Yes, Chef.

I know I'm very late to the party but I was hesitant to write about The Bear. For one thing I just started this binging thing. And I've only been to Chicago once in my entire life.

That one trip made me fall in love with the city. We were shooting one chapter for our documentary Home Movie, featuring Ben Skora and the inimitable Darlene Satrinano. 

Here's a snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiVBS-QHEms&t=85s

Before we shot the piece we stayed at a fancy hotel on Michigan Ave. My room, on the 37th floor, had floor-to-ceiling views of the lake and a magical Heaven Bed™. I was living like a king. It was a very different time in advertising.

I seem to have gotten a little nostalgic. 

While I know very little about the Windy City, where The Bear takes place, I know quite a bit about kitchens, restaurant kitchens, where I wasted a good 10 years of my life, palling around with misfits, underachievers, and industrial substance abusers who just wanted to forget they were consigned to work in a kitchen the rest of their fucking lives.  

I watch the show and find myself amazed at how they have romanticized being in the kitchen. 

On the one hand it's beautiful to watch these characters lovingly go about their work. Delicately preparing their dishes as if it were going to be somebody's last meal. And fastidiously cleaning up afterwards until every remnant of the previous night's toils had been swept away and sanitized for a white glove inspection by the head Mucky Muck from the Board of Health.

On the other hand it's hard not to contrast that with my own tawdry experience in so many kitchens from one coast to the other. I learned early that if you can handle yourself as a Line Cook in a 120 degree sweltering hot kitchen, you can find employ at the drop of a dime.

Take for instance, my first job at the long gone Spring Valley Jack in the Box. When I drew the unfortunate luck of working a graveyard shift I would see the Assistant Manager (Steve S.) walk in at 11:38 PM (late of of course). He would immediately kick anyone out of the restaurant. Lock up the front doors. Clear the long flat grill which was the size of a door. Take a box of frozen patties out of the freezer and throw them ALL on the grill.

"Make 100 cheeseburgers, 75 Bonus Jacks and another 75 Jumbo Jacks, wrap them up and put them under the heat lamps."

This pre-emptive move put us way ahead for the long night and string of endless drunk/stoned/drunk&stoned kids who lined up for the drive thru well past sunrise.

"Yes, Chef", more likely, "Fuck yeah, Steve."

Years later I worked at a more upscale Steak and Lobster place in Syracuse. There in the back, was Abdul, a cruel, cruel man who took unusual pleasure of placing the live lobsters in the huge stainless steel pot of boiling water. He would taunt them. Dip their claw in first. Then finally in an act of mercy, more likely boredom, push their plastic-hard bodies beneath the bubbling surface with his 3 foot long wooden paddle.

And then he'd cackle. Loud enough that it echoed throughout the huge cavernous kitchen that served 300-400 meals a night.

Finally, at the tail end of my illustrious kitchen career, not once did I ever see anyone, anywhere sharpen a knife. We worked with what Dennys, TGIF, Cheesecake Factory, Merlin McFly's, Valle's, The Vineyard, etc, etc, gave us.

We didn't know better. More accurately, we didn't care.

Imagine my shock when I secured a job at the fancy Charmer's Market in Santa Monica and on the first day the head chef (a real chef) said to me...

"Where are your knives?"

"Uhhhhh"

He rolled his eyes, knowing I was going to be a short timer. He was right.