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This book has been written and rewritten countless times over the last 25 years. From my earliest days in what was a turbulent but auspicious career in the restaurant industry, I was on a mission to record and document the details of my illustrious restaurant life, mostly in recipe form. Admittedly, the original memoir was to be a serious attempt at reconstructing and articulating the numerous recipes and myriad techniques learned over a 40 year pilgrimage. It was to be a legitimate foray into the “chef /restaurateur turned author” genre more so than what it has become. I was convinced I could comprise a noteworthy book of family recipes and anecdotal procedures; it would be my great compendium and a crowning achievement of a celebrated career. I had always been confident in my talents, not only as an accomplished chef and restaurateur, but also as an educator and mentor, my years as a chef instructor lending a degree of legitimacy to that end of the spectrum. But as the public’s interest in food and restaurants exploded and as myriad celebrity chefs released voluminous cookbooks, I began to become a bit more hesitant about my contribution. It was not so much that I was threatened by them, but more because I didn’t want to become just another clichéd writer. Cookbooks were suddenly commonplace, and personal narratives were appearing everywhere. I did not want to get lost in the shuffle. The more I explored the contemporary playing field, the more I recognized I had to forge a new path, to cultivate a fresh approach, and to invent a new style. Celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain (who frankly stole my thunder with his release of Kitchen Confidential several years back) had simply beaten me to the punch, as had guys like Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse. As I watched the trajectory of their restaurant empires grow and their celebrity status rise, I realized that I was quickly becoming a small fish in a very big pond.

But I always knew I had something special with my memoir, not just in content but in a standout story. As I recounted the improbable events of my restaurant career and revisited the incredible adventures of my culinary odyssey, I realized that my story was unique and incomparable. The bizarre characters and colorful, twisted vignettes of my past were pushing my “cookbook” beyond conventional, typical culinary fare. And as my chronicle morphed and evolved over the years, it assumed its own energy, even its own destiny. Emerging from its early original form, it was soon fueled by a new twist on the industry and was spawned by its seedy, vulgar, and bawdy roots. The commonplace debauchery and lechery of the industry began to gain mainstream traction as the genre of erotica emerged prominently on the literary scene. Previously scorned “obscene” topics were no longer taboo. I recognized that I had an inside track; my story was materializing as a singular piece of pure culinary genius, a hybridized restaurant narrative strewn with erotic details, an epic memoir of exceptionally salacious dimension.

I feel obligated to apologize to my peers in advance that I took such liberty with the graphic depictions and raunchy verbiage of this narrative; however, I can defend all of my material in this memoir on the grounds that it is all absolutely accurate, irrefutably factual, and genuinely historical. Every scene and every incident is real. I took very little license with artistic embellishment or literary exaggeration. Incredibly, save for an isolated incident or two, they all transpired under the roof of my original restaurant. The details are reproduced precisely as they occurred and remain as true to their origins as possible. I only changed the names to protect the innocent. Other than that small detail, the entire narrative remains pure and solid in content and is unobstructed by any inaccuracies. I swear to its authenticity.

I owe many thanks to my tremendous staff who worked over the years at my great restaurant on Cheshire Bridge Road. I thank you all, in particular those who have now passed. Mike P, the most loyal General Manager ever, Rob H, and Larry O (who never stopped making me laugh). Special thanks to Annette L, my extraordinary bartender. Thank you for your years of dedication and for playing matchmaker with me and my wife. I owe you.

Perhaps most important of all, I need to recognize my restaurant for contributing to the most poignant aspect of my life. Simply put, if it wasn’t for my insane life on Cheshire Bridge Road, I would not be married to the love of my life. We met one hot summer afternoon in 1991 when she sought employment at my restaurant. I personally conducted her interview. After filing her application away for a while, I finally called her in to work. We had an unexpected void to fill. She was made a cocktail waitress on the spot and the rest is history. And because of my stunning wife, I am the proud father of two beautiful teenagers who have implored me daily to remain anonymous throughout this experience and who will vehemently deny any knowledge of involvement with either it or me. I love you guys.

