Day 3 - We Have Achieved Fermentation!!!

Well, last night when I took the pictures I was excited...

These are taken at the 32 hour mark. Clearly the yeast has settled in and there is bonafide fermentation taking place. Hooray!You can tell just by looking at the level and the bubbles from the side view that something has changed radically since the same time the day before. From the directions that I am following I was expecting it to be days before this would happen. Not sure what this means about the cleanliness of my house.

Now check out what was happening just 4 hours later! Man, it's the Attack of the Killer Yeast! Very exciting. I went to bed expecting that this morning the starter will have blown up to the rim of the container and I can give it a feeding and put it away.

But then..

This morning it looked the same. I went ahead and fed it a cup of water and a cup of flour, and let it set out at room temp for a few hours. I did not see additional activity at this point and was a little concerned. Hmmm.

I went ahead and mixed up a little dough to see what would happen. The recipe I used is loosely based on a formula for "No-Knead" Bread from Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC! This is the bread I intend to make first.

Sounds really easy and really awesome! Check out the video from Jim and the New York Times at YouTube.

Here is the formula that I am using as an ingredient modification with Jim's method unaltered:

1 cup Sourdough Starter
1 cup Distilled Water
2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
3 cups Flour

I think that I will prefer King Arthur bread flour, but that's not what I had on hand to start with today. I just used some all-purpose schwag. Just testing basic principles at this point.

I put all this stuff together at about 3:00 pm. It is now 12:30 am and to be honest not a lot has happened. Also, the newly fed starter hung out in a warm place for about 5 hours with no significant change. I'm a little worried. Hope I didn't kill the little guys somehow.

I'm really hoping for a miracle of life to be happening in that bowl come morning. Check back this time tomorrow...there'll either be a cool pic of a crusty loaf, or a very short description of Sourdough Starter - Take #2!

Sourdough - Day 2

Well, here we are. 24 hours after beginning the great sourdough adventure we have what appears to be a minimal amount of activity.

I stirred the mixture a little to allow any yeast that has settled a little better coverage within the muck. Though the starter still has a healthy and untainted flour smell, and the level of volume hasn't changed, there do seem to be some bubbles forming.
Bubbles would be evidence of yeast, but could also just be escaping air that was whipped into the starter in either the original manufacturing process or the subsequent "folding".

For those of you unfamiliar, here is the life cycle of yeast and what is happening along the way:

Yeast is in fact a living organism and is classified scientifically as a fungi. It is estimated that there are approximately 1,500 species, but only around 1% of them have been documented.

Dry yeast is yeast that is dehydrated and packaged for maximum shelf life and ease of use for primarily baking applications. The yeast cells are in a dormant state and will become vibrantly active when exposed to moisture.

There is also cake yeast, which is a moist block of yeast, and liquid yeast as well which is largely used in brewing, distilling, and winemaking.

Yeast, like most living organisms, requires certain conditions in which to live and reproduce. The main 4 are moisture, food , neutral pH, and an agreeable temperature. In this case the ideal temperature is between 70 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the required meal is sugar.

When exposed to the proper conditions, and with or without a partner, the yeast cell feeds on sugar, reproduces, and gives off carbon dioxide and alcohol as byproducts. This process is called fermentation.

When the carbon dioxide gets trapped within the structure of dough it causes layers of the dough to separate (or rise), and expands further when heated in baking. The resulting alcohol creates a pleasant flavor as well. Without this process bread would be dense and flavorless

When the gas is trapped in a seal container of liquid it results in carbonation as in beer, Champagne, and out-of-date orange juice. The process that I am undertaking to gather wild yeast is all that there was for making bread until Charles L. Fleischmann introduced commercial yeast to the market in 1876.

So, check back tomorrow and let's see if anything else develops!

I'm Bored

Couldn't think of a better title.

Being out of work is really taking its toll. In my job search of over two months now I'm finding that the market is flooded with overqualified, out-of-work chefs.

All this time off has help to inspire me to cook at home more, something I have seldom done a lot of over the years.

