I'll never forget when Rick told me about the time he fucked the shit out of Gale right on top of the pastry station before a Saturday night service. Mixed fruit tarts were flying everywhere! Gale's ass was covered with blueberry pandowdy. But the best part was that he used some $5000 an oz. white truffle oil that Charlie had brought back from Alba to lube her up. And I thought things got wild on the line at Tex Wasabi's! Holy Stromboli!

Of course this is pawned off as just being part of the mercurial chef's personality but what the fuck . Dude , you're a fucking chef, thats it. You're not curing fucking cancer at that diner you run, its just food. You managed to package it so a lot of people were willing to pay $200 a plate for a fucking demi glazed poached egg paired with some wine, congrats.

I'll never forget when Rick told me about the time he fucked the shit out of Gale right on top of the pastry station before a Saturday night service. Mixed fruit tarts were flying everywhere! Gale's ass was covered with blueberry pandowdy. But the best part was that he used some $5000 an oz. white truffle oil that Charlie had brought back from Alba to lube her up. And I thought things got wild on the line at Tex Wasabi's! Holy Stromboli!

I almost spit tea all over my keyboard.

Watch shows like Chopped and Iron Chef. Most of the chefs on the competitions come off like giant douchenozzles.

Frank and I had the same thought.


frightened...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-charlie-trotter-meltdown-20130829,0,2860770.story

Well, happy anniversary.

Thank you. The whole asshole chef thing is so tiresome.

I read about this in the Sun-Times a few days ago. I didn't find it hard to believe that Trotter was a douchebag to those kids. The guy is well known to be an asswipe. But the article said that Trotter is on the board of After School Matters, so I thought it was sort of strange for him to do that. Check out how bloated and weird he looks. If he didn't have the keys to the building I wouldn't believe it was him. There's a video with the article and he seems like he's off his head.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2224 ... m-out.html

I struggle with the idea that Trotter "brought fine dining to Chicago." So our World-Class City didn't have fine dining until the late '80s?

"Don't read what they write about you," Warhol said. "Just measure it in inches."

In early June, just weeks after he'd lost the job, the Tribune published a 2,100-word profile of Baltzley. The writer, Pang, wove elements of Baltzley's biography with a minute-by-minute account of his cab ride to a rehab center on the southwest side. Baltzley claims that after the coke binge, his bosses at Tribute had agreed to suspend him if he sought treatment, and reinstate him once he was clean. After he made arrangements to enroll in a 30-day program, Baltzley alleges, they reneged on the deal and fired him. "But I already had a bed," Baltzley told me. "So I was like, 'Fuck it, I'll go anyway.'"

Pang sat next to Baltzley in the cab as it made its way to the rehab facility, literally counting down the minutes until Baltzley's life would change. Baltzley was hungover, scared, a nervous wreck. He was sitting in the middle seat, between the writer and Baltzley's new girlfriend, Emily Belden, because "sitting by the door might give him second thoughts about what he's about to do." Belden was quoted about his extensive cocaine use and utter lack of control. His mother recalled realizing he was using drugs after witnessing him collapse. Baltzley's former boss at Tribute spoke of his prodigious talent—a talent that simply wasn't enough to outweigh his destructive tendencies. Baltzley emerged as a lost soul, completely enslaved by vice.

The Tribune article ends as Baltzley stands outside the rehab center, taking one last drag on a cigarette before walking through the doors. Two days later, with no reporter watching, he walked back out. A few months after the article ran, Baltzley was approached by ICM Partners, a talent agency with offices in New York, London, and LA. "They'd read the Tribune interview," Baltzley says, "and told me if I wrote a proposal, they could sell my book."

I ask if Baltzley had any reservations about writing a memoir at the age of 26, or about sharing the sordid details of his life.

"None," he says.

I guess when it comes to sloppy drunks, it takes one to know one.