Yo. We had a busy but very smooth service over in Brooklyn tonight. Nights like tonight remind me why I’m still in one of the world’s most deranged professions. I hate the life I live sometimes. I sometimes ask myself why didn’t I decide to work in an office in the city, and work normal hours, and live a calm life like normal people. Sometimes I get home at 4 in the morning and there’s nothing to do but drink, and then when I wake up I feel crappy and it’s time to go to work again.

But days like today are different. It’s weird that I had such a nice day, because I was really feeling the drag when I went into work today. I went in at 4 pm, and two of my coworkers saw me and were like, “daaaaaamn, what happened to you?” Well nevermind about that. The main problem was that I overslept and couldn’t shake off the half-asleep look. But after busting my ass for an hour and a half to set up my station and bang out a little prep, I was ready for the relentless marathon of service that we get thrown at us each and every Saturday night at my place there, in Brooklyn. I drank a big ol’ cup of our very nice premium coffee, in a plastic pint container of course, and was ready to throw down for the next 8 hours.

It was such a smooth, enjoyable service. I had very good mise-en-place – I knew exactly how much I had of all my food, and where it was located – and we were continually busy for 6 hours of so, but not slammed like when everyone decides to have dinner at the same exact time. So, knowing that my saute station was good to go, and by staying out of the house of pain of putting out 12 tables at the same time, I could concentrate solely on my cooking, and cook stress free, which of course leads to better tasting, higher quality food. I hope that people can taste my food, and know that I like what I do. Anyways, it’s so unrewarding sometimes – long days, a lot of work, rediculously low pay, and working for a lot of assholes (managers, owners, sometimes chefs too). But when I’m in the kitchen on days like tonight, and everything just goes so smooth, and I can just work the pans and enjoy cooking – then it all makes sense.