The other day I made some Mexican Fudge. It was my third attempt in a week, and I still don't have it right. What I'm trying to make is a duplication of this incredible fudge they sell on the streets in Mexico, and also in Hispanic markets here in the states. Mexicans call it Jamoncillo, or "little hams". I don't get the ham reference.

What I have had ranges from a taupe to light-brown sugar color, is very sweet, and has a creamy texture but with a pleasant graininess from the minute sugar crystals. Most recently I had the best ever. I bought it in a Latin market here in Charlotte when I went in to get some skirt steak and some chicharones (incredible fresh fried pork skins the size of your hand).

These were little slabs of individually wrapped candy called Crema de Leche. This term literally refers to what we call whipping cream or heavy cream, so the name is really a marketing term for this product. It was light in color and had a texture similar to maple candy. You know those little candies you get at the Cracker Barrel that are outrageously expensive and even more tasty - and there's always one in the center of the box shaped like a maple leaf?

You know - the one's with a delicate, thin, crunchy layer of crystallized sugar on the outside and rich, creamy goodness and silky smooth maple love in the middle?

Hold on...I'll be right back...

Okay, so it was like that except cheaper and without the maple flavor. And I tried three times to reproduce it and failed. Not really even sure I learned anything. One recipe had baking soda in it. I had to translate it from Spanish. It foamed up, boiled over, turned dark caramel brown, and began to scorch before it got to the correct temperature.

The most popular recipe I found online for Jamoncillo consisted of condensed milk, milk, and pecans. I don't know for sure if they have pecans in Mexico, but I never saw any - especially not in fudge.

I was supposed to boil one cup of condensed milk while blending (in a blender) 1/4 cup of whole milk for exactly 2 minutes. Not sure what that was supposed to do. Once the condensed milk boils you mix the two together, pour into a wax paper lined dish, garnish with the nuts (I opted to leave them out altogether), and allow to set up to a sliceable texture.

You might be saying to yourself, "That ain't ever gonna work", and you'd be right.

Moving on...

I looked up Mexican Fudge this time and found a recipe that seemed plausible from my limited experience with fudge making (a universally common procedure). I think it might have been not so bad if I had a thermometer, but I lack the intuition to estimate sugar temperatures by sight - a skill that comes easy with a little experience.

Having put off fudge making for a bit I'm moving on to sourdough.

I made a small batch of sourdough starter. Here's a topic that without a whole lot of effort you can find enough material on to fill an entire bookshelf with. Yeast, no yeast, certain types of yeast, pineapple juice, grapes, certain types of flour, certain brands of flour, pH tests, chemistry, ad infinitum.

The one thing I know for sure about bread is that it is one of the oldest foods known to man. I don't know of a single culture on the planet that doesn't eat some type of bread at some point on some occasion. The poorest, stupidest people on Earth have had bread to eat since about day 9. This can't be that difficult.

I'll keep you posted.

[This coming from someone who couldn't put 3 ingredients (2 of them sugar) together and boil them up into an edible form of candy. Heck, it'll be something to write about for a few days at least.]

The idea I chose to run with is the one that was the easiest, most practical, most traditional, and made the most sense. One cup of warm water (I elected to use distilled to avoid chemicals that might kill yeast), and one cup of flour (I used Gold Medal brand unbleached bread flour because it's what I had). Mix it up and let it sit at room temperature until it smells and bubbles. Should take no more than a week to ten days - probably less. Sounds easy right?

I put the starter in a plastic container and covered it with cheesecloth. The point here is that naturally occurring, airborne wild yeasts will fall, fly, crawl, or be thrown into my starter. Once there they will feed off of the natural sugars and starches from which flour is composed, and grow to a sizable population of sugar eating, carbon dioxide producing creatures that will leaven dough and produce a pleasant flavor and aroma in the finished bread. The cheesecloth lets some air and some yeast in while keeping larger critters and debris out. Later on it will be fully covered for safe keeping.

I took some pictures, although I didn't think about it until about 8 hours after I mixed the stuff up. Already there seems to be a little bit of activity. I'll take some everyday and post them. If you're out of work and bored like me we can watch this puddle of much grow together!

