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Grenade and Diaper Delivery Service

 

 I am not a career restaurateur, food service professional, or even one who has worked in the industry in a supporting role. I worked at Marie's Luncheonette in my mid-teens and at Colonial Pizza. Both were owned by second and first-generation Italian Americans, respectively. Their food culture was precise, impressive, and intense. I learned a great deal about my work ethic from these extraordinary men, and I am grateful for the experience.

I find myself constantly heaping heavy loads and huge demands on myself to produce. Most of the time, I am very pleased with the end result. Once in a while, I fall short, although no one seems to notice. That is because the destination I had in mind does not match the destination achieved. I think the reason I get a pass on that from my diners is that they still cannot get what I made elsewhere, and they don't die, so it is still like going on vacation and experiencing something different.

24 years ago, I decided that I could cook anything as long as I was all in and gave it the respect it deserved. Time, effort, humility, and most of all respect for all of those who have come before me.

At times, I got a little full of myself, but that was short-lived because I am good at seeing things from other people's perspectives, which reminds me we all have the capacity to learn. There are millions of people who could show me a thing or two. We all put our spin on it, and, granted, I do not approach the world the way others do, so somewhere in there, the art of cooking is ours to share. That is what it is about.

Why am I writing this rambling pile of nebulous words? I am looking for a system. I have a 3-day cooking event ahead of me, and I want to make good choices. Because it took me this long to reach this point in my culinary ambitions, I feel like I am trying to drink from the firehose while operating with cautious wisdom, as though I were running a grenade-and-diaper delivery service simultaneously. I have no problem with escalation. My whole life has been about that. It is restraint and subtlety that I have had to carefully cultivate.

I want a mission control wall with a feed on all things that will help me build, and somehow I want my brain to simplify it so I can make breakfast with a blindfold on and with no noticeable effort. I want flow and connection with the food that I am making. I can honestly say, I have that so much more today than ever before. In fact, lately, I have tapped into this subliminal instinct that I have learned to feel. It tells me when to apply and when to hold back, silent, yet screaming.

One thing I am sure of, you will never find me crafted by the mold of someone else. I will always be chaos where others see no need. I will always have that element of waking up on the kitchen floor the next day, never to know how I got there. This is what makes me who I am. That could never be duplicated. The magnetic power that holds all of the fragments together of what I am is absolutely illogical, but it seems to never fail. 

There are some things you cannot fake (like the AI-generated photo for this entry). You have to put in the work and deliver. The three-day cooking event mentioned in an earlier paragraph happened quite some time ago now. In those 4 days, I pushed everything to limits I had never reached before. I met my biggest challenge so far with confidence. I know this is only the beginning. There will be things so much bigger ahead, and I am ready. I got this.


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