I can't say it's "good" per say, but it is interesting. I'm a huge fan of the book and Bourdain in general but this seems...well... strained.
I think it might be due to not-so-terrific acting.
nly four episodes ever aired, but I will be posting all thirteen of the original series here. Eventually.
Here's the first six episodes of the show.
Tell me what you think.
Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential TV show:

TV links, free online television episodes sitcom, Kitchen Confidential

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Thanks to the internet, everytime anyone has any sort of problem in my kitchen I have this five-second video go through my head:

This is now how my brain works in everyday situations:

Purveyor: "I won't have Bibb lettuce until Thursday"
Me: (click above)

-Thanks to ChefManifesto Editor Mike Larkin, who just spent a late night watching this clip and every remix of this clip on YouTube.

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had a guy on my line who is into Lord of the Rings stuff a little too much.
The Halloween before the last Lord of the Rings movie came out I heard him talking to another guy about some crazy costume he was putting together(yes, he was way too old to be dressing up for halloween.)
What caught my attention in the conversation was when he mentioned he would be wearing a real sword as part of his ensemble that night.
I had to pull him aside and make sure he knew that he was not welcome to come to the restaurant with a sword.
Telling a grown man that part of his Lord of the Rings costume was innapropriate in public was a new low in my kitchen.

-Thanks P.T. Barnum "I got my own circus in my kitchen" from San Diego

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guest: "Just so you know, we're trying to catch a movie at 7:15"

Yeah? Well, maybe you should have gone to McDonalds for dinner instead of a very busy sushi bar.
Just a thought.

-Thanks to R.J. in Denver

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey guys, where've I been?
Walking around with my head up my arse apparently.
My inbox has been so infected by eastern european penis enlargers and anonymous people offering me incredible stock tips that I haven't had a chance to post to the manifesto lately.
(and also I was finishing up watching Lost which has become embarassingly time consuming.)

I've got a lot of great submissions (but I can always use more!) and a site rebuild in the pipeline, so tell your friends and tell on your enemies in chefmanifesto.com.

Vengeance,
Larkin
(that's my new sign-off instead of "sincerely".
I think it adds a nice touch to my letters to the editor.)

p.s. Oh, and when you have a second go check these guys out. It's a good chef jobsite with some cool gear for sale (notice any resemblances? hah, good sh-t!)

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"I just did a drive by at 26, those guys are a--holes."

- Dave tells us that this came out of the mouth of "the most beautiful and tall waitress" he'd ever worked with. Table 26 had pissed her off so she had intentionally farted at head level as she walked by them. Professional;ism ain't pretty sometimes.

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I work for this catering company that has a fleet of trucks that we load everything into and sometimes use as a makeshift kitchen for offsite parties. Suffice to say: they are filthy.

I was working a party last week with a new front of the house "captain" as we call them. After the guests ate we were supposed to start breaking down the dining room, but this new guy just disappeared. We needed his OK to break stuff down (company policy shenanigans).

After about 30 minutes of looking for him I decided to make the call and told staff to start breaking it down and hauling stuff to the truck.

After the first load one of my more senior waitresses came to me white faced to say she had found our captain.

When she opened the truck with the first load of stuff she found our boy with his pants around his ankles in a compromising position with one of the guests from the party.
It never would have crossed my mind to have sex in one of those filthy trucks and he didn't have the chance to work there long eenough to know not to.

-thanks to K.H. in Denver

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

During the busy holiday season, I was working at an upscale, gourmet food shop, beachside, in Florida. It was the day before New Year's Eve and my sous chef was so high his eyes actually rolled up into the back of his head! The next morning (New Year's Eve), he was wasted again, and I mean barbituate, freakin' wasted! I tried to send him home. After all, it was an extremely busy day and he was a danger to himself plus a liability to the owner. After arguing with me about it, he complained to the owner so she removed him from the kitchen and promptly put him to work at the cash register, assisting customers he kept falling asleep on top of the register! I got fired the next day! Go figure…he got my job as head chef and received a raise! Did someone say "boy toy"?

-Thanks R.H. from sunny FLA

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know what's no longer funny.
When customers ask "Is the Chocolate desert fat-free?"
I just can't even bring myself to make a witty quip about that one any more.
I just stare back at them and say: "No, it has fat in it."

-Thanks to "Janice on Long Island"

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A guy came into our sushi restaurant last summer an had a big meal but thmn spent about a half hour talking about how sesame seeds get stuck in his teeth. It wouldn't have been a big deal but he just kept on droning about it.
So the next time he comes in he tells the other chefs that he is "allergic" to sesame seeds.

I like to make sure every piece of sushi he gets has alittle sampling of sesame seeds in it. Even the pieces that don't normally take seeds.

Go have a burger somewhere Jackass.

-RR. from Florida.

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't have a very good excuse for not positng your stories over th holidays.
OK, maybe I have a little bit of an excuse - It's SNOWING AGAIN!
Chef Manifesto is based in Denver Colorado and we are currently socked in with our third winter storm in three weeks. I realize snowstorms don't actually affect the internet, but it has impacted my ability to have time to get on the internet. So, there's that.

