Be Careful What You Wish For

hello thank you uh i need a little liquid courage for this one my interest in food television previous you know after julia child's pbs jacques pan kind of came from iron chef japan i'm sure most of you who have seen iron chef japan as a as a young cook when i moved to california i worked at rubicon and all the cooks would gather together and we would go to this bar in japan town no one spoke english it was true japanese television there was no subtitles we had to figure out what the [ __ ] was going on and just pounding beer and screaming at the television and after a while we started getting the locals to the regulars were starting to translate for us and really making a little more comfortable then ron siegel went on and won battle lobster for us in california was huge finally an american chef can go to japan and win at iron chef and then iron chef came to the united states it was iron chef america i'm a competitor i was a professional bike racer for eight years i love to compete i love to win so i thought okay let's give it a shot let's see if i can get on let's push and i bid it in kanto for about three years and then the phone rang they called i get to go battle mario battle garlic i lost by the skin of my teeth one point presentation kind of hurt from that just kept rolling you know you put yourself out there once and then all these people start calling you nat geo discovery pbs everybody wants to talk to oh you're really funny you say a lot of good things you got really good sound bites i [ __ ] hate that word you have really great sound bites how about a [ __ ] great technique you know so from that i'm asked to compete on the next iron chef this is the first season and we've got really amazing talent on there john besh michael simon gavin cason i make it to the final three but i don't win don't make it all i want i was like man i just want to be the chef chef i want to i want to [ __ ] have that restaurant that all the chefs want to come to and for me it was that opportunity to say hey you know what i'm looking around at all these chefs that are on national television and their restaurants are busy they're really busy and i want my restaurant to be busy too and i want cooks to want to come work for me and to do that sometimes it's showcasing your skill set and that's what i was trying to do with iron chef and next iron chef but then a phone call came a show had been created and they asked me to be a co-host i was asked to basically travel with a friend all over the u.s and compete okay i love free travel my friends really cool and i get to compete so i'm gonna cook in all different cities and you know i've yet to have been to chicago okay this is five years ago i've never been to chicago so for me i'm like oh [ __ ] i get to go to chicago i get to go home i get to go back to boston get to go to new england and it just starts to roll and the show ultimately go to another city compete against some local talent and again i'm a co-star i'm not the only one there and i go to the city and i'm supposed to compete in a reality competition environment with my friend and we're gonna compete against these great local chefs so city to city cooking okay i'm down sounds great then we go day one hurry up and wait wake up 5 30 on site 6 o'clock 10 o'clock we start so we're up pacing this is what every day is like you know we have all sorts of environments that we're in but then as the show starts to progress they catch on to little things and then they tweak them they find my learning disabilities it's used against me i'm dyslexic i have add those of you who know me already know that but i really didn't need the [ __ ] entire world knowing that i did not need the country knowing that i didn't need to be poked at by it anymore it wasn't really something i was proud of i'd learned to work with it as the show progressed we were told we would be doing eating challenges and to me the way this the way i thought it was going to be would be a blind taste test let's blindfold you give you all this food to taste if you screw up men it's going to be pretty embarrassing if you can't tell the difference between a corn and a flower tortilla you know but that wasn't the case you all saw what i had to do every city was a new challenge whether it was eating an extra large all meat deep dish pizza which weighed eight pounds i had to eat snakes testicles okay don't yes i cook them at my restaurant but i cook them and i know how they're prepared i had to eat three bowls of spicy chilis i had to eat 10 pounds of baked beans spicy caribbean food with habaneros i had to eat whole ghost chilis 12 red hots with the works i don't know the last time anybody's eating the red hot it's a lot of meat it's about six ounces then you throw chili and sauerkraut and all this stuff on top really starts to add up and then some points we would actually have to run a mile i think at one point i ran a mile on a full stomach full of what you saw just a minute ago which was 100 year old eggs i had to run a full mile and it was 110 degrees out with all that jostling around in my guts really wasn't what i'd expected but i signed up for it there's the key i signed up why do i continue to go back i had all these people watching me 50 excuse me every shoot there'd be about 50 people some of them just like you see here all these big cameras some dude to be standing right next to right here in your face giant camera it's not really an option to stop i signed a contract how many of you have signed contracts how many do you own homes that's a contract it's like a lease you bought a car you have to pay for it i signed a contract that contract says i will continue to do this show i will follow through with my commitment as a cook we're taught right we're taught to follow through with task at hand commit to the job right don't you hate that everybody here complains when their cooks bail out right you get a stagieri comes in for five minutes like you know chef there's a little too much work for me it's not expecting i got to go home my cat's sick and your instant response is [ __ ] you get out and it's the truth it happens you know and and i didn't want to be that guy i didn't want to be the non-commitment i didn't want to be that guy that just quit i had a partner i had a teammate i don't want to abandon my teammate right no man standing alone we all work in that team no i in team so we go through we go through seven do a seven season or seven episode season first and we get to take a break they wanna do test studies how is this going to work out how are people going to enjoy the show is it fun do people like it is it worth doing again i get to see the show for the first time august 7 2009. five years ago my son my wife my friends they all come to the restaurant we're gonna show it at the restaurant i have no idea i haven't seen it i haven't seen