I never intended for this autobiography to take such a peculiar and divergent path. The final content is a far cry from its original imprint. What began as an earnest compendium of recipes gleaned from a 40 year career as an accomplished chef and restaurateur gradually evolved into a bawdy and licentious tale of ribald escapades and obscene interactions? Even as I began to accumulate the stories and compose the dialogue, I recognized that this narrative had taken on an unrecognizable form. It sprang from my pen with a bawdy twist even as I attempted to reign in the graphic nature of the illicit details. Every attempt to steer a more traditional tack was undermined by my subversive instincts to pursue a more erotic direction. As the story line grew, it gained momentum from the clever juxtaposition of the legitimate and the illegitimate, the moral and the amoral. It became apparent that the evolution of this stimulating biography was destined for an erogenous slant, regardless of my initial instincts, and instead of trying to rein in the lewd and lascivious, I exploited them. What emerged is a sordid but fantastic tale.

I have written each chapter with just enough culinary substance to stay true to my chef’s roots, but I’ve sprinkled each vignette with a touch of erotic narrative. Like any good recipe, each chapter is a delicate balance of flavor, depth, and complexity. Some are frankly a bit savory, while others are a tad sweet. Some are simply mild, while others are boldly spicy. As the chapters unfold and the plot meanders through factual information and circumstantial intrigue, some characters begin to take shape and assume form in an unsavory way. The incomparable highway known as Cheshire Bridge Road becomes the transitioning catalyst for most of the plot and becomes the stage and backdrop for most of the story. As each character emerges, so does a distinctiveness that plays into the bawdy and the deviant, the twisted and the bizarre.

Staying on task in compiling a legitimate cookbook became increasingly improbable. At every turn I faced a professional dilemma. I had intended from the outset to craft a great story that was founded on accomplished recipes. Instead, I created an impressive story founded on one singular recipe, the underlying theme of the entire memoir--sex. Unintentional though it was, the transition happened quickly. In fact, I found myself abandoning the conventional approach almost immediately. As the first chapter sprung from the pages in its cloak of lewd and indelicate details, I immediately recognized that the underlying tenor of the entire journal had shifted. More importantly, I recognized that the metamorphosis was poignant and that it was quintessential to the evolution of my narrative. I reluctantly but excitedly aborted my original plan and allowed my muse to direct the new altogether “twisted” plot with reckless abandon. Pages of legitimate content were imbued with a licentious undertone as each character emerged in a mantle of suggestive and lewd context. What emerged was no longer a traditional cookbook, but rather an unconventional book about a cook, with me at center stage. I was now the main character and my sexual escapades became the recipe for the finished “dish.” It was absurdly amusing, exceptionally radical, and terribly alluring. And it was good.

It was apparent from the outset that this was no normal cookbook. Nor was it a typical cook’s story. Quite the opposite. Its resonance is the antithesis of normalcy. Its soul is indecent, yet it speaks its mind in its rank candor. As a treatise on the conventional techniques or the classical methodologies of kitchen culture, it fails in its purpose. But somewhere in the arena of restaurant prose, it finds a home. For as Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential so boldly took us on a journey into the underbelly of the restaurant scene for a glimpse of the unseen and the unsavory, Dirty Dishes takes us on a candid pilgrimage into the inner bowels of the restaurant world to explore a different naked and dirty side, a side that excites and stimulates the spirit, titillates the senses, and irreversibly alters the perception of the demi-God world of chefs and restaurateurs forever. It is simply a journey unlike any other.

