blog – forked shirts

Addiction, blog, chefs, christmas, cooks, drugs and alcohol, holidays, kitchen, Kitchen Confidential, linecooks, Mental Health, nyc, suicide, suicide prevention, willingness - December 20, 2018

Holiday Mental Wealth

We’re here. The thick of it. We barely exist to the outside world during the holidays. Our families, pets, friends and anyone else normally deserving of our attention have fell to the wayside. While all the 'normies' who work bank hours are being dismissed from their jobs early, spending time with loved ones and attending company holiday parties; we are doing just the opposite.

This is not O.K.

Generations of chefs are familiar with his writing and some even credit his descriptions of the kitchen as the driving force for them to pursue this line of work. Most notably, “kitchen confidential” gave an unfiltered look into the debauchery and drudgery associated with a life committed to cooking professionally. To be heralded as such a pivoting point in literature to launch so many careers in the world of culinary arts is a testament to just how fucked up we as Chefs really are.

The Restaurant is your station when you're the Chef

Every professional requires certain physical items within their industry in order to execute responsibilities throughout their work day. There are many obvious examples of these professions and tools that come to mind: A plumbers' monkey-wrench, the police officers handcuffs, a gardeners hand-spade, the masons trowel. Anyone who truly knows a professional chef is aware of the intimate bond and affection they have for their tools. We can be obsessive about details that would seem irrelevant to others. One immediately gravitates towards the thought of a chef and his knives - the constant maintenance and pride held in a well-weathered Japanese...

the chef is always right, even when he is wrong.

I've been in this industry for some time now and I see some troubling things developing among young cooks. A number of the things which I am concerned about may not come as any surprise to someone who has been observing, particularly if they have been observing for some time now. Some of the things may be purely circumstantial or even relative to the area. However, the most troubling item on this list of developments among this generation of cooks entering our kitchens is purely the lack of willingness. Of course, if you're reading this after your first few...

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October 12, 2017

fall menu change - How i loved you and now i don't (but should)

Today was the first meal period of the Fall menu at our restaurant. Vegetables that once excited me now bring reminders of where my life stood one year ago. On shaky grounds. Everything was falling apart. The challenge of opening a new restaurant, my relationship of four years finally coming to a close, the Presidential Election, and the long road ahead without any chance at vacation were all creating a scenario of doom. Pour some alcohol abuse on top of all of this and you have the exact image of what my life had become - a dumpster fire. November...