To have a child is to give fate a hostage.
And I had my first oyster. Now, this was a truly significant event. I remember it like I remember losing my virginity – and in many ways, more fondly. August.
Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.
Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.
Look at your waiter’s face. He knows. It’s another reason to be polite to your waiter: he could save your life with a raised eyebrow or a sigh.
Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago, garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please, treat your garlic with respect.
Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance, as they say in the army – and I always, always want to be ready. Just like Bigfoot.
Skills can be taught. Character you either have or don’t have. Bigfoot understood that there are two types of people in the world: those who do what they say they’re going to do – and everyone else.
This, I knew, was the magic I had until now been only dimly and spitefully aware of.
Line cooks are the heroes.
I have since found that almost everybody in the meat business is funny – just as almost everyone in the fish business is not.
Selling out is getting a job.
As well, there’s the age-old syndrome common to fans of musicians with passionate and discerning cult followings. When the objects of adulation are crass enough to become popular, they quickly become a case of “used to be good.
Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman – not an artist.
I remember it well, because it was such a slap in the face. It was a wake-up call that food could be important, a challenge to my natural belligerence. By being denied, a door opened.
My last semester at Vassar, I’d taken to wearing nunchakus in a strap-on holster and carrying around a samurai sword – that should tell you all you need to know.
The life of the cook was a life of adventure, looting, pillaging and rock-and-rolling through life with a carefree disregard for all conventional morality. It looked pretty damn good to me on the other side of the line.
The Ecuadorian, Mexican, Dominican and Salvadorian cooks I’ve worked with over the years make most CIA-educated white boys look like clumsy, sniveling little punks. In.
Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.