Thought of the Day
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

From the Thought of the Day Archive:

Just When I Thought I Was Out...

They pull me back in. Note that that line came from a character (Godfather III) who had just suffered a massive stroke. Also note that working in the restaurant business is a lot like working for the mafia. You can check out, but you can never leave. Oh, Jesus. I just quoted Don Henley. Please kill me.

Also kill me because I'm cooking again. My God. What, when I'm 87, I'm going to be standing on some line in some kitchen with my tongs (watch it) in my hand glaring at some stupid waitress? Fuckin-A, dude.

The sad, pathetically sad thing is, I actually enjoy cooking. I love cutting myself and burning myself and throwing 50 lb. boxes around until my muscles are stretching their skins. I love that feeling when you're really humping ass, flying, throwing down, running the servers ragged, and you stop what you're doing for ten seconds and look down the line at your trench buddy (translation: fellow line cook) and the two of you lock eyes and give each other the slightest of grins as the sweat rolls down your face and hisses on the flattop or the grill. In that moment - a span of ten seconds which, in the restaurant business, actually counts as a "break" - two line cooks are exchanging a thought without saying a word. Specifically, "Fuck! Yes!"

You want to see something really cool? Go to a restaurant that has an open kitchen. On a Friday or Saturday night. And right about 8:30 or so, when your server disappears and shit is really starting to fly around the room, put your fork down and walk over to the line and watch those fuckers dance. Just stay out of the way.

Or, you could stand in your own kitchen with another person and move a bunch of hot, sharp shit around for four hours - as fast as you possibly can - and see if you two can not kill each other or yourselves. If you survive this little test, you'll begin to get a clue about what the "dance" is like. It kicks ass.

Cooking is almost a sport. It requires the ability to endure pain. It requires stamina, and cleverness. Professional cooking requires a person to kick some ass, with more than a little grace. The egg yoke is a harsh mistress my friends, and a Wüsthof Trident will fuck your shit up if you're not careful with it.

I saw a guy banana-peel his fuckfinger on a meat slicer once. The blade stopped turning because it got bound up in his bone. There were, like, three other guys standing around when it happened. Nobody said a word. One cool-headed chap had the presence of mind to quickly unplug the bitch, and my best friend - who was also my kitchen manager at the time - calmly said, "Hey, dude. You're probably going to want to go to the hospital for that one." Deadpan. Probably one of the funniest sentences ever spoken.

Fucking harsh. Dude didn't respect the blade, and he has one bastard of a scar on his right hand for the rest of his life to remind him of it. That had to fucking hurt, man. A lot.

Seriously, though. Cooking sucks. It truly does. It's hard, shitty work. BAM! Unless you have a catchy hook phrase. BAM! I love these rockstar chefs you see rubbing elbows with Katie Couric's empty hollow shell of a soul. What a bunch of pussies. Clean the greasetrap, fucker. Then slice that 50-pound bag of onions. Bitch.

Not one of those dickheads could cook their way out of a wet paper bag if they had a roadmap and a chainsaw. If some guy ever says BAM! on a line and I'm within arm's reach, I'm gonna drop him. One shot. Under the chin, below the ear. Out.

Ever met a CIA guy? No, not that CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. It's all fancy pants and Foe Gras and wooden spoons and little ramekins filled with spices and perfectly minced garlic. I'm thinking that there's about three guys who graduated from CIA who are worth a damn. The rest of them are assholes. Assholes who can't cook. They can probably tell you what the boiling tempreature of water is at 12,000 feet off the top of their heads, but when shit starts going down on the line Friday night, those guys are fucking clueles.

You wanna know what real cooking is like? Real cooking is dropping a steak on the floor and then finishing it off in the deep fryer. Real cooking is cauterizing a cut on your fingertip by intentionally pushing the cut onto a 700° degree grill. Real cooking is burning six sheet pans full of bacon to a crisp while you stand in the dining room and listen to some fat, old, rich bitch tear you a new asshole because the muffins aren't "muffiny" enough (true story). Fuck you. Fuck you with your BAM! and your tossing the kosher salt into the pan. I can tell how much salt is in a cream sauce by the way it sounds when it hits hard boil. With my back turned to it.

Well, as a dedicated lifer, it is now my duty to start drinking. In fact, I'm slacking. I'm a line cook and it's my day off and it's 1:06 PM and I've only had one beer. What the fuck is that about?

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