Today, well yesterday now, my day was very interesting, to say the least.
There's one thing you can count on in the restaurant business: no day is exactly the same as the one before or tomorrow. This may be true for the business you're in too, but this is the one I know. Retail? It's a distant memory. Factory work? I remember well, but many days were exactly the same as the one before and the week after.
Now that I know you're all reading every word so closely, I will try my best to explain everything down to the very last detail. Pull up a chair and pull out a pencil. [Yeah, the same one you used to dial a phone, instead of the one you'd use to email me yourself.]
please put down the stone aimed at the Glass House
1. If I am speaking in a general way please discontinue to assume you know Exactly what/ whom/ where/ {when} I'm talking about. If you have not asked me directly then assume nothing. Please.
2. If you are using this series as a way to spy on my current workplace I will give you a piece of advice: spies try to stay anonymous. And so, I am speaking in code. For example: because I have been cooking professionally for 15 years and making my own living for the last 25, when I talk in the "present tense" there's a good chance that I'm speaking about all of my bosses, me (because remember I am a boss too), you, us and none of the above.
3. Here at Eggbeater I write from my heart. And, like most humans, my heart is fickle and unpredictable and sensitive and locked up and exposed and complicated. I love fiercely and, as I have said to many of my lovers
past and present, if you can't handle how I love you should leave now. Bye, nice to have known you, I hope your beige world welcomes you home with mediocre fanfare. As a person who loves as fiercely as I do, as a person with a big, exposed heart, I also admit that my downturns are brutal as well. When I fall I fall hard. In love or in despair.
I've lived in a Glass House for a long time
4. If there's one thing I know, I know all too well how words are powerful. Although I do not mean to hurt those I love and respect, I sometimes do. So I apologize. I process, I confront, I talk shit out and I do not walk away from my actions and inactions without looking my cyclops in his eyes and take responsibility for all my actions and inactions.
we made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others
5. I am a person with integrity. I identify as a gentleman and I do not take this lightly. My friendships come first and this means those I sleep with, work for, work with and work under. Ask any of my old bosses whether I slacked on the job or hid my weaknesses. Ask around and find out how many bridges I burned, mended, repaired, or kept up with my own bare hands.
if you don't know who you are, this will confuse you
Remember that job I was interviewing for from February until I took the job at Sens? Yes, that's right-- the one where I saw the Chef every few week for almost 8 months?
Well one day we were having one of our "getting to know and court you" meetings and he leaned back and said,
"I have talked to everyone you've ever worked for. Half of them tell me it would be a big mistake for me to hire you and the other half tell me you'd be the best thing to happen to my project."
6. I know who I am.
sometimes bravery is quiet
7. There are few things anyone says to me, about me, that I've not heard already. I know where I'm strong, I know my history, the history of both my parents and just about everyone in my family. Have you ever Googled me? I couldn't hide even if I wanted to. Try living for one day with a name like mine. First and last.
triangulation is a powerful tool in manipulation
8. I know a little bit about Unionizing, Union Busting and how governments pit those who would naturally
be allied, against one another. I understand a little bit about class wars and community organizing. I have never shirked from advocating and I have a history making allies with people others have pitted me against. Why am I bringing this up here, you might ask.
I work at Sens because I want to. I want to be part of a team like that. Strong, naked, fierce, smart, savvy, educated and willing to take a chance, a gamble. I no longer wanted a pastry chef job where I worked these crazy fucking hours for nothing more than a few more great desserts in the city closest to my home. So what?
I wanted a job worth the challenge. I wanted to learn something new, and not just about butter or flour or
eggs. I wanted to make a change, effect a change, teach, be taught, learn, share, advocate. I only wanted to do this again if I could do it a little differently. I wanted to find a home I would not just burn bright in for a minute, I wanted to make a house a home.
we're not going to talk about the job. it's not the job we need to change. it's you. we need to work on you and how you work.
Was it going to be possible?
Did I leave kitchens for good almost 3 years ago? Was that a choice? Was that "god doing for me what I could not do for myself?" Or did I need a break?
Did someone push me off a moving train or did I jump?
You know what? These might be questions which will never get answered.
When I was given the opportunity to care for the most important person in my life, in her last years, I stepped away from my uniform.
I want to spend time watering my own garden, the garden which is me
If you call that a choice than you are living without having truly lived yet. If you call that choice than you don't know what I have seen, what I am and have been witness to. And my friends say I am expecting too much from you, dear readers. But you know what? I am going to continue to expect too much from you. I am going to expect too much from me, and those around me.
But I beg of you, do not attempt to silence me.
Because my voice is all I have. And if forced to make a choice,
I choose me.
I have fought too long, too hard, to choose "my job" or "my career" or "your opinion of me" over
my own self.
if you can't stand the heat get out of the fucking kitchen
I will agree with all of you that my situation is complicated. It's a strange and bizarre, modern, complication. If anything happened, negatively, to me professionally, for writing down words here at Eggbeater I would not
be the first or the last. The fact that few bloggers know, or will admit, how powerful there words are is a point I have been making emphatically for the past year, if not a bit longer. As bloggers we want to have all the say in the world but then say, "Who Me?!" in the most innocent voice when our words/posts/photos, both positive and negatively affect businesses/people we talk about.
I will speak only for myself when I say it took me far too long to realize how powerful writing on the Internet was. I have only the most basic understanding of how Google and IP addresses and web-traffic and SEO and stats and Google Ranking and Cache and all that stuff works and it's overwhelming.
I try to write more responsibly now that I have made what i call my "Sinead O'Connor Mistakes." We all have to make them. They are the price of not understanding how powerful a new media is. I am the first to admit when I've fucked up.
