upgraded; steakhouses were notoriously lax in their specials and seafood
offerings. There was plenty about this place I could improve, I was sure
of it.
Typically, I arrived about a half-hour early for the interview. Nervous
and thirsty, I decided to take the edge off with a pint. I tend to
overanalyze questions during the interview process, to answer too wise-
ass, and these were not qualities one seeks in a chef. So, I figured, a pint
would dumb me down a little, relax me.
I ducked into an inviting-looking workingman's pub-Irish bartender,
bowls of stale pretzels on the bar, Van Morrison on the jukebox. After a
couple of sips I felt perfectly at home with the daytime drinker crowd
and the stale beer stink. I sipped and smoked, looked longingly at a plate
of chicken wings a couple of stools down. I couldn't eat before the
interview, I reminded myself, I didn't want a big hunk of chicken in my
teeth while a potential new boss grilled me about my less than brilliant
career. As the hour approached, I yearned just to blow off the interview,
stay here all day, drop a few quarters in the jukebox, play Steppenwolf's
"Magic Carpet Ride" and have a few more Bass ales. It would be so nice,
I mused, to get paid for this—twelve hundred a week to hang out in the
fading daylight of Irish bars, instead of having to go through the full
mind-body press of taking on a new kitchen. But I needed the money. I
needed the work. I needed to get back in the game.
When I walked out into the sweltering, mid-August afternoon, I was
about as loose and ready as I was ever going to be.
The place was done up with the usual dark-wood walls and historical
prints of horses, old New York, handlebar-mustached ball players and
clubby accouterments. It was between lunch and dinner service, and the
dining room was empty except for a frosty-haired man with a well-
trimmed beard in the casual clothes that say "owner" and a younger man
in a business suit. They were interviewing another candidate, a stack of