On my birthday

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:33:12 -0400

As I write this in the very small hours of the morning, the day after my 45th birthday, I look at the picture of this little stone that is placed on Skittles grave, and now more than 2 years later, can still feel the pangs of missing him. We actually looked at another kitty last night that looked much like him.

But really none will replace him. This little stone in my yard represents so much. An animal that brought us so much happiness in such a brief period of time. My 45th birthday was in part celebrated with a few minutes saying hi to my little kitchen buddy I used to play with in the morning hours before shuffling off to work.
“Welcome”, is what this stone says. It was clearly never meant to be a headstone, but really “Welcome” is what Skittles is to us, always, and he so incredibly opened his heart and welcomed us into the last year or so of his life. The word is in fact, perfect.

renderedcooks news 41409

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:01:01 -0400

So take a listen, as I try to dole out some news, via spoken audio.

Birthdays and their meaning

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:08:11 -0400

I was told by my acupuncturist the other night that I am a little slow on things. One of the reasons being, I do not have a child that I have raised in my lifetime, and because this is the case, many of life’s learning comes through the rearing of a child, and so I take a little longer.

I am not so sure I believe that take, simply because I have been slow or late to the game on things my whole life. These past several months I have felt a kind of curmudgeon side come out. kind of bitter, less trusting, and more cranky like than in the past. I will be 45 this coming Sunday, and certainly don’t feel like I am nor do I act 45. Many people I know say “aww your just a kid”. I should take some solace in that comment, because there will possibly come a day when I don’t hear that anymore. Being at this point in my life, I still don’’t know what my path is, nor my career. It has been said that my career already has been and is still going on, but I can’t help but feel that all of that history is just a stepping stone to something better.

I just don’t know what it is yet. I will possibly miss some time this weekend with my father and sister due to work related needs. This is an area that I am terribly conflicted in.

20 Years, Clean and Sober, March 10, 1989

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:59:38 -0400

There was a time when I'd have said, you are crazy. I mean what’s the sense in going out with friends if you can't drink or get high?? How I am still alive is anyones guess. Back in 1989 and prior, I was heavy into Hard liquor, Cocaine, and pretty much little else, besides a cooking career that was somehow building by ozzmosis. I guess I was pretty good. Or so I'd been told.

I was working with very talented ( 2 Germans, and 1 Frenchman, whom still influences me today) European Chefs, and getting my ass kicked, but was growing, and learning in spite of myself. I was diciplined in the kitchen, with my food. I respected it, I cared for it. Myself however, well I was killing myself . This recognition came one morning, after being awakened by my then girlfriend, whom was off to work at 6 am, as she woke me from the staircase in front of our apartment. You see, I did not quite make it in that night, and like many nights in the past months, black outs in unusual places were becoming a bit normal.

Go inside and get some rest, she said. You gotta get up in 3 hrs for work tonight. I lumbered back to the bedroom, and what seemed like a moment later the alarm went off at 9:30 am. I got up and dragged my ass to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror after spitting up some blood I'd been kind of choking on when I woke up. I threw up a little more, with some dry heaves, and went back to the mirror. I looked again. Blood stains on my nose, redness around my nose and cheeks from the blow.

How many martini's. How much Jack Daniels ? I dunno, I could not track it anymore. My chest was sore, my breathing heavy, my throat stung, was bone dry, my tongue pasty white, my eyes were black in their core, and a sheet of red over the whites. They too were practically bleeding to death. One major epiphany really hit home that morning (which up to that epiphany moment had become quite normal) I was getting ready to turn 25 soon, and I was dying. So, knowing this, I ran to the kitchen, and pulled out the Jack Daniels, to take a shot, and make the pain go away, much like I had been doing for several years at that point. A French Chef and mentor had said to me one month prior,, "You are an excellent Cook! A great Sous Chef, I am proud to have been working with you. However, you will likely go no further than this, and possibly be dead by aged 30 if you don't start taking care of yourself. Up to that time, he had never passed me one compliment for two long years. In fact he usually used many 4 letter words in French to refer to me, or when being nice, he called me "the brat".

You see, he knew. He knew what I was doing to myself. He had once been there too. He told me in every way possible and I simply never wanted to know or hear about it. Those kind words of his came back to me right as I went to take a shot just before 10am, that morning, March 10th 1989. That morning, after the third look in the mirror, I saw death, and it was me. I was more afraid then at any time I can remember. I set down the glass, and went into the living room, out to the balcony overlooking the bay and for the first time since I was a little kid, just cried like a baby. I went to work that afternoon. By 3 pm, I'd usually had several glasses of this French wine we cooked with, however was just drinking espresso, and was just wired. ( I was probably just trying to compensate) Then at 5pm, a pitcher of Water. That night, for the first time in years I did not have a drink, I did no blow.
In the coming weeks and months, many people I'd thought were my friends, I found out were not. Many I chose to stay away from because of what I knew I'd do if I hung out with them.
What started that night changed the rest of my life. Almost 60 days later I became the Executive Chef of the Treaty of Paris restaurant, in downtown Annapolis MD. A restaurant, that for the following 4 years had some of it's best Newspaper reviews in it's recent 10 years, and much due to this scared to death sober 25 year old boy whom hired 8 of the greatest Cooks, Guarde manger and Sous Chefs he was ever so lucky to be associated with.
I had every reason to crack under the pressures that would come over those first 4 years, and somehow, after putting 164 big black X's on my Sysco foodservice calendar, I did not need that crutch anymore. I'd failed at AA. After 2 meetings I'd felt I did not belong, and that there were people there whom had lost so much more. Somehow I never did any of those things again. Oh, I still have some very very vivid, dreams. But somehow, it's 20 years later. I managed not to kill myself.

And tonight almost at the stroke of midnight I finish this blog, March 10th 2009.

The mother of the Pack

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:21:52 -0500

Gretel was put to sleep a year ago today. That evening was one of the most difficult in recent memory. It is amazing to think that a year had passed so quick. Our back yard seems dead without those two. Hansel had passed almost 10 months later. Gretel is deeply missed. I think about her often.

The house has not been the same since she left.