I live in Redondo Beach. I work in Santa Monica. There is a running joke in my house that I can get to work at either five in the morning or nine thirty, and nothing in between. Leave at four thirty, I'm in the kitchen by five. Leave at eight fifteen, I'm walking in at nine thirty. Los Angeles does not negotiate.
Tonight the GPS says I'll be home at seven thirty. That's an hour and a half in the car. I used to spend that time thinking about how this traffic was going to make me start drinking. Now I'm going to spend it talking.
So this is the blog. Lessons from the day. Opinions I've earned the hard way over thirty years of cooking, managing, failing, and getting back up. Some of it will be about food. Most of it will be about people, because after a certain point that's what a chef's job is: people. The food is the easy part.
I'm not going to pretend I've got it all figured out. I've been the young cook who thought shouting was leadership. I've been the chef who burned out and didn't know the word for it. I've been the guy who left a job because he was in a bad mood every single day and finally understood that the mood was the message.
What I have now is the thing you only get from the mistakes: perspective. And a long drive home.
Welcome to the hub. Pull up a chair.