Week 3 Last week started out with figurative tumbleweeds blowing across the dining room. As my stalwart cooks reported for duty Wednesday afternoon, a heavy blanket of snow was turning Main Street into a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life. In a … [Read more...] about Running Away From Home Week 3
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Running Away From Home Week 2
Week 2 Ok. I survived. And I actually don’t feel too bad, considering. Normally, a fifty-hour work week on hard cement floors would have me moaning around the house post-shift like a Monday morning linebacker. But, for now at least, I’m still … [Read more...] about Running Away From Home Week 2
So You Think You’re a Chef (Redux)
In a fit of frustration, I wrote a scathing and inappropriate piece for the short-lived L’Ecole Culinaire monthly newsletter back in 2012. Fed up with student apathy, the excuses, the rampant absenteeism, the moans and groans during “Pig Week”—a … [Read more...] about So You Think You’re a Chef (Redux)
Running Away From Home
For the most part, our leaving Memphis was a non-story. And frankly we planned it that way. It was tempting to make a big announcement, of course; maybe stretch out our impending exodus like a Kiss Farewell Tour into an eons-long ego massage full of … [Read more...] about Running Away From Home
Chasing Tony
In early 2000, nearly broke and nursing a bad case self-pity I took a low paying kitchen manager position at a bookstore cafe. It consisted of ordering food, scheduling, and pressuring trust fund babies into making the crap we served look like the … [Read more...] about Chasing Tony
Grains of Salt
My father was right—damn him—when throughout my childhood he pounded into my head the tired old adage ‘success is a results business’. Of course, he was gently pointing out that all of my futile dreams; the fantasy of playing drums for Rush despite a … [Read more...] about Grains of Salt