Check back tomorrow. :)

Whole Lotta Rosie (or...The Hole In The Doughnut)

So I was going to write this blog about losing one of the top 5 worst jobs I've ever had. And I was probably going to say some things that I shouldn't say. But everything happens for a reason and I'm lucky to be away from the place! So I'm letting that one go.

Then I thought about writing this piece about the really awesome Christmas I had with my family. It was the first Christmas we've all spent together since 2001. And to be honest it was the first Christmas dinner I've ever cooked. With a great disdain for turkey, and for all things traditional, I conjured up an Italian feast for 8 that would've comfortably fed about 23.


In fact I did write that piece. Then I realized it was less about food and more about what I think of the watering down of this specifically Christian holiday, and the use of the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas".

So I came up with a nice story about doughnuts!

I helped out a buddy (who I swore I'd never work with again) with a Christmas party catering this year. Fact is he was banned from the place and called me in at the last minute, but that's not what this is about. He had gone out this little bakery to buy mini desserts for the event, and what he brought back were some of the most amazing little delights that have passed across my palate--doughnut holes!

I was raised in North Carolina, home of Krispy Kreme, and I don't want to hear about anything else. Dunkin' be damned. But somehow doughnuts have become my greatest obsession over this last month or six weeks. Now my buddy Unkle Chef just returned from New England with the story of some damned doughnut mecca he went to in Massachusetts. You can read all about that on his blog, but this is my story.

There's this little bakery here in Charlotte, on Park Road, called Suarez Bakery. I'm 41 and can't remember that bakery ever not being there, although it hasn't always been Suarez. It was a Federal Bakeshop when I was a kid, and I never went in but I remember the wedding cake in the window. I think the same one is still there. So I just recently got turned on to this place.

You walk into a bakery storefront that is probably twice the size it needs to be; cases filled with all the stuff you would expect in a retail bakery in the south. Cupcakes, cookies, cream horns, novelties for the kids...and doughnuts. Not a large selection mind you. Glazed doughnuts, doughnut holes, and Texas doughnuts (glazed doughnuts the size of hubcaps with the hole spectacularly resting on top...package deal). They are absolutely amazing for a shop that doesn't really "do" doughnuts as a focal point.

Today was a rainy day, much like the last 6 have been, and I stopped in after a job interview to pick up a couple dozen holes to take home. Some bitch had just been in and bought all but five of them. Damn it!

Dissappointed I drove home, went straight to the computer, and started looking up doughnut batter recipes. I said batter, not dough. See at Krispy Kreme you used to be able to watch the doughnuts being made. That was the big gimmick at KK before they stupidly sold out to the mainstream corporate demons and expanded more quickly than the market could support them. Now they're all but closed up here in Charlotte at least.

Hot & Now! When those words are lit up in green and red neon along the front of the store you can watch them mix the batter, drop the soft dough onto trays, and put them in huge rotating-shelf proof boxes to rise. After 20 minutes or so they drop the doughnuts into this lazy-river style trough of sizzling oil. Halfway down the line a little paddle comes up out of the oil and flips them, and at the end they're flipped again onto a wire conveyor. As they round the bend for the home stretch the doughnuts glide under a silky curtain of vanilla flavored sugar glaze, and then right to the box and into the hands of lusting customers.

You can watch it all right here...Krispy Kreme on YouTube

You can easily down a half-dozen of those suckers before you realize what happened. The glaze doesn't even set up if you do it right, and you need a stack of napkins and a garden hose before you can go to your car. They just kind of dissolve in your mouth and you don't know it until you come up for milk. This is what GQ Magazine called "The Appalachian love child of the soufflé and croissant", and this is what I wanted.

So I found this recipe that turned out not being batter, but a very light dough that claimed to mimmick Krispy Kremes.

Here's a link to the one I used...Doughnut Recipe

Texturally they ain't Krispy Kreme, but with the right amount of vanilla in the glaze they're actually pretty close flavorwise. The recipe says it makes 2-3 dozen. I think I got about 640 from the looks of things, and the feeling I have in my tummy some 8 hours later.

