There’s some days when I have no idea what to write for this blog. There’s many things I want to write, but at this point in time, it would be very difficult to pull off. I’ve said before I have this book that’s been burning my brain for awhile. I haven’t got it all figured out. The plot or the time it will take. There’s mornings when my son is mellow and there’s mornings when the whole place is utter fucking chaos…He’s teasing the goddam dog with crackers or running around screaming. I can’t imagine trying to focus on a novel as well as attempting to pump out a blog post. Maybe I’m just making excuses but here’s an example: My son shit himself this morning and then somehow undid his diaper and stuffed the whole shit filled fiasco into the right leg of his pajamas. Yup, down to the very bottom so his leg looked like it had elephantiasis. While writing I looked over, saw this, and thought to myself, “What the fuck is that?”

Part of daily writing is getting all the junk out of my system so I can allow the coffee to begin its work. I’ve thought about just getting up earlier and doing the blog and the novel but I don’t think that’s possible while working nights. I’ve been sleeping well lately and feel good. It’s not just an important part of life but the important part of life. Optimize your sleep and everything else will follow. Here’s what I do when my shit is together:

Magnesium, zinc, glycine, before bed with no food before bed and especially nothing with calcium like cheese or milk. Calcium blocks magnesium absorption. Sleep mask so everything is pitch black. I listen to an app that provides deep sleep brain waves. That’s it. Oh, and I sleep naked. It’s good to follow the 3,2,1 rule of sleep. No liquids 3 hours before bed, no food 2 hours before bed and no screens 1 hour before bed. I have my phone and computer completely red screened and if I’m lucky I get a little reading in, ten pages or so.

I really want to go see this waterfall in Malibu, the Escondido Falls hike, but driving 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back sounds awful. I’ve always hated driving. Give me some credit, I grew up in Burlington, VT, and never really needed a car unless I was going fishing. Everything I needed was right there. My school, work, movie theater, gym, and bar. A beautiful little utopia. I’ve spoken about this before I think, so apologies. I left in 2005 and at that time I worked in the kitchen at the Vermont National Country Club. A private, members only joint. Easily the most ridiculous and fun job I’ve ever had.

I was hired to be the sous chef but had already been accepted to a master’s program in New York City, so turned down the offer but was hired on as a cook. Maybe the job was so enjoyable because I knew there would be a quick end to it. I had come straight from the dungeon of The Five Spice Cafe, a restaurant run by two people who were extremely nice but also clueless and I was in a very strange phase of my own life where I was basically a young douchebag with no gratitude. At Vermont National the whole place was brand spanking new, huge, and attached to all this money coming in. No one gave a shit about the food cost. Most of the cooks drank beer all night from a tapped keg in the walk in and took shots from the booze that came back from the mobile booze cart and was stored in the office.

There was a guy who carved out a carrot pipe every day who could a steak any temperature perfectly in the microwave. We were all high most of the time and drank a lot of beer. We were allowed to make tee times and all played golf five days a week. We were even allowed to bring one friend if we wanted to. It was truly a fantastic summer job.

The point of me talking about this is that instead of joining in on most of the fun, I ended up using the time to try out certain culinary techniques. Yes, this post is more tell than show, anyone who knows anything about writing knows this is the wrong way to go about it. The whole extrapolation in this post is wrong. I think I’m writing about it less from a memoir standpoint than as a reflection of who I was in order to glean some sort of lesson for all of us.

Like I said, as the others goofed off, I used the time to try all sorts of techniques in Larouse Gastromique like making a decent stock and then clarifying that stock to make consomme, and the millions of sauces that could be made from the mother sauces. I did a bunch of baking as well, using recipes from fancier books that ended up looking like shit. The cool thing about the club was each station was required to put a special on the menu every night. I was on the grill, so I would whip up a french classic like Steak Diane (Au poivre with Dijon mustard) or spend all day focusing on a braised dish like Bourguignon. It was basically a free education for me. I was allowed to do anything I wanted and so took advantage of it. Of course, I’m no damn saint, there were days I joined in the fun and sat around in the office with the boys shooting the shit and talking trash, drinking tequila Frescas and trading sandwiches for found golf balls with the old dudes whose job it was to drive around and marshall the players.

What’s the point? Well, I don’t know. It was the last true kitchen job I ever had before I went fully over to the dark side. Maybe that’s why I’m nostalgic for it. It was sloppily run. The food cost was insanely high. It was all state of the art, brand new, and at the center of it, as usual, a whole pirate ship of weird guys– addicts, reprobates, and general degenerates. I do miss those days. Front of house staff are not as remotely interesting as those who end up in the back of house. Today, the people who end up as cooks and chefs are not quite as criminal minded or colorful. They drink just as much but have their collective shit together a little more. There’s less tomfoolery and more women. Everyone is a little more career driven and just kinder in general. I do miss the days when cooks wanted to stab waiters and sometimes did so but on the whole it’s a better, more wholesome place back there now. Some of the shit I’ve seen (and done) back in the day that was totally normal would now get you arrested or just plain fired on the spot.

It’s a bit like how Times Square in New York City was once vile and debased but more interesting than the watered down Disney experience it has become. Cooks will always be a bunch of misanthropic souls who would rather make less money than have to sell their souls kissing ass. They almost always have better musical taste and an awareness of the great movies than the front of house who seems to spend their large amounts of free time in leisure. Yes, the hygiene of the staff in kitchens could be increased a tad, but it’s a dirty, sweaty job. There are days I wonder what would have happened had I never been accepted to grad school and had instead gone to culinary school (my second choice). Would I still be back there or would I be somewhere else entirely? A private chef for a clan of über douches? I suppose it’s worthy of a future post. The zig instead of the zag.