I always knew I would be a chef. It was my destiny. Real or imagined, at an early age I understood that food was my passion, my breath. It seemed to resonate in my soul with a familiar timbre. Looking back, perhaps I backed into it in some respects. In my traditional Italian-American family (sometimes more Italian than American), food was a big part of our daily lives, a huge part. It was not just nourishment, it was sustenance. As a young boy, I was exposed to a variety of tantalizing dishes uncommon by everyday standards but commonplace in our daily repertoire of dining. Prosciutto ham, wild mushrooms, homemade pasta, roasted peppers, and even fried zucchini flowers were just some of the many culinary treasures that were cornerstones of our lifeblood, the marrow of our being. Virtually every day the ubiquitous aroma of sautéed garlic hovered in our home like a thick fog, the quintessential foundation for a quick marinara sauce or a fresh spinach sauté. I can vividly recall assisting my Grandma Rosa with cumbersome sheets of pasta dough, manning her small, stainless steel pasta machine as I cranked down the roller thickness on miles of silky golden dough, tricky stuff. Grandma was fiercely proud of her homemade macaroni. I can still see her tiny body, all four feet of her, in her homemade apron, juggling precarious lengths of dough with gnarled, arthritic hands while coaxing me with firm cries in Italian of “piano, piano,” imploring me to be careful with her delicate sheets of fragile noodles. For sure, Grandma’s macaroni was truly sublime, softer than marshmallow and lighter than air. Sometimes the backdrop for a Spaghetti alla Chitarra, made from Nonno’s own hand made “guitar;” other times the rough-cut noodles served as the pillar for a rich pappardelle with rabbit ragu. The entire ritual was a carefully orchestrated celebration of an age-old craft handed down from generation to generation. Irrespective of the dish, Grandma’s homemade pasta was divine, and sumptuous platters were passed excitedly at the dinner table, whatever the occasion. I was eating broccoli rabe decades before most Americans could even pronounce it. And long before wild foraging swept the culinary world, I was hunting dandelion greens in suburban back yards and along grassy highways, and scouring for chance fungi that magically appeared on lawns after a cool fall drizzle. Excavating blue little necks by the dozen, snatching droves of ballooning blowfish with bare hands, and harvesting behemoth conchs from the Peconic Bay were favorite summer rituals. Wild game was a way of life for me long before it became de rigueur in 3 Star Michelin restaurants across the globe. Even as a child, I was stalking wild cottontail rabbits in the woods of Long Island with nothing more than hand-picked rocks shoved into overstuffed pockets, a primitive hunter. My aim was really quite good, and I’d often claim two or three fat hares for Grandma Rosa’s kitchen table. And the rare but occasional road kill of a regal ring neck pheasant was cacciatore long before road kill shows made it to contemporary television. Baccalao was a Christmas staple in our home decades before Iron Chefs discovered its distinctiveness, and calamari was finger food at our kitchen table long before it became mainstream. Truthfully, I was already the quintessential “farm to table” chef decades before it became a celebrated philosophy of modern cuisine. This was the genesis of my culinary travels, the evolution of a long and colorful career, an arduous journey into the stomach and bowels of the insanely demanding and horribly challenging restaurant industry, my professional calling for over 40 years. As they say, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. And what a wild journey it’s been.

Clearly, I was ahead of my time. As I like to say, growing up in New York was tantamount to my culinary education. I had at my disposal a myriad of ethnic groceries and dining outposts. From Arthur Avenue to Little Italy, from Chinatown to the the Fulton Fish Market, these bustling centers of international food were strategic incubators in my nascent journey. Looking back, even my local neighborhood pizzeria was a formative piece of my culinary instruction. Serving pretty decent Neapolitan pie over 50 years ago at the ridiculous price of twenty-five cents a slice, it framed my “fast food” education. And my high school in the Bronx, just three blocks from Yankee Stadium, was centered in an old Jewish neighborhood known for great kosher delicatessens. Many days while skipping school with my chubby dining partner Norman, I could be found “noshing” at Morty’s on 161^st Street, feasting on the fattest pastrami on rye sandwiches on the planet, plates of half-sour pickles, dark mustard, and potato knishes strewn messily across the table long before Brother Vesey was even halfway finished with the elemental chart in Chemistry class.

I was perpetually immersed in culinary culture growing up. By my college years, my gastronomic acumen, though still without apparent form or structure, began to mature. I fondly remember my first cross country trip with my college girlfriend (soon to be ex-wife number one) as a defining journey in my culinary evolution. On a recently graduated college budget and in a smoking (literally) Chevy Vega (two quarts of oil a day), we reached Napa, California after four weeks on the road. Here I sampled my first fine wine and here my taste for wine was irreversibly altered. It was my first great wine experience, a life changing passage that came in a bottle of Chateau Montalena, Cabernet Sauvignon, 1974. It was dark and unctuous, and consumed in plastic cups inside a tent in a local State Park in pouring rain. Comedic as it was, it shaped and defined my wine tastes forever, culminating years later with my own vineyard, a winery, wine making and a lifelong love affair with grapes and fine wines. It was an exciting and novel sensory experience that added substance to my budding culinary interests. Most assuredly, the experience was heightened by the aged Sonoma Jack cheese (akin to a fine Reggiano-Parmiggiano), the handmade Tuscan salami, and the local peasant style Italian bread. All were new and adventurous culinary tastes that underscored my culinary consciousness. Or maybe it was purely the romance of it all. I am not sure exactly what the catalyst was, but my appreciation of food and wine evolved on that trip. Over the years it developed beyond a serious passion into a lifelong vocation. From that point forward, I was smitten with food and wine, destined to be immersed in this intoxicating and addictive industry.

