The goads, curses, insults and taunts of my wildly profane crew are like poetry to me, beautiful at times, each tiny variation on a classic theme like some Beat era jazz riff: Coltrane doing ‘My Favorite Things’ over and over again, but making it new and different each time. There are, it turns out, a million ways to say ‘suck my dick’. Most of the

I like to hear different accounts of the same incident from different sources. It adds perspective and reveals, sometimes, what a particular source is leaving out, or skewing to leave a particular impression, making me wonder: Why?

A lot of his time was spent figuring out ways to make the restaurant run more efficiently, more smoothly, faster and cheaper.

What I learned at Tom’s was a sad lesson that has served me well in decades since: I learned to recognize failure.

The most important and lasting lessons I learned from Bigfoot were about personnel and personnel management – that I have to know everything, that I should never be surprised. He taught me the value of a good, solid and independently reporting intelligence network, providing regular and confirmable reports that can be verified and cross-checked

I went for the money. The first chef’s job that came along I grabbed. And the one after that and the one after that. Used to a certain quality of life – as divorcees like to call it, living in the style to which I’d grown accustomed – I was unwilling to take a step back and maybe learn a thing or two.

a good cook is a craftsman – not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen – though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.

I coddle my hooligans when I’m not bullying them. I’m visibly charmed by their extra-curricular excesses and their anti-social tendencies. My love for chaos, conspiracy and the dark side of human nature colors the behavior of my charges, most of whom are already living near the fringes of acceptable conduct.

When a job applicant starts telling me how Pacific Rim-job cuisine turns him on and inspires him, I see trouble coming. Send me another Mexican dishwasher anytime. I can teach him to cook. I can’t teach character. Show up at work on time six months in a row and we’ll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: