It’s a simple question and one that I’ve spent many hours stoned trying to rationalize.

I wish I could blame the obsession on a childhood head injury but it’s not that simple. From the best of my understanding it comes down to a few factors. Why is any of this relevent to you the reader? I’m not sure but you seem to enjoy my rants so here you go.

I damn sure didn’t come from a family of foodies despite the fact that I’m a third generation restaurant owner. They knew how to run a business but knew nothing about food. My grandparents, though not Chefs, where in love and they loved their family. Dexter, my grandfather would typically make breakfast and lunch, while Gloria, my Grandmother would make dinner. It was never anything fancy and looking back on how and what they cooked, it was simple Suthern ( that’s how we spell it) fair. I know that my Gloria’s recipe for sweet potato pie was nothing special, that is the recipe itself, not that she really used it. But that dessert was something that I will never be able to replicate since she had one ingredient that I will never be able to get, the love that only a Grandmother can have for her family ( Yes, I have tears in my eyes as I write this).

Looking back, if there was something in my childhood that inspired me, it was a trip the a Hibachi joint when I was 5. Okay, so its cool enough that they cook in front of you but I was 5 and the dude SET THE FUCKING TABLE ON FIRE. It scared the shit outta me. This was not the point where I said ” Screw all else, I’m gonna be a Chef” but its been what I blame for my love of setting things on fire in the name of cooking.

The whole reason I got in the game when I did was an incident with my older sister. I was 12 and had a temper. She was a bitch who liked to push my buttons and I ended up putting my fist through a wall ( the first of many). My stepfather was pissed ( pretty common still) and put me to work at his sports bar to pay for the damage and teach me a lesson. This is why you don’t put first time offenders in general pop, they become criminals. At the age of 12 I had no business in a Kitchen but given the fact that my parents didn’t pay much attention to what I was doing anyways, the Kitchen was safe. And in the defence of the crew, none of em got me stoned until I turned 13.

My home life sucked so we wont talk about that. All you need to know is that my mother and stepfather didn’t give a shit. As long as they didn’t have to deal with the cops of school board, they didn’t care what I did. The chaos of the Kitchen was nothing compared to the bullshit at home, at least in the Kitchen I knew what was expected and as long as I did that, I only caught the minimum amount of shit. Plus, when your that age and you get a check for $150, its like being a 12 year old with $150.

Lets fast forward about 5 years. I was 17 and had just dropped out of high school for various reasons and was back cooking at the sports bar. This is when I met a motherfucker who would change, well just about everything. Want to know why I’m such a stoner, blame Brown Beard. Want to know why I’m OCD as fuck in the Kitchen, blame Brown Beard. Want to know why I listen to half the stuff I do, blame Brown Beard.

It was April 17th, 1998 but the events started the day before. I woke up around noon and Brown Beard picked me up at 3 so we could smoke a blunt before being at the Bar at 4. We worked till close then stayed til long after the customers where gone. I wanted sleep, we had a big shit food show that we where working the next night and I was tired as hell. Brown Beards response was something to the degree of ” Stop being such a pussy/bitch/punk” and I stayed up. We ended up at an after party and then back to the doughnut joint in front of the bar at 6am where we passed out in his care for 3 hours till we where woken up by a very pissed off manager.

The prep list alone was fucking massive. Something like 600 pounds of wings plus 300 pounds each of Ribs and Salmon. It was a lot of shit to do in a very short amount of time even if I was on point. I wasn’t, but somehow that son of bitch acted like he had gotten 8 hours and ran me in circles. We got it done somehow and had time to take a break so we could go home to shit and shower ( I wasn’t old enough to shave yet). Okay, so this is also the first night that I ever wore a Chefs jacket and I know that’s supposed to be some sorta important milestone or some shit but that’s not why the night was important. Keep in mind I was 17, I hadn’t slept in 30 hours, I was high as fuck and stuck in a XXXL Chefs Jacket ( Brown Beard is a big Mofo). People loved the food and sang our praise, I served the food while Brown Beard continued to drink and mingle and when 10 pm hit I rushed to load the hot boxes into the truck so we could get the hell outta there.

By Midnight I was a total fucking wreck. 36 hours with no sleep, going on stamina and coffee plus a ton of grass and nicotine not to mention a 14 hour day of cooking. And that son of bitch, my only ride home by the way, wanted to continue to drink. In other words I was about 3 seconds from passing out when I saw one of the hottest woman I have ever laid eyes on walk in with 3 friends. I had no game then, not that I have much now, but I knew there was no way in hell that I had a shot with this girl. But they sat right in front of me so I had no choice but to check her out.

They made a mistake, one of my biggest gripes about customers, and ordered right before the Kitchen closed at midnight. The cook was already pissed that he had to clean everything we had just brought back from the food show and didn’t want to deal with a 4 top at the last second. The food came out looking like shit and the girls where not happy. They were not bitchy about it, just disappointed. The waitress knew how fucked I was but she was smart enough to know I had been checking them out so she asked me to go back and remake the order.

I hit my 3rd wind and something snapped.

I told the other cook to fuck off and go smoke. I was sorta pissed but also driven as fuck to show this chick what I could do. I blasted ” Out Come the Wolves” by Rancid and hit the line. I don’t really remember the rest of the order but I knew that she had orderd the Potato skins. I used fresh baked potato’s, not the frozen ones. Real cheese instead of the canned shit that we used back then and even cooked fresh Bacon. I didn’t take a single short cut and still to this day that’s one of the finest plates I have ever put my hands on.

When I was done I damn near collapsed. I stood at the waitress station and lit a smoke while I watched. When the plate hit the table I saw her eyes light up and that’s why I do this. It wasn’t fake, it was pure and it was real and I had done it with food. To say I had exceeded her expectations would be an understatement, she was blown away. They invited me to sit down and join them and then next thing I know I’m hitting it off with a woman who was out of my league 20 minutes before. But it was that look that I’ll never forget.

I’ve known a few junkies in my time and they always talk about ” Chasing the Dragon’. They say the first time you shoot up, it is the most intense amazing feeling that you can ever have and I believe them. And that reaction that I got from her that night has been my Dragon ever since. Even when I more or less gave up cooking to pursue music and art full time, I was still after that reaction with my paintings and my music. When I came back to cooking, it was that hunger that made me take it serious.

Things got complex with the Chick. I was 17 and she was a few years older. She later came back in my life and ended up kicking me in the ass hard enough to become a real Chef instead of pissing my life away as a line cook. I owe her a lot. And though its been years since I’ve cooked for her, I still try to keep in mind that sense of passion that I had that night, that love that my grandmother had when she made her sweet potato pie. Maybe I’m no better then the junkies……..