My college days became the germinating seeds of my personal culinary journey as I headed south to college. Yes, the kid from the Bronx ended up at the University of Georgia, a very long story but one I’ll save for another time. If New York City was the appetizer on my culinary odyssey, than the South became its first course. It added a completely different dimension, another layer to my ever evolving food awareness. Call it Southern Culinary Adventures 101. In my four years down South I ate more BBQ, tasted more Brunswick stew, stuffed more hush puppies, crowder peas, butter beans, fried okra, corn bread, and collard greens into my gut than any Yankee alive. I even ate my first possum on Buck and Bertie Mae’s hardscrabble farm in the Georgia mountains. These rural black sharecroppers lived off the land, and ate anything and everything. Surprisingly, it was pretty tasty.

My Southern culinary education followed no direct path. By nature, it meandered through sleepy South Georgia towns, rugged mountain hamlets, Appalachian hollows, and low country swamp. Miles of weekend travels and hours of curious exploring lent a keen perspective to this peculiar subculture. Traversing the South and unlocking its colorful secrets became a passion. I noted with great interest the subtle regional differences that prevailed, recognizing that all Southern food seemed to find a certain resonance in the commonality of traditional Southern cooking styles; namely in its ingredients, its rituals, and especially in its etiquette. Perhaps it was the universal theme of grits, BBQ, collard greens or cornbread that played a backdrop for all Southerners. Or maybe it was the slow-cooked beans, the lazy simmering pots of ham hocks or fat back, or the ubiquitous sweet iced tea that seemed to define every Southern meal. Whatever it was, one thing was certain. It was all so new, so different, and so interesting. It was an adventure.

My college days were also full of culinary milestones. Some were downright hilarious. Like my first official restaurant job. I’ll never forget that momentous day as I approached an as yet unopened Blimpie’s sandwich shop on Main Street in downtown Athens, Georgia. It was my freshman year (1971) and I was inquiring about employment. It was here that I first met Ralph and Stevie, two young Italian entrepreneurs from New York City, standing on the street outside. I couldn’t help but notice a familiar, comforting accent to their speech. I was drawn in and soon struck up a conversation. In no time at all, I fell into a very comfortable Yankee dialogue with these two fellow Northerners. Looking back, it was laughingly brief. I simply asked a couple of very basic questions regarding prosciutto and provolone cheese. They were stunned. Without further ado, I was hired on the spot. So much for lengthy resumes and long interviews. After all, this was the Deep South in the early seventies and Steve and Ralph realized immediately that other than we three, there was probably no one in the entire city of Athens who knew what those two foods even were. And let’s not miss the comic relief here. To this day, it is a duly noted milestone in my extensive culinary career. Not only did it become the fastest job interview I ever recorded, but it also became a small but personal achievement. This turned out to be the opening of the first Blimpie’s sandwich shop south of the Mason-Dixon Line, a milestone at least for the restaurant chain, if not for me. The rest was history and my employment lasted two good years at that decisive stop on my lifelong restaurant pilgrimage.

