Okay, what am I doing? Writing a blog, which all my friends said I should -- but I hated the idea. "More white noise" was always my response to the idea of a blog. But now I have too much time on my hands, and I was laid-off, and my landlord wants me to move out because I wasn't paid that well when I worked -- so rent was a monthly battle.
So -- what the fuck? Now is a good time to start a blog.
I'm a cook. Or better yet, as Steven Seagal said as he cocked a gun in the movie "Under Siege" -- 'Well, I also cook." Well, I also cook. My main reason to live on this planet is that I write. But I love to cook. It is my career. And I've cooked in some of the finest places in America. Which lead me to the idea of this blog. I've cooked in great places, yet I still have to struggle to find a job (I was laid off my last place so they could save on labor costs. And I'm not mad about it. Business is business, not personal -- that's what my daddy taught me).
But I find it tough. Even with my skill, I still have to prove with every waking moment that I can do what I can do. I have to "stage" (A French word for working for free) to prove I can do what I can already do, in case that restaurant wants to hire me. I was a Sous Chef, two times, yet I still have to mop floors and do crap shit to prove I am a fucking CHEF.
But that's how this business works. And I accept that.
So this blog now exists to chronicle my weekly struggle in the restaurant business. Dealing with the attitudes, and good interviews that lead no where, and dealing with potential bosses who think they are better than who they are, and those who offer crap pay like it is some god-send to work at their places.
What The Fuck? It's the restaurant business. Not fucking rocket science or genetic engineering (which I almost chose as a career. So yes -- I'm really fucking smart). Why does every one in the restaurant business treat everyone so badly? Fuck all of you!
But there are exceptions. Thus the name of my blog. Charlie Trotter. A guy who attended my main rival high school back in the 1970s. A guy who went to a rival Big Ten school for college. A guy who got the SAME degree I did. Yet, I didn't want to cook then (even though my mother suggested I should), I went into advertising, then became a fiction writer. Fell ass-backwards into cooking when I was in my early 40s. But this guy who lived almost a mirror life to mine that I had always heard about (in the corners of people talking) who was named Charlie Trotter.
When I moved back from the East Coast, his name was like God. Charlie Trotter, best restaurant in the city. Charlie Trotter, spawned many of the best chefs in the country. Charlie Trotter, self taught chef that changed the landscape or food. I could be Charlie Trotter. Or he could be me. But in the end, we both want the same thing -- the best food for people.
Unluckily I find that's not true for most everyone else. So I'm searching for Charlie Trotter. I'm hoping to make the best food I can make. And it's not about food cost or labor budgets or some other bullshit reason to cut costs for maximum profits.
I just care about making an incredible fucking meal. Why is such an idea so hard to understand?
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