Small world

Yes I am endeavoring to cut back on social networking. Facebook. Twitter. The latest, Posterous. But it's fun when you see old friends, army buddies, and meet new food oriented people like, well, a lot of your readers.

Recently, such networking reconnected me with Bob del Grosso. Talk about "blast from the past. I met Bob not long after getting out of the Army. It was my second professional kitchen job, a place no longer in existence called Le Coq Hardi. Yet, the memories are fresh as ever; its copper bar, the oysters (which I shucked), the chores of making granite to cleanse the diners palates. This was back at the end of the 80's, when food was really blooming in America.

Bob was an erudite, well read man. I recall his copy of Escoffier, along with his quiet, serious demeanor as he worked, always precise in his movements on the line. A man of few words, save for explaining method and techniques, lots of thinking and no wasted movements. So when we touched base through a mutual friend, and I found he writes just as eloquently as he spoke back then (a bit of humor and of course seriousness, focus on food and a bit on politics), well, it's a joy.

So let me share the joy. Even if we only worked three months together, the shifts we enjoyed together induced so many memories and lessons, remembered to this day, etched from the heat and blur of a busy kitchen. Click here and enjoy him like I did. And do.

Comments

[Jeremy]

Bob,
Tell me about it, the 80's were weird times and even weirder trying to learn how to cook...Moved on to NY and have been here ever since!!!

Cheers,
Jeremy

[bobdelgrosso]

I can assure you that I'm as delighted as you are. In retrospect were those not strange days? The fine dining scene was in flux and there were not many places to work that were not drug and booze addled zoos or balls to the walls Euro-prisons with food that was not even 1/10th as interesting as what we are making for dinner at home tonight.

By the way, as serious as Carl and I were about establishing a serious cuisine, the kitchen at Le Coq Hardi was not without it's share of "Kitchen Confidential" style whackiness. Especially after you moved on to...Where did you go anyway?