liquor license in peril, to say the least; the Ansel System could go off,
shutting down your kitchen in the middle of a ten-thousand-dollar night;
there's the ongoing struggle with rodents and cockroaches, any one of
which could crawl across the Tina Brown four-top in the middle of the
dessert course; you just bought 10,000 dollars-worth of shrimp when the
market was low, but the walk-in freezer just went on the fritz and
naturally it's a holiday weekend, so good luck getting a service call in
time; the dishwasher just walked out after arguing with the busboy, and
they need glasses now on table seven; immigration is at the door for a
surprise inspection of your kitchen's Green Cards; the produce guy wants
a certified check or he's taking back the delivery; you didn't order
enough napkins for the weekend—and is that the New York Times
reviewer waiting for your hostess to stop flirting and notice her?
I have met and worked for the one perfect animal in the restaurant
jungle, a creature perfectly evolved for the requirements of surviving
this cruel and unforgiving business, a guy who lives, breathes and
actually enjoys solving little problems like the ones above. He is a man
who loves the restrictions, the technical minutiae, the puzzling mysteries
of the life as things to be conquered, outwitted, subjugated. He rarely
invests his own money, but he always makes money for his partners. He
never goes anywhere and never does anything except what he's good at,
which is running restaurants. He's good. He's so good that to this day,
more than ten years after I stopped working for the man, I still wake up
every morning at five minutes of six, always before the alarm, and I'm
never late to work. Why? Because to disappoint the man—not to live up
to his shining example of total involvement would be, even now, treason
to my trade. I became a real chef—meaning a person capable of
organizing, operating and, most important, leading a kitchen—because
of the man. He taught me everything really important I know about the
business. He, more than anyone else I encountered in my professional
life, transformed me from a bright but druggie fuck-up into a serious,
capable and responsible chef. He made me a leader, the combination of