Sometime during my Blimpie’s tenure came Gary the Pig. But I can’t explain Gary the Pig without introducing another colorful character in this epic journey, Bob Russo. You see, Blimpie’s led to Bob, Bob led to Gary and so on. Allow me to explain. One brutally sticky hot summer day in Athens, a fat guy walked into the sandwich shop. Not just any fat man. He was the garbage man. He was collecting our trash on his usual afternoon route. I had never before laid eyes on him. Now, this was no ordinary garbage man. From head to toe, this guy was different. Ripped jeans, a wife beater T-shirt with a hole the size of a cannonball, substantial man boobs, a work-in-progress potbelly, three days of facial growth, nappy Brillo hair, dark chocolate circles under his eyes, the complexion of a Moor and the gait of an Orangutan clearly classified him in another realm. Enter Bob Russo, my Italian American soul mate. He shouted at me with with a piercing New York (Brooklyn) accent, asking me if he could get a glass of cold water. “By the way,” he shouted coarsely across the counter at me, “do you happen to have any provolone cheese lying around? You know, just some scraps. I’m starving.” Without warning, he sauntered behind the counter with absolute disregard, peeking at containers of food and opening lids to investigate their contents. “Oh yeah,” he proclaimed without shame, “it’s almost quitting time and a cold beer would sure hit the spot.” I almost fell over in disbelief as I ruminated over this outrageous request. I thought to myself, incredulously, free provolone, cold beer? Who was this character? But Bob had a way with people. His charisma was larger than life. He quickly stripped away my fears and easily dismantled my mistrust. He was special. Before you could say “mozzarella,” we were hard and fast friends, a friendship that would endure for many years to come. Bob proved more than just a colorful character. This was the same Bob Russo who became a local celebrity and who once held a seat on the Athens City Council. This same Bob Russo organized the largest street festival in Athens history and even ran for Mayor of Athens once (or twice). Later he went on to open three highly successful Athens restaurants (with my help on the first one). By the time he traded Athens for Atlanta, he was a rich man, larger than life, and on his way to fame in the Atlanta celebrity scene. Movie stars, professional athletes, and politicians made their way in droves to hold court with Bob Russo at his once renowned but now defunct Rocky’s Pizzeria. He was that charismatic; a born charmer. But it didn’t last long. Bob committed suicide in 2003 at age 52. I can only suspect that he was yet another restaurant victim, burned out, broke, and on his way to a cocaine addiction. Or as I like to say, just chalk it up to the restaurant business.

But I digress. First came Blimpie’s, then came Bob, and then came Gary. You see, Bob’s profession of garbage collector led to his acquiring what else but garbage; lots of garbage, restaurant garbage. Bad lettuce, rotten tomatoes, blemished onions, stale bread, spoiled food, and so on. Blimpie’s was a prime stop. With rubbish in hand, Bob cajoled an old timer, a black farmer from outside of town, to trade his daily garbage for one of his newborn piglets. Hence, Gary entered our lives. Gary was named after a mutual friend of ours, also small and fat. And just like Bob, Gary was anything but ordinary. With mountains of garbage at his disposal, the 10 pound piglet was in no time a hefty 260 pound brute. With mountains of food, a pig gets really big, really fast!

Big pigs spell big problems, and although Bob lived outside the city limits, Gary quickly became the neighborhood nuisance. The small fenced in corral that housed this mass of rolling flesh could no longer withstand the onslaught of his heavy frame. What’s more, Gary became a very smart pig. Every time he threw his 200 pound carcass at his ramshackle pen in Bob’s yard, he would create a new exit and rip a gaping hole. Off he would go, exploring the local neighborhood, rooting in the neighbors’ vegetable gardens, overturning trash cans, and even meandering down to back door of the local bar, where the afternoon shift factory workers would ply him generously with beer. There’s only one thing worse than a loose pig, and that’s a drunken loose pig! Bob took to tying him up on a leash on the front porch of his house, but Gary somehow could not adapt to dog culture. Though he enjoyed the constant attention and, like a pet dog, rolled over to have his belly scratched, he was hardly a typical canine in stature. At over 200 pounds of brute strength, he constantly snapped his leash and incessantly fouled Bob’s front porch with copious amounts of rank excrement. Soon, Gary’s fate was sealed by local animal control. Complaints far too numerous spelled doom for Gary, who had by now become a beloved pet. Animal control issued an edict. We had 30 days to find a new home for Gary or he would become sausage. Being two food guys, we opted for sausage. But not without some sense of guilt and remorse; in order to assuage our shame, Bob let Gary sleep out of sight on his back porch for the next month. Here he was chained with a heavy duty collar and fed copious amounts of whole grain corn soaked in cheap beer. We had an ulterior motive in this new diet as we knew that corn fattened animals, particularly in their last few weeks of life, made for a superior finished eating product. We never let Gary know that, though. Sitting in rockers out on Bob’s back porch on sweet smelling Georgia nights, the cadence of drumming crickets in the background, while dew fell like a misty rain, we would commiserate over Gary’s fate. We drank lots of cold beer on those evenings, sharing more than a can or two with Gary. We imbibed on a plethora of fat joints of homegrown from the neighbor down the street, told stories, and laughed a lot. Mostly, we tried to relieve our guilt over Gary’s inevitable demise. And Gary was always included, literally. Occasionally a shot-gunned joint was aimed at Gary’s huge pig face to help mitigate his plight, to ease the pain of his own demise. Gary would snort and sneeze at the stream of pot smoke that would engulf his large head, but he always came back for more. It was a sight to behold as he would eventually tire of the interaction and would then recline his massive body on his side and go into a deep sleep. It appeared to us that he actually liked getting high.

