KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

(Chris Devlin) #1

of us, what with his leering at the food and his recently acquired
conviction that we're plotting against him. What do we do?"


We kick fat boy over the side, I say. Maybe we even carve a nice chunk
of rumpsteak off his thigh before letting him go. Is that wrong?


Yah, yah, yah, tough guy. Sure you'd do that. To which I'd say, "You
don't know me very well." Insurrection? A direct challenge to my
authority? Treasonous dereliction of duty? The time will come, my
friend, when it's gonna be you going over the side. I will—and I tell my
cooks this ahead of time—contrive, conspire, manipulate, maneuver and
betray in order to get you out of my kitchen, whatever the outcome to
you personally. If an unexpected period of unemployment inspires you to
leap off a bridge, hang yourself from a tree or chug-a-lug a quart of drain
cleaner, that's too bad.


The absolutes first attracted me to this business (along with that food
thing). The black and white of it. The knowledge that there are some
things you must do—and some things you absolutely must not. What
little order there has been in my life is directly related to this belief in
clear right and clear wrong: maybe not moral distinctions, but practical
ones.


Another cook has to cover for you? Wrong.


Chef spending too much time kissing your boo-boos, stroking your ego,
solving your conflicts with co-workers? Wrong.


Talking back to your leader? Wrong.


You will soon become dead to me.


My friend the novice "killer", feeling truly awful about what happened,
said, "Tony. I'm different than you—I have a heart!" I laughed and took

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