Maybe next I'll write a blog about the dangers of obsession.

Quality, Not Quantity

When I started into this crazy career in the food business I was encouraged to move around and experience different things. “Learn as much as you can from different chefs”, they said. “You can learn something from everyone…even the dishwasher”, they said.

What they never told me is that at some point you need to stop that foolishness and stay put for awhile. They never told me that someday I would be judged by my personality and who I had worked for—how few jobs I’ve had and how long I stayed at them. No one ever let on that it really doesn’t matter how talented you are in this business, only how well you are liked and how stable you look on paper.

Now you might already be saying to yourself, “What’s this gonna be about?” Mainly it’s about standards.

I’ll tell you up front. I’m having a hard time finding a job I like. One I respect and can stay at. And one at which I am respected for the time I’ve put in, the dues I’ve paid, and the knowledge I’ve accumulated. Guess what…I never will. That’s what I’ve learned as the boiled down distillation of a 25 year career.

A quote from the revered chef Fernand Point stuck with me very early on; “The difference between a good restaurant and a great restaurant is the sum total of a lot of little things done well.” Fernand Point has been called one of the greatest chefs in the history of modern gastronomy. In the early to mid-1900’s he trained some of the most famous French chefs on record—Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, and the Troisgros Brothers to name a few. He is also credited as integral in the creation of nouvelle cuisine.

When I say nouvelle cuisine I don’t mean the minute portions and the artsy-fartsy, fancy-schmancy presentations that TV commercials lampoon and diners rebuke. That’s not at all what nouvelle cuisine is about. Look it up. Anyway, I digress…

The first real chef I worked for, and still the greatest influence in my career, was a guy who rather than attending culinary school, served an apprenticeship at world renowned Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. There he learned, from the ground up, the ends and outs of true 5-Star dining at its best. If something was not perfect it wasn’t served. I’ve eaten there. It was perfect. Every bite.

A few years later I had the opportunity to work for a guy in a small French restaurant who couldn’t cook his way out of a paper bag with a sharp knife and a blow torch, but he had some great stories about training in France. He could talk for hours about the staff of 35 in a restaurant that only sat 50, most of them getting paid little or nothing. You’d start out as a young “commis” peeling potatoes, and if you stick it out and show potential you might in a few months or a year learn how to cut one of them into frites. The chef screams constantly. The best you can hope for in a day’s work is that the chef says nothing to you.

If your food isn’t perfect—your pommes puree is pasty, your sauce tastes flat or doesn’t have a shine to it, or your fish flakes, you have to do it over. It may be a good idea to duck as well, because the plate may be headed your way…airborne. If the chef catches your mistake before it gets to the plate he may raise the baton he carries and give you a whack with it. You may even get a set of knuckles across the mouth if he’s in a bad mood. But if you want to be successful this is what it takes. You put up with it, and you get better.

This is the culture of people who produce arguably the world’s most talented and respected chefs.

In many American cities we have few if any restaurants that would make in a city like Paris or New York. We have a climate of corporate engineered mediocrity. We have food critics that compare rather than judge, and in small towns they can’t be honest or they’d really screw up the economy of the local industry. Truth is most of these people have never experienced excellence. They don’t know that they’re not getting it.

I have been very fortunate to have received excellent training, as well as to have experienced amazing food. If you have never eaten at a 4 or 5-Star restaurant, you don’t know what it’s all about. You can’t. It’s kind of like an orgasm. Until you’ve had one you can’t possibly understand what it’s all about. All the reading, talking, listening, even watching cannot prepare you for it, and it can’t be duplicated or imitated.

I got to eat at Lutece in New York back in the 80’s when Andre Soltner was at the helm, and his restaurant was considered the best in America. It was mentioned in movies. Anyone in fine dining in the U.S. knew the Lutece name. I remember the menu well. It was simple. Rudimentary dishes following the classical menu style and syntax. Caviar, crabcakes, roasted lamb loin with turned vegetables fondant style, salmon stuffed with a pike mousse and wrapped in puff pastry, Grande Marnier soufflé, and a layered terrine of raspberry and blackberry ice creams.

