Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Resonance. That seems to be what it's most often about.
I'm in Vancouver today, sitting in on the ops of one of our company kitchens. It always makes me smile stepping into another kitchen. There are constants that you find in every one. A strung out chef with a thousand yard stare, a collection of miscreants and ne'er do wells with a burgeoning passion for food and the quintessential walmart stereo blasting out either heavy metal or hardcore punk or the resident DJ's latest mix of beats. Even among the inevitable iconoclasts you'll find the iconoclast's iconoclast.
The first question I got today was from 'Token'. Token's real name is Terrance but they call him Token because he is the only black guy in the kitchen...so the Chef intro'd him. The Chef assigned me some prep to do so I set up beside Token and went to work.
"What kind of music do you like?" he asked me over the blaring guitars on the blaster.
"80s soft rock like Hall and Oates or Air Supply...really gets me pumped up" I said.
He raised an eyebrow, not sure if I was kidding or not, and I wasn't. "Well it's mainly metal around here, if you didn't notice already." he informed me.
"Same everywhere." I smiled.
Later I was working with Campbell. He was the iconoclast's iconoclast of this kitchen.
"I like jazz, I play bass in a quartet and I sing a bit." he said
I grinned. "Man I'd love to get a little trio together and do some old style croonin'".
Campbell looked at me with the utmost uber-seriousness and sincerity and said "DO IT."
This is all old to me. It's a new kitchen, but it's all old to me. But good old, y'know, like your favorite old hoody or watching the Usual Suspects again. It's an old that resonates with me. I interviewed a kid not so long ago. He'd left the culinary biz for the big bucks in construction and found out that the well didn't taste so sweet. He was desperate to cook again.
"Why do you want to come back to this shit if you can make more working less there?" I asked him.
His answer? "I know who I am on the line."
Amen brother.
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