and in the end...
I don't know if I walk a normal path. Although I realize that everyone, not just chefs, must circumnavigate a life with more bends than a cavatappi noodle. The road at this point seems to be strewn with obstacles to joy. Impediments to the "ultimate success. This last joint, a happy, bubbling, cauldron of gastronomic joy, died far too soon and scarred my heart..
To say I have been bedside at the demise of really good restaurants, would be to deny my laying in the the bed next to the cadaver of culinary dreams. I have seen more than a few, die that festering slow death assigned to greasy, roach infested , dimly lit shacks. BUT THEY WERE NOT! Some died for lack of interest, bad location or economic climes. Some died from lack of start up capital, the number one killer of restaurant dreams. Still others died from ownership and or mismanagement. I suppose it really doesn't matter why they die. In the end, the lights are out, the staff is scattered and the dream lie on the counter along withdusty, irrelevant menus.
If this all seems so melancholy, it is only momentarily so. The dream of the next place looms inside my tired, overly smoked and far too drunk soul. The staff that has been cast into the oblivion of unknown kitchens, helmed by unknown chefs. The servers are out learning new skills I new dining rooms. The bartenders are garnering new customers, hoarding new recipes, polishing their skills. But there is an owner out there with a dream, and a pocketful of cash.
The savages can be summoned to join a dream one more time. Knife kits rolled. ready to learn new preparations. Servers and bartenders can be lifted from less challenging houses. Because in the fever and pitch, in the sweat and screaming that is a restaurant, there is a family. The best family I have ever known. My restaurant family. They are strewn across states and countries. They share my joy at doing something well, being better than the next. Missed holidays, birthdays, endless doubles and horrible conditions don't cause them a moments pause. They come home, When I call they are there. So what's next? What will challenge me again, challenge my "family to join together and wave a red flag in the face of the fickle restaurant gods. Who the fuck knows.
So instead of death , in the words of Rablais " I go to seek the great perhaps"
To say I have been bedside at the demise of really good restaurants, would be to deny my laying in the the bed next to the cadaver of culinary dreams. I have seen more than a few, die that festering slow death assigned to greasy, roach infested , dimly lit shacks. BUT THEY WERE NOT! Some died for lack of interest, bad location or economic climes. Some died from lack of start up capital, the number one killer of restaurant dreams. Still others died from ownership and or mismanagement. I suppose it really doesn't matter why they die. In the end, the lights are out, the staff is scattered and the dream lie on the counter along withdusty, irrelevant menus.
If this all seems so melancholy, it is only momentarily so. The dream of the next place looms inside my tired, overly smoked and far too drunk soul. The staff that has been cast into the oblivion of unknown kitchens, helmed by unknown chefs. The servers are out learning new skills I new dining rooms. The bartenders are garnering new customers, hoarding new recipes, polishing their skills. But there is an owner out there with a dream, and a pocketful of cash.
The savages can be summoned to join a dream one more time. Knife kits rolled. ready to learn new preparations. Servers and bartenders can be lifted from less challenging houses. Because in the fever and pitch, in the sweat and screaming that is a restaurant, there is a family. The best family I have ever known. My restaurant family. They are strewn across states and countries. They share my joy at doing something well, being better than the next. Missed holidays, birthdays, endless doubles and horrible conditions don't cause them a moments pause. They come home, When I call they are there. So what's next? What will challenge me again, challenge my "family to join together and wave a red flag in the face of the fickle restaurant gods. Who the fuck knows.
Comments
Post a Comment