Karma and my favorite Beatle, John Lennon. We call it “Instant Carma” the “C” intentional as a play on words. it’s a vanilla cupcake with an intense caramel mousse, topped of with vanilla and praline icing. I know, I know, shameless plug, but hey….Instant Carma’s gonna get you, gonna knock you off your feet.
Plug aside, embrace Karma, don’t expect it to exact revenge for you. Stay positive, lend a hand, pay it forward, live your best life, and spread the love……PEACE

Kitchen Burnout

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If You Can’t Stand The Heat

Restaurant life is a love story. Right from the start it shoots its arrow and takes you under it’s spell. It casts a love Jones on you that grabs you by both cheeks. Once its in your blood a life sentence without parole begins. Possible time off for regeneration if you stay at it too long. I began my journey into the world of restaurants at the not so tender age of 14. I busted suds, cut lettuce, plated desserts, peeled shrimp, rolled meatballs, and did all the chefs culinary biding no matter what the request. I worked my way up the kitchen ranks and was feeling great. Then I went and hit a plateau. I was a line cook and it seemed that was as far as I would get. Along with a friend one night after an evening of substantial alcohol consumption we went to a diner. Behind the grill were two old relics of cooks, like bald 80 somethings, cooks frying eggs and flipping burgers. I turned to my friend and said, “Shit man look at those dudes. I don’t wanna be flipping no damn eggs when I get that old.” My friend suggested cooking school. Of course! So off to the CIA I went to get a culinary education. I received an associates degree in culinary arts and I secured a job at Windows on the World. But there I was still just a line cook. I learned a helluva lot there, more even than I did at school, and it opened quite a few doors for other jobs. I worked in 2 or 3 other restaurants and continued to learn, mostly through screaming chefs an blubbering angry managers. I learned to sauté, roast, some butchering, sauces, and a ton of culinary “tricks” but was still just a line cook. An experienced one in great restaurants , but I still hadn’t made the jump towards being The Chef.
So I moved back to my hometown on Long Island and took a job an hour away as a sous chef. Now I was moving up and things were getting better. Soon I was in charge of the operation of a very big conference center in the famed “Gold Coast” of Long Island. A huge mansion that sat on 55 acres of beautiful land in Glen Cove Long Island. The conference Center housed about 400 people in an old Pratt mansion, quite possibly one written about in “The Great Gatsby”. I answered directly to the chef who saw very little actual kitchen time. We did weddings and ceremonies on the weekends. I worked 6 days a week, from one in the afternoon until ten at night. The kitchen staff then went out to party. No cell phones, no idea where friends may be by then so we all just kind of stuck together. Party we did! Gallons of beer, pounds of weed, and whatever “special enhancers” came around. We worked really hard and we played even harder. Too hard. Most of us were just beginning to raise families and it was bad enough to miss family celebrations, but to stumble in at 3AM half in the bag an wake up late in the morning with hangovers took its toll. Our marriages broke apart and we spiraled out of control. Basically we were all a mess, but we had each other. Eventually that faded too, as cooks took different paths on their careers. Being a chef can be a seriously burnt out profession, and almost every chef I know has left the business at some point or another due to burn out. Most returned but a few casualties managed to switch careers, or go the way of asshole managers. I was burning out quickly because one of the lures of restaurant life is constant party and fun times. Fun times never seem to last and I had to get out. I was beginning to HATE the industry I had fallen so deeply in love with. I met up with some old school friends who got me a job in construction.
