There was a time I wanted to quit working in restaurants. This was many years ago and the nature of working at a restaurant was becoming a grind to me. To be honest, I never really liked the idea of getting home from work at midnight or being broke all the time because line cooks aren’t paid very well. I remember working so many hours I didn’t have a chance to do laundry and would just go out and buy new clothes. The kind of places I worked they expected you to come in early and work on your own time, usually this was a necessity if you wanted to be set up by service time. So you might be scheduled at 2 pm but show up around noon, or even earlier. There was a terrine at Spiaggia that took at least four hours to set, if you showed up at your scheduled time there was no way you were going to be ready. When we ran this swordfish terrine as a special I would get there at 9 am so that I had plenty of time to get it done and in the cooler so it could set before service at 5 pm. I felt at the time I was learning so much, so I didn’t mind putting in extra time. But over the years that began to change.
"Embrace the bullshit" is now my new mantra, thanks Mark!