Free Don't Try This at Home by Kimberly Witherspoon, Andrew Friedman

calling and his cooking, there was a nice, direct simplicity, less
     chance of confusion. We served—eventually—a lot of cold baked oysters (many without caviar) and undercooked foie gras, leathery
     Dover sole and overcooked lobster, lukewarm birds and roasted beef.
    1991 slipped into 1992 without notice or mention in the kitchen. No one dared speak. The word "Happy" in relation to anything
     would not have occurred to any of us. At twelve forty-five, in what was perhaps the perfect coda to the evening, a lone, bespectacled
     customer in a rumpled tuxedo entered the kitchen, wandered up to the saute end (where Bobby was still doing his best to get
     out entrees), and, peering back at the stove, asked, in a disconcertingly bemused voice: "Pardon me . . . but is that my appetizer
     order?"
    He'd been waiting for it since eight forty-five.
    I thought he'd showed remarkable patience.
    At the end of the night, as it turned out, management had to comp (meaning return money) for $7,500 worth of meals. A few
     overzealous security goons had (allegedly) incited a few of our guests to file lawsuits claiming varying degrees of violent
     assault. And the effect on the kitchen staff was palpable.
    Dougie and Steven quit. Adam became a titanic discipline problem, his respect for his chef declining to the point that it
     would, much later, lead to fisticuffs. Morale sank to the point that cooks arrived high—rather than waiting until later. And
     I got the chef's job after Bobby, wisely, went elsewhere.
    And I learned. Nobody likes a "learning experience"—translating as it does to "a total ass-fucking"—but I learned. When the
     next year's New Year's Eve event loomed, I planned. I planned that mother like Ike planned Normandy. My menu was circulated
     (to management, floor, and every cook), discussed, tested, and retested. Each and every menu choice was an indestructible
     ocean liner classic—preseared or half-cooked hours before the first guest arrived. There wasn't an oyster in sight, or on
     any of the many New Year's menus I've done since. Just slice and serve terrine of foie gras. Slap-and-serve salads. My truffle soup the next year (it had been a good idea, actually) sat prebowled and precovered in a hot bain, ready to toss in
     the oven. I spread dishes around evenly between stations, imagining always the worst-case scenario. As, of course, I'd lived
     through it. My tournedos were preseared and required only a pop in the oven, some reheated spuds, a quickly tossed medley
     of veg, and a ready-to-pour sauce. My lobsters took a swift pop under the salamander. I'd be proud of the fact that my New Year's went flawlessly, that my full dining room of customers went home happy and content, and that I, unlike the vastly-more-talented-but-less-organized
     Bobby, brought honor and profit to my masters.
    But the fact is, I could have served the following year's menu with a line crew of chimps. The food was nowhere as good as
     it could have been. My food arrived fast. It arrived hot. It arrived at the same time as the other orders on the table. But
     it was no better (or worse) than what a bunch of overdressed drunks dumb enough to eat at our club expected. Having tasted
     total defeat the previous year, when my last entree went out at eleven thirty, leaving only the mopping-up operations (aka
     desserts), I was ebullient. Not a single order had come back. I jumped up on the stainless-steel table we'd used to stack
     assembled dishes and beat my chest and congratulated one and all. We turned up the music, peeled off our reeking whites, changed
     into our street clothes, and I ordered us up a few pitchers of Long Island Iced Teas and beer. We drank like champions. And
     felt like champions. We went home exhausted but proud.
    Sometimes, you just have to make compromises to get the job done.

Ship of Fools
    JIMMY BRADLEY
    Jimmy Bradley co-owns and operates a number of New York City restaurants that started out as neighborhood joints and