{"id":162657628,"date":"2025-09-30T06:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T11:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657628"},"modified":"2025-09-29T20:03:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:03:55","slug":"chapter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657628","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Chapter 2: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy thought it showed dedication, bringing his knife bag to a job interview. It showed that he cared for his own knives, that he cared for his craft. Yes, most kitchens had knives. For Tommy, though? What else was there to say\u2014surgeons didn\u2019t walk into the operating room with borrowed hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what I\u2019m seeing is a few years bussing tables and washing dishes at some suburban Chili\u2019s, you drop outta college once you start working the fry station, that leads you to CIA, those years slide you into Rick Bayless\u2019s farm system at Frontera, then you land the head chef gig at Lilypad, which, from what I can tell, is a very pleasant Lakeview establishment. That about right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man was a five foot five ball of old school Bridgeport Irish energy. Every time he said the word you<\/em> it ended in trailing ah sounds and every th <\/em>was like a mold of clay on the roof of his mouth. He had reading glasses down his nose and eyes that could only be described as regarding<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t bullshit a guy like this<\/em>, Tommy knew, so he accepted this read along of his resum\u00e9 as some sort of establishment of facts. \u201cYes sir,\u201d Tommy said. \u201cThat\u2019s my 20s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo\u2014what? You hit 30 and think to yourself, oh my God, what have I done with my life, I\u2019ve wasted my youth accomplishing things, the only redemption lies frying up reubens for sad-sack White Sox fans<\/em>? That it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I like to push myself. Try new things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh huh. You get busted for drinking on the job or something? Get caught loading frozen steaks into your trunk?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, nothing like that. Do people still do that stuff? I\u2019ve only read about that in, like, Anthony Bourdain books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t play choir boy with me. You got the chops for higher heights than this, my friend. What the hell you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay, the truth is, it\u2019s getting pretty serious with my girlfriend. We live up in Rogers Park, and we\u2019re thinking we\u2019re going to move in together, but her family\u2019s down here. In McKinley Park. She wants to be closer to them. I told her I\u2019d look at spots here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the biggest lie a chef\u2019s ever told me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There<\/em>, he thought. Against his better judgment, he\u2019d bullshitted the guy. Couldn\u2019t help it. He took a swing, but it connected. Ball wasn\u2019t outta the park, but he was at least rounding first. No way this guy could resist a resum\u00e9 like his. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tommy tried to fend it off, but he was already fantasizing about reorganizing the layout of the salad line in his head. The current one wasn\u2019t just inefficient, but against code. Walnuts in a nine pan, uncovered, and in the line cooler<\/em>? They needed Tommy here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust wanna push yourself, huh?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike you said, I\u2019ve done CIA. I\u2019ve done Mexican for yuppies. I\u2019ve done burgers and brunch for lakefront liberals. Maybe now\u2019s the time I start slinging shepherd’s pie at guys reminiscing over the Carlton Fisk and Harold Baines days. Serve food to people who don\u2019t know who Thomas Keller is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guy regarded him over his glasses again. He regarded for so long that it started to feel like an outfielder had made a play on that ball. \u201cWell, Thomas Patton,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTommy, please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure. We\u2019ll be in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside was beginning-of-summer cloudless and windless and show-skin warm. Too bright as he walked out of the bar\u2019s dark. It was hard to leave the bar without joining the Sunday afternoon whiskey sinners, but Tommy resisted alcohol\u2019s siren song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had to stop coming off so strong in interviews. That guy probably thought Thomas Keller<\/em> was some alter ego Tommy\u2019d given himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rent was due and his savings were trickling like a sputtering keg. To Tommy\u2014what else was there to say? He knew there was a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and a lot of people chose the wrong way. Sometimes, people could sense that he knew that essential truth. They didn\u2019t like it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He walked a couple blocks and thought about how nice a cigarette would be, but he had quit. Well. Sometimes when he was drinking. He had another interview on Thursday. Any problem can be solved. He just had to keep at it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 2:  Tommy thought it showed dedication, bringing his knife bag to a job interview. It showed that he cared for his own knives, that he cared for his craft. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162657629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162657628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-with-knife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162657628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162657630,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657628\/revisions\/162657630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162657629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162657628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162657628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162657628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}