Conundrum

Hello Friends!

Sorry I’ve been a stranger for the past few weeks (eek, months). It was like I pulled a Rip Van Winkle, fell asleep, and boom, time had raced past me.

Though I cannot divulge too much, I will suffice it to say I have worked a lot over the past few months, and in another kitchen I never dreamed I’d be so fortunate to call myself a part of. Challenging is an adjective probably better suited for great physical feats of strength or SAT preparation, but even those seem like small potatoes to the gnarliness of the effects of the past few months on me.

Fourteen to fifteen hour days, an hour-plus commute tacked onto both ends of that and the constant pressure of searching for the fleeting “it”. Its been tough, tougher than ever, but at this point at least there is a level of comfort I feel to sort it out and share a little bit with you, and with myself simultaneously.


“Nobody ever said this was going to be easy!”

I definitely have nights where I find a little bit of dark, skeptical satisfaction in that very same statement that was probably being screamed at me just hours before by a bellicose but good-hearted sous chef. There are a lot of mantra’s, philosophies and sayings at the restaurant, but I think the most important lesson I’ve been imbued with the past few months is to just push, and fight on, no matter how impossible seeming the task or scenario.

The only comfort or satisfaction that really settles with me is giving everything I have, whether or not we tally the night in the successs or failure column. In fact, I would rather have a nightmare service knowing that I used every last moment and resource to its fullest than have a decent service with mis en place or moments that I think could be better. Clearly a best-of-both-worlds situation is ideal, but if it were that easy, it probably wouldn’t provide for that kind of professional growth, or culinary puberty if you will, that our predecessors keep telling us is essential to replacing them at the helms of the ships.

While I have found friends and some success in my newest ventures here in New York City, my heart is still in Spain, and my friendships with the people whom I was surrounded by during my time there are missed dearly. Even more so, I still miss calling upstate New York home. I guess I never measured success and happiness like many of my peers, so its left me a bit empty feeling to achieve some of the goals I once envisioned as crucial benchmarks on my path to happiness only to find myself wanting what I had once thought was just okay enough. In the same way notable groundbreaking chefs hit that wall where they want to go back to the simplest of things, I find myself at the very boundary of where I had envisioned going with my life and food, and just looking inward (backwards maybe, depending on your perspective or attitude towards the situation).

Anywho, some of the funner (I know, but I wanted to use it, so whatever0 things I have been a part of the past few months have been pretty special experiences. We, up until a few weeks ago, were going to the Union Square farmers markets to pull our own produce for our services. One of the cool things about what we do is people come back in the kitchen after their meals. They are often giddy and food drunk (and just as often drunk-drunk) but still the emotional rewards they bestow make an otherwise crazy life, worth it. Then I think about the farmer, who meets the cook who cooks his vegetables, and hope they get a little of that satisfaction as well. Then you think about it, and realize your another caretaker in the life of a vegetable that was born, lived and expunged in the quest of satiating someone. Its not really about the perfection, really, its about people and product, the two most flawed things I’ve ever encountered in my life.

Ive been talking with a notable chef from California over the past few months, named Jeremy Fox. As funny as I can put it, our exchanges have been (hopefully for him as much as me) mutually inspirational, and never really professionally encroaching or too serious. I think our paths crossed a critical points in both of our careers and lives. Lest we forget, that is rarely the things we do for people that really stick in their memories, but the way we make them feel. Sometimes they are directly related, sometimes they aren’t.

Someday here soon the reality will settle in that I started doing this to cook for my friends and family in a place I know and love. Bottom line. Michelin Stars, accolades and accomplishments don't change the fact that this is still the dream, and even how wonderful it is, not the reality that I live in.

Hope to see everyone again here soon, now that I am settled and stateside.

I am going to add pictures later at some point, just wanted to get something on here finally.

Cheers,
GKC