I could have made it sound more exciting, but the truth is that’s what we had. Simple.

I can’t dress it up anymore than what it was, but I can tell you that the flavors, smells, and textures were ethereal. Like nothing I’ve ever had before or since, and I’ve had all of those items many times. If you weren’t there you couldn’t understand.

The next great American restaurant that I remember was Charlie Trotters in Chicago. Five stars as well. Been there. Just the bread alone was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever eaten. Small, round pillows of chewy French bread; the surface covered with tiny bubbles of air encapsulated in crunchy layers of dough that exploded against the palate with each nibble. Kind of like the gastronomical equivalent of popping bubble wrap! I hated to keep asking for more of them, as we chefs usually pick out the level of refinement in diners by their inclination towards bread, but I couldn't stop eating them.

As for the rest of the meal, the freshness, skill, and passion that was put into every plated morsel was unbelievable. This, a restaurant that serves no beef, no chicken, and no broccoli. [Regrettably C.T. does have some foam in his repertoire] Dinner was around 15 courses, each consisting of about 3 bites of perfectly prepared and properly presented fresh ingredients. The service, impeccable. No less than five expertly professional staff members attended our table of two during the 3 hours that we were there.

Hubert Keller’s Fleur de Lys in San Francisco. Four stars. I had cauliflower mousse with a potato chip for an amuse when I first sat down. I can still taste it today, and I’ve never quite been able to duplicate it. I hate cauliflower, except Hubert’s. The dessert I had was the most creative, most perfectly designed and executed plate of food I’ve ever experienced. And I can’t begin to tell you how simple it really was. Merely done well, with immaculate attention to detail.

The au poivre sauce on the magret at Jean Louis’ place in Vegas, to die for. Le Cirque, Vongerichten's Prime, Michel Richard's Citronelle, New York's Union Square Cafe and Aureole, and Charleston's Restaurant Million. All amazing examples of culinary excellence and unwavering standards.

I could have worked at any of them at one point early in my career, and in fact was given the opportunity and declined. I had a chance to work at Le Cirque during the Boulud era, but I folded and headed for my own idea of success, a decision I kick myself for daily. I was offered positions at Gotham Bar and Grill (a new place in NYC that I had never heard of), and at the infamous Rainbow Room. I was offered an introduction to a chef named Jean George Vongerichten at an unassuming little place called Lafayette in the Drake Hotel. Never heard of him. Less than two years later he was the hottest young chef in America, and still today everything Vong does ends up being front page news somewhere in the world. Who knew?

One year I was honored to go to a fund raising event in Charleston, SC where there were 15 or so of the most celebrated chefs in the southeastern United States hawking their wares, signing their books, and showing off their stuff. Honestly, most of it was crap. Too contrived. Too much effort to “wow” the folks and not enough passion and mechanical integrity. Just one man’s opinion.

Emeril Lagasse was beginning to become a household name through his books, but he hadn’t made it to the Food Network yet. Nice enough guy, but his dish was just this side of disgustingly inedible. He was there glad-handing those hoping to say they’d met him, and scooping out this awful crawfish pie that looked like lumpy mud and tasted like salty, mahogany colored papier mache.

In contrast, the then Asian executive chef from the Greenbrier was quiet, humble, and proudly dipping up the most incredible stuff in the room. I remember ham and wild onions (ramps) in a cream sauce ladled over something else. Chicken I think. Simple, but well prepared and excellent in every dimension.

My parents, like most parents, always said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. I had a therapist tell me many years ago that this is one of the worst things we tell our children. I get it now. This is exactly what breeds mediocrity.

Recently I worked for a guy who told me a story about a chef in New York City who sent him to the basement for several weeks to peel and tournet potatoes. Though young in his career, he thought he should be on the hot line makin’ it happen. He thought the chef was an arrogant jerk and swore that he’d never be that kind of chef. The only thing good about the basement to him was that he got away from the chef screaming and throwing things.

My thought upon hearing this story was, “Yeah, but I’ll bet you got pretty good at turning potatoes didn’t you?”