But while I wasn't paying attention to our little corner of the web we recieved a very nice nomination for a blog award or "blaward" (hey, if Web+Log=Blog then Blaward just makes sense. It's logic.)
The good folks over at the Well Fed Network have us in the running for a couple awards. They have nominated 5 blogs in each category for their readers to vote on. We are currently getting killed in both the categories we were nominated in (Humor and Food Industry), so please take a second to follow that link and vote for us. Repeatedly.

And take a second to check out some of the other blogs on there. There are some really, really good ones. My new favorite is www.thefoodwhore.com.
She is pretty funny and I'll be hitting her up for somestories here soon.

Thanks, and keep those kitchen stories comin'.
-Larkin

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The editors of Chef Manifesto have not been updating this week due to getting pounded by a couple blizzards.
Our World Headquarters in Denver are about hip-deep in snow and it doesn't look like anyone is coming to dig us out anytime soon. Sorry for the inconvenience and look forward to a revamped Chef Manifesto in January.
-Thanks, Mgmt.

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I lost my Sous Chef last week to a DUI. He's a raging alcoholic with a few DUI's under his belt so this one put him in the slammer for a while (something to do with backing into a cop car with his lights off in a bar parking lot).
So I promoted a line cook to fill in for my sous until I find a new one.
Yesterday when I came in I found my new line cook with a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his hand. He had slipped while using a spring-loaded plate warmer to try and launch a potato and competely severed the tip of his finger off.
I want to feel sorry for the guy, but I got Christmas coming up and no Sous Chefs now!

-Thanks to M.J. in Vail

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The restaurant I work in is in a high-traffic part of town and we have floor to ceiling windows looking out to the sidewalk.
Last week a cop was walking by outside when he recognized one of my waitresses as someone who had an outstanding warrant (I still don't know what for). He walked in and arrested her right at one of her tables.
In her defence as she was getting carted out in cuffs she asked another girl to take care of her tables.

(I should have known there was something wrong a while ago when this same girl had the cap on her front tooth fall off and skip across a customers table like a tick-tak.)

-Thanks to John L. in Westminster

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a "project" line-cook that I've been working on. He's 22 and he knows everything (didn't we all at 22?). He has the potential to be a great cook if he'd shut up every once in a while.
The other day I asked him to sear some scallops in our Wok station. He got the wok jet cranking and let his wok sit there dry for way too long. You could see the heat radiating out of the pan. I didn't think much of it until I turned around and saw he had his bottle of oil in one hand and jumbo scallops dripping with water in he other.
"That's way too hot," I said, apparently not with enough concern.
He oiled the pan (which immediately burst into flame) and then threw his scallops in.
He immediately had flames from wok to the hoods.
I won't repeat what I said right then, but the wide-eyed look on his face when the thing went up was priceless.
I'd like to say he learned a lesson, but...

-Thanks to Jay, in New York

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I had one of the kids in the kitchen make a family meal the other day. He wanted to make cheese steaks and he wanted to do it his way.
I watched as he dropped about 12 whole chipotles into about 4-people's worth of meat.
"You might want to be careful with those," I said trying to let him figure out his mistake.
"I like hot food," he said.
I sat and watched him try and force down what must've been the hottest sandwich of his life. His pride prevented him from saying that he put too many chipotle's in, but the beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip told me that he probably would think twice before doing that again.
(The other three sandwiches he made for the other guys oin the line went untouched.)

-thanks to Tom in Washington

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Technorati Profile

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I worked at a Sushi Joint for about 7 years. During that time we assured all our customers that we did not use any MSG in anything we make. We did not have any MSG in the house ever.
Did you know that MSG comes from Kombu (seaweed)?
I didn't either.
Our sushi vingar was seasoned with Kombu, Every single piece of sushi that had rice with it had MSG in it.
Whoops.

-Rod in Oaklahoma

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I hired a kid who had just done a short prison stint. He had some anger management prtoblems, but then again who doesn't.
Anyway, I was working the line with convict boy and another one of my line cooks whene I somehow found myself in this conversation:

Linecook: (jokingly) Yeah, if I wasn't here I'd be pursuing my lifelong dream of becoming a pornstar.

Convict: (dead serious) I could make that happen... course you're going to have to suck a few dicks.

Linecook: (stunned, but trying to recover) uhhhhm, OK. I guess I'll have to chase my other dream of becoming Superman then.

Me: I can make that happen... you're still gonna have to suck a few dicks though.

-Thanks to M.L.
Vail, Colorado

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I hired a guy about a month ago who seemed normal when I was interviewing him. However one of my guys related this conversation he had with the guy about a week ago:
Apparetnly the new guy suffers from seizures pretty frequently. He told my guy that over the summer he had such a bad seizure that the paramedics had to come to his house to resucitate him. They revived him or got him through his seizure and took off. This guy realized one of the paramedics left their paramedic kit. Rather than return the kit he was very excited that he was now the proud owner of a forgetful paramedic guy's emergency kit.
My guy has no idea why the new guy felt the need to tell him this story, but the new guy semed really eager to tell somebody.
Where do these people come from?

-Thanks to R.L. Denver

Posted by Zak Rockstar at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)