I’m through being cool. Or, more accurately, I’m through entertaining the notion that anybody could even consider the possibility of coolness emanating from or residing anywhere near me. As any consci...
I had field experience, a vocabulary and a criminal mind. I was a danger to myself and others.
Don't touch my dick, don't touch my knife.
And, well, for most of my life I’d been way too far up my own ass to be of any use to anyone—something that only got worse after Kitchen Confidential. I don’t know exactly when the possibility of that...
For the rest of my life- to resemble this one: both complex and strangely comforting.
Back-scratching of liquor licenses, the netherworld of trash removal, linen, grease disposal. And with every dime you've got tied up in your new place, suddenly the drains in your prep kitchen are bac...
Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the...
The essence of cool, after all, is not giving a fuck. And let’s face it: I most definitely give a fuck now. I give a huge fuck. The hugest. Everything else—everything—pales. To pretend otherwise, by w...
Portugal was the beginning, where I began to notice the things that were missing from the average American dining experience. The large groups of people who ate together. The family element. The seemi...
My love for chaos, conspiracy and the dark side of human nature colors the behavior of my charges, most of whom are already living near the fringes of acceptable conduct.
I believe I should be able to treat my hamburger like food, not like infectious fucking medical waste.
Fully feeling the effects of the sake, I was seriously considering burning my passport, trading my jeans and leather jacket for a dirty seersucker suit and disappearing into the exotic East.
Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.
As incisively pointed out in the documentary 'Food Inc.', an overwhelmingly large percentage of 'new,' 'healthy,' and 'organic' alternative food products are actually owned by the same parent companie...
History, as they say, will always be written by the victors.
What’s the most frightening thing to a child? The pain of being the outsider, of looking ridiculous to others, of being teased or picked on in school. Every child burns with fear at the prospect. It’s...
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory,...
There’s that old joke, I’ve referred to it before, where the guy at the bar asks the girl if she’d fuck him for a million dollars—and she thinks about it and finally replies, Well, I guess for a milli...
So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral de...
The pernicious spread of raw food continues, and its prodigiously farting adherents continue to multiply. They must be stopped.