That was never my problem. When they're yanking a fender out of my
chest cavity, I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a
good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people
hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.
I'm still here. And I'm surprised by that. Every day.
So in the spring of 1999, I really and truly thought that I had had all my
great adventures, that the entertainment and excitement segment of the
program was long over. Been there and done that was more than an
assumption for me, it was a defensive stance, and one that kept me—and
keeps me—from repeating the stupid mistakes of the past. Sure, there
were things to learn. I learn things all the time. But I'm talking about
eye-opening, revelatory, perspective-altering life experiences: the exotic,
the frightening, the totally new. I wasn't about to sample any new
experimental hallucinogens at age forty-three. I wasn't going to
submerge myself in some new criminal sub-culture, steeping myself in
the customs and practices of professional gamblers, heroin seekers or
sexual adventurers—though at one time it would have greatly appealed
to me. I didn't think I'd be shipping out on a great big clipper ship (as
Lou Reed puts it), wandering the back streets of Peshawar or sampling
live monkey brain in the Golden Triangle. My personal journey, I
thought, was pretty much over. I was comfortably ensconsed in secure
digs, with a wife who still—remarkably—found me to be amusing on
occasion. I had a job I loved, in a successful restaurant . . . and I was
alive, for chrissakes! I was still around! Though the game had long since
gone into overtime, I still had a few moves left in me, and I was content
to play them out where I'd started—New York City, the place I believed,
heart and soul, to be the center of the world.
So it came as a surprise when one of the two partners at Les Halles,
Philippe LaJaunie—a man I'd barely conversed with up to that time—
approached me one spring afternoon and said, "Chef, we'd like you to go
to Tokyo. Make the food look and taste like it does in New York."