Gary ultimately met his repose, and did indeed end up as sausage. Really good sausage. But even that had comic undertones. For on Gary’s final day on this planet, we were rushed into effectuating the dreaded decision to pull the plug purely by circumstance. You see, all along we knew we had to do the evil deed, but neither of us wanted any part of it. In fact, we had postponed even the mere discussion of it. But a spot had suddenly opened with Bob’s connection at the UGA Animal Science Abattoir, and we were forced into bringing him in immediately or risk not getting another opportunity for several weeks. The facility was shutting down for the summer. In a panic and without any logical planning, we wedged Gary into Bob’s recently purchased 1961 Ford Fairlane station wagon and just winged the whole thing. No cage, no truck, no hay, and no plan. Gary being the incredible sport that he was, obliged nicely and stood up on the rolled down back seat of the car like a large dog and proceeded to place his head on the headrest of the front seat, literally on our shoulders. As we drove the final miles to Gary’s execution in his funeral hearse, he continued to play on our guilt with an unusual display of somber affection. We tried to remain stoic and upbeat as Gary spent his final moments snorting and rubbing his runny snout on our shoulders while nudging us from the back seat in a heartwrenching display of compassion and tenderness. Despite our grave remorse, we knew we were destined to fulfill our role in Gary’s final destiny. Downtrodden and riddled with guilt, we did the only plausible thing that came to mind. We lit a joint, cried like two babies, petted his nose and started to shotgun him with a “fattie,” getting Gary high for the last time. He seemed to recognize our good intentions (or maybe we were just stoned). After all, the least we could do was ameliorate his (and our) pain. The rest is history, which Gary made many times over in the form of breakfast sausage, pork chops, and bacon. In his honor, we held an elaborate keg party and pig roast and enshrined Gary in our Swine Hall of Fame.

College got me my degree; English, in fact. But it also provided the backdrop for my epicurean pursuits and for the four years that I worked on my “real” degree, I also worked on my culinary degree. You see, I loved the business right from the start. The shoe fit, most comfortably, and I loved the money. I made pretty good wages. I assumed more responsibilities every day, and my pay structure kept pace. I became an adept deli man, training new employees, cashing out the day’s receipts, making deposits, ordering product, and essentially managing the entire business. More importantly, I was good at it. By the time I moved on to my next job, I was an accomplished restaurant man and could easily manage the day-to-day business of any operation. Two years later, with two more restaurants under my belt, I was a pretty darn good manager and really beginning to get the entrepreneurial bug. And while my college buddies complained about having no money, I was complaining about the long hours, the weekends, and the nights. I was already caught up in the mesmerizing energy, camaraderie, and solidarity that restaurant work breeds.

If I knew then what I know now, perhaps I would have made a detour somewhere along the way and my entire life of food and wine might never have existed at all. Robert Frost’s immortal words “two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by” quite accurately summarize my journey, articulate my direction, and map my history. Had I chosen a different career path, I would not be writing this journal now. And my wild 43 year career in this crazy business would never have happened at all. In fact, my whole life would have played out so differently. My wife and children might never have even existed. Such a curious notion, fate. Strange how it plays out, how the pages unfold. Many believe it is all an orchestrated plan, predetermined and preordained. Call it divine providence or capricious destiny, I don’t really know. I only know that the notion of life’s choices actualizing our individual reality is a fascinating topic. Arguably, it is so strange, so bizarre. But then, so is life, mine in particular.