Then I thought, “You’re the prick. You’re the kind of guy that creates an atmosphere of mediocrity!” “You’re the guy that thinks everyone deserves a chance and that there is no such thing as a mistake…just gentle little learning experiences.” [puke]

If someone is not standing over you screaming at you, pushing you to be better than you really are, how the hell are you to ever reach excellence? Will you always just be satisfied with what you can accomplish on your own—what someone tells you is good to keep from hurting your tender feelings?

Well, that guy and I parted company in a short time. We just couldn’t see things the same way.

Seems that I have a talent for pissing people off with my inability to conform to standards that are lower than my own. I think that it’s not so much my difference of standards, but my utter lack of discipline in keeping them to myself that gets me in trouble.

I was reading the story behind Thomas Keller, and how he came to be the chef and owner of what is considered by many today to be America’s greatest restaurant, The French Laundry. Seems that Tommy had a hard time playing well with others too. He went through a string of bad situations where he thought that his boss’s ideas and standards were mediocre at best, and that he could do better. After getting fired over his attitude and living on credit cards until the family was nearly bankrupt, he stumbled upon this charming little building in the middle of nowhere. He got the place for a song, fixed it up, and the rest is history. I’ve never been to the Laundry, but I’m told you have to plan that trip about 6 months out or better. Aspiring young chefs camp out on his doorstep to beg for a chance to work there for free.

I wonder if Thomas Keller, during his European training, was coddled and told, “Your consomme garnish is not uniformly cut, but we’ll serve it this time.” Or, “That sauce tastes scorched, but maybe no one will notice.”

Bourdain tells a story in Kitchen Confidential about screaming at a line cook for the risotto, and the cook just ignores him and keeps cooking risotto. Doesn’t matter to him how long the customer waits—that the rest of the table is in the window. The rice is going to be perfect, and you ain’t gettin’ it ‘til it is. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

When I started out I wanted to be the best I could be. I figured out pretty quickly that I had natural talent, and after a little exposure to “real” cuisine I developed passion. I went to the best school that I could. And I’ve spent the rest of my career resting on the laurels of prodigious knowledge and innate skills. I needed a job so I went to work for the first guy that would hire me—a guy that was happy to serve shit food to avoid pissing off the staff. Then I just repeated that scenario over and over. That’s the secret to my success.

Companies have hired me because they wanted my skills and experience to “take the business to a new level”. What they always fail to realize is that they are the reason the place isn’t operating at the desired level. It isn’t skill, or talent, or even passion that they lack. It’s personality. It’s truth! It’s authenticity. It’s the drive to achieve something that no one else is achieving regardless what other people think or feel. The weak ones will leave, yes, but they will be replaced by strong ones who will be driven to achieve excellence every day.

If the doors open in 20 minutes and the staff has screwed up everything except the frangipane and the coffee, then guess what—you serve goddamn frangipane and coffee. Maybe you fire them all and start over tomorrow (keep the pastry chef).

Disagree? I don’t blame you. It’s a drastic and oppressive way of looking at things. The government will fine you. You’ll spend months in court settling with damaged and offended, frail ex-employees. I understand. It’s tough in our country today with everything run from a remote corporate office, and upper management that has become so sensitive to the needs of the people that they have become functionally ineffective. But just know that this is one reason why there are only seventeen Mobil rated 5-Star restaurants in the U.S. as of December 2008, and only 140 with four stars.

So 25 years later I can say that I have learned something from everyone I’ve worked with—even the dishwasher. And the thing I learned best from the dishwasher is that washing dishes for a living when you’re really young and starting out is okay. It’s a beginning. But when you can’t even get a job washing dishes after pouring your heart and soul into the cooking biz for a quarter of a century…you fucked up, dude.

By the way, those colorful little guys at the top of the page are perfectly cooked baby beets from my buddy's first food show competition! The judges loved those things. And the splash of magenta color on the plate behind them...beet foam. My idea [God bless it].

No matter what, ya don't send it out 'til it's perfect.

