i stopped by an old friends house tonight to celebrate his birthday and the fact that he made it through his first block at the culinary institue of america...a school i have considered for many years to go to. it was a decent group of people some elders mixed with people my age. i was talking to a guy that is the executive chef of the wegmans amherst st location. it completely confirmed to me that wegmans only hires mindless individuals that buy onto their corporate culture bullshit. you know the people who plan to work in the same place for the rest of their life boring, comfortable lives. sorry to those of you who work for wegmans but i'll be surprised if you tell me that moving up the corporate ladder has been a short and easy process.

a few people seemed highly intoxicated on a mixture of red wine and whiskey, mainly my buddy and his mother. DT tip #1 never mix the grain and the grape. I was talkin to one of my acquaintances through my buddy about my place and (e:) strip and decided to hop on my buddies computer to check it out. all of a sudden my buddy's mom was buggin about the fact that we were on her computer which she pays for and uses in her basement....I thought she was kidding right off the bat because I have worked on that damn computer with my buddy for many years not to mention all the times that i crashed on his couch witch is adjacent to the computer. then all of a sudden i can hear her buggin out to somebody how disrespectful it was, like i'm not even in the room...

she starts to praise how wonderful her son is an how great he is doing in his program at the institute...he's gonna be one of the best graduates ever....he's gonna have his own cooking show on foodtv someday. then i say hey greg why don't you show us your hat. then all of a sudden this guy snaps at me and states how its disrespectful to wear the hat outside the kitchen. so i ask, why? and his mother chimes in that they are teaching him at the school to be professional and that they wouldn't let me keep the burns or the five a clock shadow. she then begins to state how i would never be accepted into such an important program. (let me tell you i scored in the lower 80 percentile on my gmat. i was accepted to nu, ub, nyu, cornell and university of chicago on that, my undergrad gpa and work experience as a well regarded chef, but chose to stay close to home and take the presidential scholarship from canisius, i don't think the extremely overpriced but well appointed cia would have denied my acceptance that if i took would have led to valedictorian with a solid job in one of the countries finest restaurants). I didn't argue or fight back and went to hang out with my buddy in the other room. While in the other room i could hear drunk ass mom calling me a bastard and asked my buddy what it was about. he told me i should have kept my mouth shut. i could sense the resentment in his tone so i grabbed my shit and left. i guess i totally forgot my Lenten resolution to stop hanging out with people that have tombstones in their eyes.

a little background on this guy....fry cook for life. always my wingman/somewhat of a sidekick. i encouraged him back into the restaurant business. i practically pushed him to aspire to greater things and to check out the cia. i gave him books written by admired food writers, old copies of gourmet and food arts continually, filled his head with info and my knowledge of cooking. and last but not least, on the way home from our trip to nyc to see the restaurant show we stopped for a tour and dinner that i set up and payed for at the cia. he was broke after nyc so i dropped $225 on drinks, dinner and tip($65) for the student waiter. i never got one thank you or i owe you one buddy. a few days after thanksgiving we were hanging out at mother's after my 10 year reunion. i was hammered and some how we started fighting about who would win in iron chef between myself and his culinary education. i was drunk, he insulted my lively hood somewhere in the conversation, so i told him not now nor ever would he ever be a better cook than i was. a little snobbish i know but he called me an asshole-prick and i apologized up and down. what can i say i'm an honest drunk and what you, my dear readers, don't understand is the level i operate on and the level that he aspires to. i'm here and he's down there not because of knowledge but because of a level of creativity, experience, passion and dedication. he's always resented me for this and like i said he stayed a fry cook while i became one of the youngest and talented pro's in the area. don't think because i'm not working now doesn't mean i could'nt get a job in a hot spot anywhere because i'm well versed with the ins 'n' outs that go on everywhere in virtually every restaurant.

moral of the story is when you on top...mother fuckers just want to rip you down. i've worked really hard to get to where i am...full time in restaurant, full time for associates degree and bachelors degree....not to mention the really long shifts and high heat, open to close then back 4 hours later to reopen. i might sound arrogant but the truth is that i'm extremely confident in my ability to knock your socks off through food. and most of the time pretty humble but i hate when somebody knocks 15 years of hard work and dedication to my craft and education. most of the time it rolls off like a freshly waxed car but not tonight. i have an opportunity to take a sabbatical to realign my sights and goals. it won't be to long and this bad ass mother fuckin cook will be tearin' it up again makin' the food ya just can't get enough of in your favorite restaurants.

Now i want you to reach down in the bag and get my wallet out of it. you can take the money out of it and put it in your pocket.... you'll know its mine cause it's the one that says bad motha fucka on it.

Peace out Greg and as always, good luck to you in all endeavors,

With love, Mrdt