Wash and clean rabbit. Season rabbit with salt and pepper. In a large Dutch oven, sauté the meat in hot olive oil till browned. Set aside. To the same pan, add pancetta. Sweat pancetta ham in olive oil till rendered. Add chopped vegetables. Sweat. Add herbs, tomatoes with juice, wine, and beef base. Cook in covered pan for 2 1/2 hours in a 350 degree oven. Remove rabbit and pull meat from the bone. Puree vegetables and tomatoes in food processor until smooth. Chop rabbit in processor separately on pulse, so as not to destroy integrity of meat (that is, the meat should be coarsely chopped, not finely ground). Add the vegetables, tomatoes and meat back to the ragu. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook fresh pappardelle noodles in boiling salted water. Drain quickly. Do not rinse. Toss in a large mixing bowl with 5-6 tablespoons unsalted butter. Add ragu sauce to the noodles. Serve with fresh basil chiffonade and generous amounts of grated imported Parmesan cheese.

On a hard, floured surface, sift flour with salt into a mound with a well or crater in the center. Add eggs and olive oil to the well. Slowly work flour from center of well into eggs and olive oil with a fork. When most of flour has been incorporated, it should form a sticky mass. Lightly flour your hands and re-flour the work surface. Begin to knead the dough by hand. Continue to knead the dough until it becomes smooth and shiny and has a bit of stretch. Cover and let rest for 2 hours or more.

Shape the dough into a rectangle. Cut the dough into four individual pieces. Take each piece and shape again into a smaller rectangle. With a pasta machine at the highest setting (9), begin to work the dough through the machine, folding it over as it emerges from the rollers. Continue the process of folding the dough in half and then putting though the roller, while decreasing the roller thickness all the way down to the lowest setting (1), each time dusting with semolina flour to prevent sticking. On the final pass, the dough should be smooth and pliable and stretched very thin. Cut the dough in half to create two equal pieces. Sprinkle liberally with semolina. Cut with a fluted pasta wheel cutter into 1” pieces from end to end. Lay flat into semolina flour. Cook in salted boiling water till al dente. Remove the pasta, drain, and toss with ragu and butter, or your choice of sauce.

In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, sauté sliced garlic till golden brown in hot oil. Add all of the herbs while oil is hot. Stir for 10 seconds to release the aroma and character of the herbs. Add the tomatoes and their juice. Tomatoes should sear in oil. Bring to one quick boil. Simmer five minutes only. Turn off heat.

I was fresh out of culinary school, slightly cocky, a bit brash and ultraambitious. I had graduated from not just any culinary school, but the esteemed C.I.A., the Culinary Institute of America. I did well, graduating in the top ten percent of my class, taking copious notes, keeping my nose to the grindstone, and learning an awful lot. I had decided on culinary school soon after I determined that teachers with English degrees were making chump change for salaries, serious chump change. The math was easy. In no time at all, I figured my chances of making any real money were with a chef’s knife, not a piece of chalk. Besides, my uncle knew someone in the admissions office and despite the rumor that the wait to get in was months long, I breezed right through. And it all seemed to fit in place. My college days of cooking and managing restaurants had in large part primed my passion for the business. I already had more experience than most of the young kids entering the program, and I had a plan, as well. I knew I wanted to own my own joint, at any cost. I saw what some successful restaurateurs were putting on the plate, and I knew I could do better. This was not arrogance, it was confidence. I knew I was good, equally deft with both a knife and a sauté pan. I knew I had taste and style and a personal vision that was cutting edge. I knew that if I could just get to that revered place, I would knock them dead. But before I could get there (and I did, within three years), I had to earn my spot, so to speak, the “walk before you run” philosophy. Fresh out of culinary school, I threw my soon to be ex-wife in the car and headed to my adopted state of Georgia, where I took a job with a major downtown Atlanta hotel, my first and last hotel experience.

