I am training cooks. They are half my age and twice as fast. Not always twice as accurate though.

But damn they are confidant. Was I like that. I find myself saying things  for the first time since they went in my ear thirty years ago. I feel the presence of my mentors in the kitchen with us, watching me teach. When I was an apprentice my chef Jean Pierre Zagou would laugh and tell me that I looked “like ze doctor of ze cow”. Which I guess meant I was clumsy and awkwardly cautious.

Truth is these kids are good, and will probably be way better than me all too soon. They have never known a world without the food network, never lived at a time when chefs were just cariactures in frozen lasagna commercials. These kids are so respectful and professional. Like the world I dreamed of when I was there age has really come true.

Main thing is they are learning to run the Ba kitchen really fast and by this time next week it will be a powerful efficient engine room of good food.

Ba will kick ass.