Without It Nothing Can Be Done

Without It Nothing Can Be Done

 

“Kindness does not mean that I am going to hug you.” Instead, he says, it means ”I’m going to observe where your weakness is and I am going to reinforce you.  I’m going to make sure that you are taken care of during your stay here and if you struggle in anything, I’m going to guide you.” ~Eric Ripert

 

I am a product of the old-school. Raised in Brooklyn with a Marine for a father, a cop for a step-father, and the Sicilian love of my mother. “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.” We grew up owning restaurants in Manhattan and while other kids were playing in the sand-box, if I was lucky I was probably cracking eggs and peeling potatoes.

 

In my early twenties I was able to maintain Engineering coursework and still pull off a full time week in a grueling top-notch kitchen standing on my head! When I think back on those days the first word that comes to mind now is ‘how’? Then the second word is ‘why’? I’ll tell you why:  advancement, opportunity, the American Dream.

 

We seem to live in an age where kids think everything is coming to them. Donald Trump is about to receive the GOP nomination for President of the United States.He single-handedly may have eradicated the party of Lincoln. It seems even the “Man-Babies” think everything is coming to them in this lifetime. Maybe it is? More like maybe it is not.

 

I have been thinking and writing a lot lately in regards to mentoring.  I even find myself stepping out and engaging people crying about ‘another’ raise in the minimum-wage. I can hear my parents of the 1980’s calling me a Volvo driving California liberal as we speak, but the fact of the matter is I am ok with who I am and what I believe in. I am viscerally repulsed by what I’ve read.  Offended actually, at the sheer volume of criticism over the state of our country and this next generation of Americans. Where are the voices of working-class America?

 

“Now-a-days every kid needs to get a trophy and be made to feel special.” ~ unknown 

 

The simple fact of the matter to me seems to be that maybe too many of these “winner-winner chicken-dinner” mentalities seem to stem from themselves being over-coddled and told everything they are doing is ok. We have a pedophile for the former Speaker of the House, The head of the WWE as the nomination for the GOP, and Chicken stock and vegetable stock on the same shelf in grocery stores nation-wide. I mean at what point does Chicken Little run out screaming “the sky is falling, the sky is falling?”

 

All joking aside: we are shaping this proud country into a laughing stock, not even a chicken stock, and what is in it for the future generations of Americans. Business owners are horrified of another minimum wage increase because the ‘costs’ of doing business as a whole are so overwhelming. I see people advertising help-wanted advertisement’s for the same job I had in 1997 paying the same amount of money in 2017?  

 

I quoted chef Ripert at the beginning of this story. He is the absolute pinnacle of the industry I live and breathe. The La Bernardin Cookbook is one of my bibles for so many reasons.  As “ungraspable and ever-changing” as his world is, he always maintained his edge. In many ways his strong belief in Buddhism shaped this success but it all began with the fundamentals, and the consistency of being raised in a kitchen-brigade.   

 

“Indeed, stock is everything in cooking.  Without it nothing can be done.” ~ Auguste Escoffier

 

The moral of my story here today is that I believe we need to re-build the ‘stock’ in our country. I am a concerned citizen raising his hand and saying “cant we make this better?”   I know sometimes it is not in the people’s best interest to say what we are thinking.  Maybe nobody wants to be the 500-pound gorilla in the room? Well I do not have this problem and I am not afraid to stand up and say "Enough is enough America!”