Heard: A Tribute to Anthony Bourdain, by Matt Perez

what’s been given to us, but about technique, about making it work when we shouldn’t, about flying in the face of reason and staying steady when we’re “in the shit.”

That’s what you learn in the kitchen – tickets are printing, people are yelling, food is burning, sweat is dripping, and your shitbird co-worker is out back smoking weed or fucking around on his or her phone in the bathroom. Meanwhile the chef is working the line with fire – fucking mythological, godly geysers of blue-orange flames belched up from the underworld – coming out of Chef’s eyes and asshole, and sure as shit s/he’s a rocket pointed at your own sphincter, and Chef is ready to blow your ass up with Fat Man and Little Boy if you fuck things up. And illogically, magically, somehow you don’t. You rise to that moment and make it yours. You hold on by taking a breath, moving fast, and dealing with what’s in front of you. You recover. Then the shift is over, the cleaning done. An eerie silence settles upon the stacks of clean plates, utensils, and pots and pans nestled snugly together in their proper order, and the whole place is ready to get destroyed again tomorrow. Not quite a pebble garden, but it is a little Zen.

Then Chef walks up to you, shakes your hand and says, “Real good job today.”

So, let’s be good cooks. Anthony Bourdain would respect it. Live within life’s cycle of destruction and rebirth as truly as you can. Be fearless. Be illogically proud. Work hard. Value experience over money. Call your truth like you see it. Don’t take shit from anybody … unless that person is a better cook than you, in which case you should shut the fuck up and pay attention. Be humble. Observe what that person is doing. Listen to what that better person is saying. Appreciate that you’re a dumb asshole who doesn’t know shit about anything, but god-damn it, know you’re trying to get better.

And then say “Heard.”

Matt Perez is a Fiction Editor at Barrelhouse who tries to publish something pretty good once in a while. He works as a line cook at the Ithaca Beer Company Taproom when he’s not preoccupied with his next new writing project that’s about to spiral out of control again, his love life, a pug named Gibson, or Dungeons and Dragons. He occasionally posts something stupid on Twitter @MattPerez18 or on Insta @homey_the_bird