The Best Utensil for the Bad Cook

Yeah, I'm bad. At cooking, that is. Perhaps I'm ahead of the pedestrian bad cook, if only because I know about Roxanne Gold and her 1-2-3 series; but there are 23 things I'd rather do than cook. Nevertheless, I'm here to help you in the kitchen.

Two words: swim goggles. If you're a bad cook like I am and burn things even in the microwave, keep the goggles handy in your kitchen and put them on before the billows of smoke get too intense. You will be able to see clearly to disable the smoke detector before it starts screeching.

Even if you're a good cook, swim goggles are a fabulous aid when you're chopping onions. You will not tear up (from high school chemistry, I can advise you that the ocular burning sensation is created due to the onion's sulfur compounds that bind with the water in your tear ducts and create sulfuric acid in your eyeballs, which burns like hell), and as an added bonus any guests observing you will be mightily entertained by their host sporting this odd apparatus. If you have any doubts, see Mary Stuart Masterson in Benny and Joon.

Notice

I gave my two weeks' notice at the Radisson last Tuesday night. Working my full-time job and two nights/week (especially Fridays) were getting to be a bit much. I had been thinking about giving the Fridays up in the next month or so. Then they hired Lino, the penultimate asshole restaurant/bar manager. I've adored and worked well with the other managers and staff, so it's not like I've had a problem getting along until now.

One evening one of my regulars out of the blue motioned over to where Lino stood vulture-like and stated, "That guy's an asshole." My sentiments exactly, but I hadn't expressed that. "Why do you say that, Bob? You don't even know him."

Bob replied, "The other managers do work when they're here and help you when you're busy. He stands there and scrutinizes everything you do when he thinks you're not looking, like he can't wait for you to make a mistake." Yup.

When Lino pissed me off even more than usual last Tuesday, I figured that was the time to let it go. Basie's has been a wonderful gift in many ways—my first bartending experience, good people to work with (until now), wonderful customers, etc, etc. But I'm also tired of them making me dress like a man for all practical purposes with black pants, white shirt and a tie (not just me of course—but that's the dress code and I hate it); tired of stuff always being broken—doors falling off hinges, floor tiles missing, bar chairs they just set to the side—that they won't fix or if they do it takes months; and tired of working in a bar that refuses to carry Grey Goose vodka. I'm not even a vodka drinker, but any bar with any class will carry GG and Ketel One. Even though it's supposed to be a high-class place, in many ways it's very divey without having the charm of a true dive.

It was time. I'm excited about having some of my time back. And getting to dress like a girl on Tuesday and Friday nights.