Me, in construction? I sucked at building Lego structures. But this offered me a 9 to 5 life with weekends and holidays off. I was in career heaven. Coffee breaks, lunch hours, a few beers after work, I felt almost human. The trade off? I had to perform mundane tasks like putting together hundreds of clothes racks, and lining the entire parameter of Filenes Basement store with floor boards. It didn’t take long to hate the monotony of the work but I didn’t want to go back to restaurants. Service time in a restaurant is an intense drama that unfolds different each night. Wait staff yelling at cooks, cooks screaming at wait staff. A total vortex of chaotic high pressure.
I continued my patch of escapism and hammered, screwed, tiled and did a plethora of things I had neither the proper talent nor the slightest desire to accomplish. I was miserable I thought, but not as miserable as I was in a kitchen. Yet in some bizarre way I kind of missed restaurant life. I did stay in touch with people working the food industry and one good friend in particular understood what I was going through. She accused me of being in denial, of wanting to go back to working the high pressure world of cooking. I of course told her she was crazy and I had no intention of going back. She invited me to a faux opening of her uncles restaurant. In a faux opening the guests are all family and friends and the cost of the meal is a full critique of service and food. It’s used by many restaurants to get some of the kinks out before opening to the public. She asked her uncle to sit us at a table as close to the kitchen as possible. He put us right next to the kitchen doors where I could hear the ceramic clanging of dishes, the whirling machine sound from the dishwasher, the near tears plea’s and the multi lingual cursing that is the noise and clamor of service time in the kitchen. Ordering 2 beef, 3 chicken, picking up table 5, where is my chicken, all the familiar sights and sounds I had grown up around.
Like the song of the sirens in Ulysses the ceramic clank of plates sang out to me bidding me to return. Seeing the intensity of action just inside those two way kitchen doors screamed out ‘I miss you”. I noticed how those doors always worked flawlessly, in on one side out on the other and stood in stark contrast to the juggling of foods and emotions inside. How the wait staff would be screaming profanities and shouting poisonous darts of anger in the kitchen, then transform instantly into a composed happy waiter driven to make the diners experience as content as possible in the hopes they will return the favor in an over 15% tip. That e transformation occurred in the kitchen doorway, like a magic portal between heaven and hell. Then as the greasepaint is to an actor, all these sights, sounds, and memories whirled around tugging my emotions and I truly did miss that shit.
That was it. all she wrote! The next morning I went straight to the classified ads and began looking for a job in a restaurant. I admit, part of it was because I was sure it was the one thing I was really good at, but I also know that it was my first true love and I just could not live without it. Despite all the bullshit, the horrible epochs of time in which I was completely and utterly debased, despite the long hours, weekends of working and missed family holidays, I was gonna stick with my love. I wanted back with my ex and my ex welcome me back with open arms. A chef position was open at a Cajun restaurant so I studied up, consumed a shot (or two) of vodka, put on some nice clothe and laid on my charm and charisma. I landed the position. It only lasted for six months which was okay cuz I’m not a Cajun cook but it was all I needed to get back into the field. The rest as they say, is history……..PEACE