It didn’t last long. I was placed in a kitchen the size of a football field with about 25 other “cooks,” all less skilled, all less accomplished, than I. Here, I was forced to tournee potatoes and root vegetables for hours on end. They had a fancy French name for this job, “Commis de cuisine,” which loosely translates to chief vegetable carver, “tournand extraordinaire.” So, turn I did. Lots of it. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips all wielded to my tiny paring knife. I occasionally even got to cook those beautiful pieces of fine “root” art, but never too far from the watchful eye of the evil and rotund Executive Chef, Herr Dieter. This life-size rutabaga on legs was a Gestapo holdover, a chain-smoking, pompous ass who resided in his glass ensconced office most of the day, talking on the telephone for hours on end, while drowning himself in lousy coffee laced with schnapps. Occasionally, he came out of his enclosure, usually to bust me for tourneed vegetables that were either too small or too big, too fat or too thin, not enough carved sides or too many. He scrutinized me from his smoke fogged perch to make sure that my water was hot enough to blanch, or he sneaked up from behind to taste the cooking water for salt. Then he would scream, “Vat is dis scheisse!” scattering my storage bins everywhere while pushing me aside and grabbing my paring knife to demonstrate the proper technique. “Vatch me one more time!” he would roar, while shaking his head in disbelief at my presumed incompetence. He even inspected my water bath for coldness (shocking the cooked vegetables to keep their bright color and their texture was a prescribed function), then roared at me from his chair when he felt they needed to be drained. He was a miserable bastard, never happy, and he loved to berate me in his thick, unpleasant German accent like I was a piece of dirt, “root” dirt, of course. And he took great pleasure in demeaning my culinary training at that “awful” school in New York, proclaiming that all the school ever turned out were “schuhmachers, notting but schuhmachers.” Every young culinary graduate has a similar story, but this S.O.B. made my life totally miserable. He almost quashed my desire to stay in the business. I hated going to work, so knowing that it was all about stepping stones in this business, I told him one hot summer afternoon to take his root vegetables and shove them, promptly walking out of my first culinary position and leaving my $4.50 an hour job behind forever.

It was a good move. Life has a way of working things out for us, even when we resist. The move to Atlanta turned out to be fortuitous. I had a slew of college friends who originated from there, as well as a certain familiarity with the city that I had cultivated from my college days in Athens, only an hour away. I had a college buddy, Phil, who I had heard from some mutual friends was running a bar and restaurant on Peachtree Street, Harrison’s, known as a favorite watering hole for the yuppie crowd and the new money people in Buckhead. I had heard through the grapevine that he was looking for a cook, maybe even a chef. Evidently, the owner was interested in upgrading his menu to attract a more diverse dinner crowd, though I wasn’t sure why. The place had a reputation as a pick-up bar and was always packed with standing room only crowds, mostly a younger clique, yuppies, hot college girls, and plenty of booze. I wasn’t sure how I would fit in to this scene, but I really didn’t give a damn. I just wanted a fresh start and I needed a job.

A quick phone call to Phil was all the interview I needed, and I was hired on the spot. Undaunted by Harrison’s reputation as a pick-up bar serving simple bar food, I was thrilled by the prospect of running an entire kitchen. Phil explicitly stated that the owner wanted a complete upgrade. From the start, he said “Go for it, Vince. You’re the C.I.A. grad; show these people what real food should taste like. I don’t give a damn what you do.” I was ecstatic, though, frankly, a bit intimidated. This was my very first chef’s job. It was my dream, every culinary grad’s dream. I was in control now. And according to Phil, I had no one to answer to and was completely free to indulge in my wildest culinary fantasies. As the weight of that notion sank in, I panicked. Holy Crap! I was barely 24 and I was now the Executive Chef of a pretty popular restaurant and bar. Who cares, I encouraged myself, even if it is considered more of a bar than an eating establishment. By the time they see what I’m going to give them, the dining room will be packed, too. I can do this, I thought with confidence. I know I can do this.

I quickly started making more money than I ever had. And the freedom and control that I was given suited me well. I soon discovered that I was, indeed, the guy who needed to be in charge. I was not only good at it, I liked it. Looking back on those days, I realize now that this was the genesis of my entrepreneurial spirit. This was the first seed sown in a lengthy and ambitious career, a garden of enterprise that grew into multiple concepts and eclectic restaurants, 14 in all. But this was my first taste at being the main man, the one responsible for it all: the menu, the purchasing, the recipes, the food cost, the plate presentation, the training… everything. I was at the top of the totem pole. Imagine, I thought incredulously, I am the chef, the Executive Chef!

I was there about a week, just beginning to settle in, familiarizing myself with the turf; everything from storage space to refrigeration, from temperamental kitchen equipment to prep area. It was all new to me, but I was excited, ambitious, and intent on doing it right. I decided that I would grow into this small, dimly lit, and poorly designed kitchen slowly, very slowly. I had learned at culinary school in Facilities Menu Planning class that the menu comes first, then comes the equipment. Typically, most inexperienced non-professionals do it the other way around. In my situation, I was stuck with the facility and the layout that I had inherited. I would not make the mistake of being over-ambitious and shoot myself in the foot with a menu that I couldn’t execute.