Kitchen Confidential

We became instantly notorious, and we made the most of it, printing up business cards for a planned catering venture called Moonlight Menus. The cards, commissioned from a local artist, depicted us sneering in toques. We proceeded to hand these things out to local businessmen, telling them blithely that not only did we not need, or even want their business, but they couldn't possibly afford us, as we were easily the most expensive and exclusive caterers on the entire Cape! Two highly trained specimens like us had more than enough business, thank you very much. There was, of course, no business. But the strategy worked. In the coke-soaked final weeks of 1975 P-town, there were plenty of local businessmen eager to impress their friends with an elaborate end-of-season bash. And we were only too happy to encourage them in even grander pretensions, filling their heads with names and dishes we'd culled from my Larousse (few of which we'd actually attempted) and quoting staggering prices. We knew well how much these people were paying for cocaine — and that the more coke cost, the more people wanted it. We applied the same marketing plan to our budding catering operation, along with a similar pricing structure, and business was suddenly very, very good. In no time, we were able to leave our regular jobs at the Dreadnaught and Mario's, lording it over our old co-workers in brand-new Tony Lama boots, and brandishing shiny new Wusthoff knives when we dropped by for a quick visit and a gloat. (Location 633)

Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks. Do not fuck with a line cook's 'meez' — meaning their set-up, their carefully arranged supplies of sea salt, rough-cracked pepper, softened butter, cooking oil, wine, back-ups and so on. As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system — and it is profoundly upsetting if another cook or, God forbid, a waiter — disturbs your precisely and carefully laid-out system. (Location 741)

Finally, there are the Mercenaries: people who do it for cash and do it well. Cooks who, though they have little love or natural proclivity for cuisine, do it at a high level because they are paid well to do it — and because they are professionals. Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and 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. (Location 803)