Free Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

flame, boiling liquids with plenty of blunt objects at close hand-and you both carry knives, lots of knives. So you had better get along. It will not do to have two heavily armed cooks duking it out behind the line over some perceived insult when there are vats of boiling grease and razor-sharp cutlery all around.
    So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. They're comfortable with the rather relaxed and informal code of conduct in the kitchen, the elevated level of tolerance for eccentricity, unseemly personal habits, lack of documentation, prison experience. In most kitchens, one's freakish personal proclivities matter little if at all. Can you keep up? Are you ready for service? Can I count on you to show up at work tomorrow, to not let the side down? That's what counts.
    I can break down line cooks into three subgroups. You've got your Artists: the annoying, high-maintenance minority. This group includes specialists like patissiers (the neurologists of cooking), sous-chefs, butchers, garde-manger psychos, the occasional saucier whose sauces are so ethereal and perfect that delusions of grandeur are tolerated. Then there are the Exiles: people who just can't make it any other business, could never survive a nine-to-five job, wear a tie or blend in with civilized society-and their comrades, the Refugees, usually emigres and immigrants for whom cooking is preferable to death squads, poverty or working in a sneaker factory for 2 dollars a week.
    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. 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. When I hear 'artist', I think of someone who doesn't think it necessary to show up at work on time. More often than not their efforts, convinced as they are of their own genius, are geared more to giving themselves a hard-on than satisfying the great majority of dinner customers. Personally, I'd prefer to eat food that tastes good and is an honest reflection of its ingredients, than a 3-foot-tall caprice constructed from lemon grass, lawn trimmings, coconuts and red curry. You could lose an eye trying to eat that. 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: 'Shut the fuck up.'

Kitchen Confidential
    FROM OUR KITCHEN TO YOUR TABLE
    I SAW A SIGN the other day outside one of those Chinese-Japanese hybrids that are beginning to pop up around town, advertising 'Discount Sushi'. I can't imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department than