Lady Justice & A Shot Of Tequila

“Everyone is crying out for peace, yes,

none is crying out for justice” -Peter Tosh

Turns out that this blog isn’t just about food. It’s also about injustice.

Our business is a unique one. When I was coming up in the food biz in the eighties and early nineties the back-of-the-house in a restaurant was a wild place to be. And fun too. There was always a raging battle going on between the hardcore beer and tequila swilling cooks in the trenches, and the prima donna waitstaff in their pressed shirts and ties with pockets full of cash and cocaine. At the end of the night though all bets were off, all hostilities forgiven, and we were a happy (drunken) family that would close down the closest bar together. Sometimes we’d go home together, sometimes alone. But we’d live to do it again another day—always. And a talented cook or waiter could get a job anywhere, anytime.

Those days are gone. Our world has changed and left no one unaffected. Corporate politics have taken over every facet of our lives and careers. Good for some, not so much for others. I am “others”. The story I need to tell here is a controversial one—the one that no paper will print and no news anchor will recite.

I got fired—again—this time for sexual harassment. A close friend got fired for sexual harassment within a couple weeks of my fiasco. My previous job I lost for ethnic harassment. Truth is that neither of us did anything that merits what our employers’ solution caused, and will continue to cause for the rest of our careers. And we are not alone!

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in 2006 employers in the U.S. paid out over $48.8 million in damages for sexual harassment claims. $59.8 million was paid out for non-sexual types of harassment. Between the two categories there were 35,059 grievances filed with the Commission. Of those thirty-five thousand plus claims 18,991 were found to be without merit. That’s over half. Those are the folks whose stories are never heard—until now.

In early 2007 I was hired for a lesser position by the largest foodservice company on planet earth. I was to be promoted to a reasonably prominent position within a few weeks but I never was. I was given the responsibilities of that position because there was no one else to take them, but I was never given the title or the salary that went with them.

I was left to manage a demographic of people who refused to rise to the level that was expected of them. They didn’t have to. They had been there for years and would inevitably outlive me or any other manager that passed through. They knew this. And they also knew that the laws of political correctness and human resources would always be on their side. Never mind that our labor costs were soaring, our sanitation grade was plummeting, and our bottom line always had a little dash to the left of it. These people had jobs for life. And they had my boss’s phone number on speed-dial.

The boss figured out that business was rapidly changing for the worse and that I should never have been hired so I was transferred to another property. Now I didn’t want to be there, they didn’t need me, and things just didn’t go well. Accusations of being difficult to get along with followed me and soured the relationship with my new supervisors immediately.

We had in this new location a lovely young administrative assistant from Mexico. She spoke mediocre English, had absolutely no sense of humor, spent the day in her office sending Spanish instant messages to her friends and shopping online. She embellished our financial records and she refused to utilize the time clock to record her hours. She was the person who prepared our payroll and typically paid herself for forty or more hours when she was usually only there for 25 and only worked for 6 of those. Yet, you guessed it...job for life...no matter what!

Each month we received a packet of training materials that we were to present to our staff in a brief round-table forum. This particular month the packet we got included only the Spanish version of the materials. It was this same week that we were extremely slow and bored. And I had decided to quit smoking. This never goes well for me.

Now, I love the Mexican people. I’ve never had a problem with Latin people on any level, but I thought that it was hilarious that we had gotten these posters only in Spanish. I thought, “Heck, I guess that not only is our country going Spanish but so is our company.” I saluted this concept and took a moment to honor my Hispanic friends’ culture. I taped the posters to the wall above the stove. On either end of the line of posters I proudly displayed the flag of Mexico which I had printed off of the internet. And I thought, from my travels in the southwestern states, that no display of Latin heritage is complete without the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe (a specific rendering of the Holy Virgin Mother). Apparently this was not remotely amusing to...well...anyone. Pity.

Three weeks later, long after a formal apology was made and accepted, I was called in to my boss’s office and fired for “creating a hostile work environment”. I was never asked to tell my side of the story. I was never approached by anyone from Human Resources. I was not given the opportunity to face my accuser—in fact I was not allowed to know who my accuser was.