So You Want To Be a Chef? (an inititiation into culinary life)

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A existential chef’s initiation into the industry circa 1970

Despite all the bad karma that seeped out of the sink drain I knew nothing could possibly drag me away from the restaurant industry. Maybe one day I’ll be the Chef, and become a raving lunatic who screams at anyone dumb enough to stay within ear range of my booming voice. An insane culinary Guru who proudly sports a tall white hat that accentuated a bulging forehead vein popping out and threatened you silently. At least it pulled me eyes directly to it and made me feel threatened. A slightly mentally deranged and touched in the head man who is permitted by law to carve carcasses with an array of razor sharp knives of all sizes. I can’t help thinking how proud that would make Mom and Dad. Oh the hell with the Stock Exchange Mom, I wanna carve lamb forequarters and exchange recipes. I want to carry big ass knives around and scare the shit out of the dishwashers. My gastronomic voyage would be completed once I became the all powerful illustrious king of the kitchen, The Chef.
Truth be told the restaurant industry simply jumped up at me and shouted “This is it” Este Este Este!!. This is what you ask? It was the people, the “restaurant people”, an almost cosmic group of mix and matched misfits. I was spellbound by this diverse group of dedicated individuals, who work together in a form of impromptu performance art centering around biodegradable remnants of the tastiest and most orgasmic morsels of nutrition I had ever indulged in. Each person plays an integral role in this drama. Like an experienced stage hand I set up the props over and over, so the chef could turn organic ingredients into edible works of art, perfectly arranged on the plate I had cleaned. Our lead waitress, Laura would put six of these recently cleaned, now presently food adorned plates on a large oval tray, also cleaned by yours truly, and with swanlike grace, effortlessly carry it off, to be placed in front of some more than likely alcohol saturated patrons. The patrons would then eat the wonderful dish of blissful organic delight, inadvertently leaving something on the plate that would eventually become my responsibility. The waitress would entertain them with a variety of skits, ranging from cute and flirtatious to downright suggestive. The performance continues. Meanwhile, backstage, the chef, Jimmy ( his given name was too hard to pronounce) is performing voice exercises and using my deer in headlight eyes as his focal point. Rapidly building to an everlasting crescendo, I listen intently to the chefs advice, disregarding the part where he assures me I should leave this God forsaken establishment or die. Another suggestion he had for me was doing something to myself I felt to be physically impossible. (Not that I wouldn’t try!!) That too, I chose to disregard! Sufficiently emasculated, red-faced, and disenchanted, I returned to my pot sink in a highly evolved state. Taking a “the show must go on” attitude, I needed to ready myself for the onslaught of table remnants that our patrons found objectionable. In walked the lovely leading lady, flashing me that piercing knee buckling waitress smile, and began emulating the chefs thunderous performance. Thankfully, it was not directed at me, but rather on the only person here that was truly as lowly as me, Rod the busboy. Now I got an opportunity to view my peer’s reaction to a brutal lexiconic workover, so I might hone my anti-beration skills for the next portioning of verbal abuse. It would not take long, and I unfortunately had little time to study my new mentor, and was left to my improvisational skills. The burning narrowed eyes of my dream vision met mine, and for just one second held me in a frozen state. While flashing her signature seductive smile, Laura’s eyes softened, and in that songbird like voice, she asked, “JT, will you set up my next tray?” With a wink, she was gone, the busboy was fighting back tears, the chef was deciding my fate, and I of course, was setting up Laura’s tray, like it had never been set before. As the chef pondered the proper interpretation of various swear words and insults, in order to more effectively crush my spirit, I arranged Laura’s tray oblivious to my surroundings. The chef began to explain to me who I was working for, but fortunately for me his lung pounding performance was interrupted by the appearance of an enigmatic presence. The next character to enter, stage left, was a tall, tuxedoed, and very suave Frenchman, bearing the title restaurant manager, Didier. Didier’s job, as I understood it, was to make the entire cast miserable, so we would reach deep down to our inner selves, and come up with the performance of a lifetime. I wanted to reach deep down and pull out a Smith and Wesson, but then again, I was young and impressionable back then, so I did indeed find myself motivated by the threat of that French penguin. That, and a paycheck, and another opportunity to allow Laura to know what an awesome dude I really was. Didier began to roar at all of us, and yet then again, to no-one in particular. It was delivered in a language foreign to me that sounded oddly complementary. Rod the busboy assured me that those seemingly sweet words that came thundering out towards the entire cast, were in fact foul French slang that could make the onions break down and cry! As Didier loudly and a bit too cantankerously explained to us how important it was that we comprehend the significance of his tirade. Even Jimmy looked worried when Didier was in the kitchen. Oddly, the only one that was not intimidated was Laura, the vivacious waitress, who seemed to render our fearful leader speechless using only her eyes. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, Didier disappeared in a puff of smoke. Or maybe Jimmy was burning something, I really don’t remember. But he was gone, Laura’s tray was set to absolute perfection, Rod the busboy had regained his composure, and Jimmy was ready with the next round of tantalizing treats arranged in artwork on my clean plates. All had performed admirably in Act 1.
Anyway, you get the picture; This performance goes on all night, every night. Some of the actors change, but the results remain the same. Curiously, at dinner time, Jimmy took on an air of compassion that made me think of my own father on some of his better days. He would speak ever so softly, and hold out a bowl of beef stew, which because it had some wine in it, was referred to as Beef Bourgogne. But delicious it was. No Dinty Moore for this restaurant worker. As quickly as everything had gone to hell in a mixing bowl, the calm and serene peace of family meal changed the entire setting. I sat at a small table with Ernie, the old man who was in charge of maintenance. Funny, because he could barely maintain himself, and as I later found out, he was the 65 year old uncle of the manager. I cleverly positioned myself so I could catch a glimpse of Laura each time she entered the kitchen. It was these Zen saturated moments that made us all forget how loud and harsh the decibel level could get at service time.
My gastronomic voyage had officially begun. I dove in with a work ethic beyond reproach. I have arrived!