Brothers and Sisters, Lemme Get Up and Do My Thing!

Family.

It's what the television shows edit out. It's what the blogs don't care about, the chef glosses over to make himself look better, the critics can't possibly include in their review. A restaurant family is long nights of drinking together, complaining about work and going back in the next day. It is incest. It is hangovers, late-ins, firings, hirings, comaradery.

When linecook415 gives you the parting quotes on each of his posts, you are not meant to understand. As I said in my last post, these blogs, the nights in the kitchen, on the floor, the nights after work--they aren't for the readers or even the diners. They are catharsis and inside jokes, letting go of the day and looking forward to the next. We don't write about these moments to glorify them; no, we write because we need to let it go and, for some of us, a few minutes on the template is healthier and safer than a beer binge which will inevitably decrease the next day's performance. As he left tonight, one of my cooks, in speaking of his other job and how long they've all worked together, said "it's almost like their a family." Almost? Or altogether? All in, everyday. The people you spend more time with on a daily basis than you do your wife or kids.

I think that for me I am often reluctant to give in to that familial bond for fear of losing touch with the world outside. As I remember the moments we share, though, with the hum of the ovens and the laughter at one of the cook's expense, how filmic it all seems and almost surreal, I know that this is where I belong and why, after countless heartaches and nights I've sworn against cooking, I haven't left yet. Family is security and, in an industry that is plagued with perpetual movement and ladder climbing, security is an asset.

Perhaps those who've made a career out of critiquing, photographing, writing about and just plain enjoying food don't mention family ties more often because the family is not theirs. It's not their grandmother in the back making the best braised veal they've ever had, but a team of highly trained, near-robotic cooks that can and will consistently make it better than grandma with just as much soul. Attributing love and sentimentality to a restaurant and its inner workings would make talking about it that much more difficult. Ignorance it is then, and therefore blissful eating.

Mais, c'est la vie. The burners go on everyday and, just like our grandmothers, we aim to please. Weekends and holidays, grad nights and weddings, we're always there, with each other. Life goes on around us, because of us, and with us. We're all there, playing our role, as those in plain clothes will play theirs, giving, taking, leaning on one another, all with one goal in mind, standards as high as ever.