Nearly a year of my life washed away as if it never happened. A job I wished I’d never taken turned into a job that I can’t even list on my resume, lest I have to try to explain this to the next person who won’t hire me because I’m a liability. Twenty-five years in this business...

Reminds me of the poor guy that builds bridges his whole life, yet no one will call him a bridge builder.

But suck just one...

Well, you get the point.

Before long I found myself in another position that paid better and was the most fun job I’d had in years and years. My first day I hired a female server, and a week later our chef hired her live-in boyfriend. She had confided in me that he was abusive and had quite a few personal problems that affected their relationship. We talked a good bit and became friends. She made it known that she had interest in becoming more than friends. I was flattered. I entertained the idea somewhat, but nothing ever happened between us. We had some brief but racy text message exchanges on two occasions but nothing else. She initiated both of those.

All of a sudden one day I was asked by my boss about some comments that I had allegedly made to her. I couldn’t deny them, but I also couldn’t conceal that they were solicited by her. She had called me a couple days before and said that the boyfriend had beaten her badly, and she wouldn’t return to work as long as he was there. He had caused other problems at work so we gladly let him go. Then she shows up with no signs whatsoever of being abused, and accuses me of sexual harassment.

The boss took my side. After he spoke with her and told her of my response she recanted her accusations in writing, admitted that she initiated the dialog between us, and said that she enjoyed working with me and had no intention of carrying this matter any further.

Two weeks later she made another statement that I had done several things that made her feel violated. Not one of those things had I done. Not one! She told my boss that she wouldn’t return to work as long as I was there. He again took my side and advised her that I would not be removed and that all measures would be taken to ensure that she and I were never alone together. The next day that she was scheduled she contacted me to say that she would not be back.

A week later I was fired for sexual harassment. I was not notified of what the reason was or who my accuser was. I was not given an opportunity to defend myself. I was told to turn in my keys and leave the premises immediately.

Two or three weeks later my best friend, who was very successful in his position of over 4 years in a large company, was terminated for sexual harassment. He was not asked to give his side of the story. He was not offered an opportunity to defend himself. He had made a harmless comment to a female coworker a few days before—a comment like thousands that were laughed off regularly in the kitchens of every restaurant I’ve ever worked in.

I got a new job pretty quickly and within a month a tenured (though unreliable and anti-productive) minority employee quit and threatened to sue me for creating a hostile work environment. That’s called harassment. I haven’t heard anything else about that one yet.

Do my friend and I see that we were immature, unthinking, and inappropriate in any of this? Hell yes! But listen, this guy has a wife (who understands his personality and supports him, thank God), and a mortgage. He had a career position for a span of time that can’t be ignored on his resume. He will have to spend the rest of his life explaining this little faux pas to every potential employer that reviews his otherwise unflawed background. To pay his bills he has had to take a job that is unchallenging and pays less than half what he had become accustomed to. And my case is not different.

Is this justice? Have the right people and the right causes been championed?

One legal definition of harassment requires that the harasser be told that his or her conduct is bothersome and asked to stop. At such point which the conduct continues it becomes harassment. With the figures listed at the beginning of this article it is easy to see why corporate America has altered the definition to eliminate any chance for liability.

I guess I just miss the good ol’ days—the days when people looked each other in the eye and settled their differences amongst themselves like adults. If someone is intentionally and repeatedly made to feel uncomfortable or threatened by some asshole with no ethics whatsoever, then that person should take action. Does that person deserve the opportunity to ruin someone’s life because of their inability to communicate their needs and boundaries? Do they deserve a financial reward? Should there be a question on a job application that asks, “Have you ever in confidence filed an exaggerated complaint against a coworker that resulted in their termination, and then hid behind your rights as a minority while you sit on your butt and suck the time clock dry”?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m just asking on behalf of the 54% that are the victims of unsubstantiated claims. These folks will spend the rest of their lives looking for the forgiving employer that will give them the chance to feed their families.

Their accusers will continue punching in at the same old clock year after year, filling a quota, stirring the pot, and wishing they'd have gotten that settlement.