the love

cornstarch is absolutely correct.  we do this because we love it.  i make shit money, am always in danger of not paying this bill or that bill, but goddamnit, i love doing what i do.  back in 1998, i was a broke college student crawling back to his hometown with his tail between his legs due to being expelled from two different schools in washington (ps whole nother story).  i'd worked in fast food in high school (didn't we all?) but had no love or passion for food.  my grandmother was very picky about what and where she ate and she really liked this local irish pub.  we went all the time and one day they asked me if i needed a job.  i filled out an app and two days later was on the line for the first time.  i kept the job as i struggled my way back into college, strictly as a source of income, mostly for my addiction (at the time) to star wars toys and, uh...other...stuff.  i got my first degree in 2002, a two year degree in computer software support, right as the bottom dropped out of the tech industry.  all the dotcoms going bankrupt and whatnot.  but upon graduation i quit my job thinking i was gonna get a tech support job somewhere...i mean, i'm a college graduate!

wrong.

so i kept going to school, and got my job back.  i took it more seriously this time around, and really honestly tried to do a better job of running the kitchen and making nicer food and all that.  i started to get into it.  and it all kinda runs together here in my brain, but i kept going and got a four year degree (bachelors of applied science, emphasis on business management), and kept rocking in the kitchen.  i finally quit, thinking i was getting a management trainee position at a rent-to-own furniture store (BIG mistake) and after i got fired after three months i wound up in a kitchen again.

and i've been here ever since.

sure, with my degrees i could go get some other job, wearing khakis and a corporate polo shirt, making bank, owning a house and all that...the ideal life that i only see on tv.  instead, i decided a long time ago that the kitchen was a good place for me; a filthy mouthed hooligan with a taste for illicit substances, someone who should by all rights be kept away from the general public.  in the kitchen i can wear dirty slayer t-shirts and nobody complains.  in an 8 hour shift i say fuck at least a hundred times and it's all good.  i get way more smoke breaks than anybody who works in an office.  i constantly verbally berate the very customers that ensure i have a job and they never hear me.




and then there's the food...the food...

i decided a long time ago that there was something very honorable about choosing to cook for a living.  it's not the most glamorous position in the world. it's often thankless and annoying, it's always hot as hell and dangerous to a degree that most jobs aren't, and it takes a very specific mindset to put up with it day in and day out.   but no matter where you are, or what your economic conditions are, you're gonna go get some food one of these days.  and somebody's gotta make that food.

and that somebody is me.  and cornstarch.  and mad redux.  and p-drop.  and all the other cooks that write and read this blog.  we're a special breed, folks.  recognize us.