Top Highlights

• I have since found that almost everybody in the meat business is funny — just as almost everyone in the fish business is not.
• 'Would you care for some Tongue en Madère?' I'd ask through clenched teeth, my face a rictus of faux cheer as I'd have to repeat and repeat for the hard-of-hearing captains of industry who ate the same spread of sauce-disguised leftovers every lunch and for whom the hot entree was clearly the high light of their day. 'Boiled beef with horseradish s...
• I make a hand gesture to a friendly waiter, who knows what I want, and he soon arrives with an 'Industrial', a beer stein filled with margarita, for me. The drink manages to take the edge off my raging adrenaline buzz and goes down nicely after the three double espressos, two beers, three cranberry juices, eight aspirins, two ephedrine drinks, and ...
• worked
• I've never regretted the unexpected left turn that dropped me in the restaurant business.