But I ask you this: why would I write something that would intentionally hurt my Chef, my Team, my restaurant, my friends, my charges, my colleagues? Think about it-- even if I was the most awful person, unless I were writing from a remote location, living alone or with the wolves, it would be against my better interests to fuck everyone over, right?
It's true I live in a Glass House.
Sometimes I just need to get it out, get it down, write it out, rant, complain, have a temper-tantrum, cry, sleep, think and then I can return to work refreshed. We all have our processes, our vices. Me, I don't have many vices left, unless you can count delicious bedding a vice.
Eggbeater is me, yes, but all the posts were not written in one day, in one state, from one stagnant person.
In the Opening A Restaurant series I am attempting to give you a glimpse into what it feels like, from the inside. My voice is important because the major media has you believing a far different side of my industry than what I do and see and make and feel and and and and and.
It's true I built the Glass House.
If you want to know, really know, than you are going to have to step up and stop the stupid drama. The 'he said she said' bullshit. Take your mind out of high school and think about all that I have said previously. I've said a lot.
Michael is my friend and my chef. I didn't start cooking yesterday. Saying someone is My Chef means something to me. Working with a friend means that shit goes down, we make up, we process, we evolve. [And we knew this from the very beginning. Yes, we have spoken about it to each other many times.]
Working at a brand new restaurant, one we built with our hands, tears, minds and souls, means that feathers get rumpled, miscommunication occurs, staff gets fired, cooks get buried in the weeds, management turns issues into challenges which make us grow and learn, owners ride the roller coaster with their wallets and hopes and dreams, diners love and they hate, media critiques and celebrates, sleep is not guaranteed and neither is good health, the kitchen bonds, everyone learns new words in Spanish and English, and you know what?
Every day we have to show up to work no matter what. No matter the challenges, infighting, affairs, dashed hopes and the dreams made real.
My business is built on the patience of saints and the vices of pirates.
If you're quick to judge, to place me and my words in a tidy box then you're not ready to hear what I have to say. I'll continue to say things that will confuse, delight, upset, attack, embrace, moon, challenge, question, mystify, include and exclude you. Can you handle it? Are you up for the challenge?
Welcome, to my Glass House. Come in, make yourself at Home.
Because, like kitchen work as with life, it's worth it. It could be beyond your wildest dreams. The rewards to your open mind could be well worth it.
Come along for the ride if you wish. If you dare.
Take a ride on my roller coaster with me.
First, delicious bedding is not a vice...it's a god-given right.
Second...this experience of opening this restaurant, for better and for worse, has produced the best writing this glass house has ever seen. Keep up the good work champ...on all fronts.
Posted by: Aaron | 12 October 2007 at 10:39 AM
This is a beautiful and necessary rant.
And, as a side note:
"Try living for one day with a name like mine. First and last."
Heh. I just had an old friend, getting back in touch, say to me, "I try to avoid Googling you at work, for obvious reasons." Yeah, I know what he means. I know what you mean, too. It does change your persepective, your stance, how you talk about the world in public.
Every time I post something general, I'm told I'm being "cryptic" and people ask me who specifically I was talking about. And every time, I say, if I'd meant someone specific I would have either said so, or I wouldn't've posted.
Posted by: Lori S. | 12 October 2007 at 11:05 AM
I'm delighted and stunned that you've got enough energy left over to write such passionate missives for us.
I'm sad but not a little surprised that your publicity whirl is bringing you new readers who don't get what's happening here, and who jump right in to something obviously complicated and immediately begin inferring disaster. Hm.
I'm sorry for all the confusion, but elated that you're turning it into something so glittery and strong.
And I can't wait to come back and try more of your creations, especially now that the seasons seem to well and truly be changing.
What a year this has been.
Posted by: Anita | 12 October 2007 at 11:57 AM
Ah, Coney Island. Can you smell it? Can you taste it? Can you hear the rickety whoosh of the ancient toy cars on the Cyclone? Just thinking about it makes me think I have sand between my toes.
Why is it that remembering is so much sweeter than actually living in the moment?
Posted by: Kara | 12 October 2007 at 12:22 PM
I think too many folks see blogs as a form of reality tv, something to gulp down and spit out in a matter of minutes. Disposable entertainment for instant gratification.
Modern media has lost the truths behind shared stories...that this is about human connections, not divisions. Growth, not destruction. It becomes hard to grasp that not everything is scripted to heighten the drama...that it's about real passion, real fear, real explorations. Readers cannot assume that they 'know' the whole story...but should feel gifted that they had a chance to taste a bit of another's life experience.
This is food for the soul. How bland life would be without it.
Posted by: Kung Foodie Kat | 12 October 2007 at 02:28 PM
i told you what i thought the other day, but also: you are not alone. you have a team that believes in you and in what you are doing completely. even if you are having a bad day or if things are rough or if everyone is beyond tired. they chose you, too.
won't it all be so much fun, someday, in the future? tho if it isn't, there will always be ice cream...
Posted by: lindsey | 12 October 2007 at 09:49 PM
Almost one year in, and we're still dealing with almost everything you underline here. Its never easy, is it?
ps
great to finally meet you today....thanks for spending a little of your time.
Posted by: Richie | 13 October 2007 at 03:38 AM
Shuna, I *love* the fucking heat and I'll stay in your kitchen until they drag me out kicking and hollering.
Posted by: corey jo | 13 October 2007 at 12:06 PM
A woman after my own heart. I always have enjoyed someone who could just let it rip. Excellent.
Posted by: kellypea | 14 October 2007 at 03:00 PM