anything i haven't seen the finals there's no previews of it i was bummed disappointed i was ashamed i'd gone from city to city i look like a [ __ ] bully i look like that kid who's in senior class who loves to [ __ ] with a freshman i look like a royal [ __ ] and i hated it i hated everything about it i hated the fact that i went to a town and i made two local chefs feel bad looked bad we're making the town look bad they wanted their opportunity to be on television to promote their business and their restaurant they wanted an opportunity to shine and who the hell am i to come to their town and [ __ ] all over them it wasn't my intention i just just just went that way you know competition's competition right you always have those [ __ ] that say second place is always the first loser i didn't really agree with that you know bike racing different story it's bike racing these are people's lives this is my life this was their life and and i'm saying to myself how in the hell did i go from being all about conviviality to being all about let's destroy these two [ __ ] kids it's not it's not what i am when people come to my restaurant i want them to have a good time this was supposed to be a good time it's supposed to be fun you know good old-fashioned competition is great you know we got to do everything from milk goats to break down whole wheels 125 pound wheels of parmesan with traditional tools to me that was what would be a good competition do you know how to break down a whole wheel parmesan yes i do let's do it boom boom not how much food you can stuff down your throat not make somebody look embarrassed because they may have never butchered a lamb before hanging i had i'd spent a long time educating myself i didn't wasn't happy with how i presented myself the show had a bunch of issues that i brought to the attention of management legally what i can say um food challenges disrespectful not only to the restaurant businesses and all competitors at hand who wants to eat like that right i'm not [ __ ] joey chestnut neither is anybody else and we're not going to do the nathan's hot dog challenge we're encouraging bad habits really bad habits one of which i just mentioned was that eating competition but for me the eating competition became a huge issue i went to pick my son up at this time he's pre-k he's at school and i have to pick him up early to take him to a doctor's appointment i show up at school and the kids are feverishly running around the playground building [ __ ] sand castles climbing you know climbing their play structure and then they're trying to find like tools they've buried and i asked the teacher miss julie what are they doing they're playing your show they're playing my show okay cool they're having fun then they all run into the classroom and try to eat their lunch as fast as humanly possible i my heart sunk i've never felt so low about myself i'm ashamed to talk about this it's very hard for me not to be angry chris and i have had a lot of conversations about this about me not being angry because i made this choice i'm more angry at myself for letting this happen i have a lot of pages here so bear with me okay you know after the conversations were had with management my opinion was heard and just like when you talk to a teenager it goes in here and falls right out here nobody cared ratings were [ __ ] great really love it when you eat great we're moving on with the next season seven are done total it's 23. you do the math how many more have i got to go i gotta go forward so i do had a partner he was a little bit more savvy than i was never made waves it's actually been really good for him i'm really happy for him it worked out i was the one who always ate i was always the one who took it on just didn't really work for him you know you couldn't handle the heat for some reason or another i could i ate whole ghost chilis la seen nai dish that i had it's a uh from a muslim chinese restaurant had 36 chilies in it 36 in one dish that was this big four ounces all different varieties it's not fun but i did it because i [ __ ] signed up for it you know people say why why did you do it what's what did the show do for me um well for one i'm not rich guys anybody out there that thinks food tv is going to make you [ __ ] wealthy you are high okay i sure don't look like brad pitt i haven't been chased by zombies recently in any movies so that money thought process because you're on television it doesn't really exist but the instant perception versus reality problem you have is you're never in your restaurant anymore you don't care you're on [ __ ] tv and that was the farthest stretch from the truth because i felt guilty i wasn't at my restaurant i would go to work in the morning take my son to school my wife would drop me off at work with my luggage at 8 30 in the [ __ ] morning i would work all day prepping go through half of dinner service get on an overnight flight land where i was shooting shoot all [ __ ] day wake up the next morning at six do my voice overs for those great sound bites and then get on a plane fly home get in a cab with my luggage go straight back to the restaurant and work [ __ ] dinner service it was three days then off for four three days off for four so ultimately i was really only gone for one day and then i worked even more when i was home because i felt guilty i felt that i was not helping my staff there would be issues at the market i was there was things muttered to my wife people would talk [ __ ] about me in front of my child sell out chef what is [ __ ] selling out anybody here have an idea because in punk rock you're a sellout in hip-hop you're [ __ ] blowing up so i don't understand why can't somebody work to try to put braces on their [ __ ] kid's teeth i was trying to take an opportunity to better my business give opportunities to my family and to my staff i wanted to grow a business i wanted to give opportunities to sous chefs i was hoping that television would give me that influx of cash to allow me to open another restaurant to then take that great sous chef who'd been super [ __ ] loyal and give him the next opportunity but that whole thing just kind of ran out but other than all that there was bigger picture bigger problem my health i got really [ __ ] sick that's my stomach in 2009 with third degree alkaline burns this is my stomach four weeks ago that's normal that's not i have lesions holes they said it looked like i swallowed a [ __ ] wolverine and it tried to scratch itself out trust me it's not [ __ ] funny because i spent days on the [ __ ] i spent [ __ ] days being really sick i couldn't drink alcohol for over a year i couldn't eat acidic food i couldn't eat tomato sauce for [ __ ] sake i run an italian restaurant how can i not taste this [ __ ] tomato sauce i couldn't drink red wine i still don't drink red wine anymore i went to do an event i got two minutes i'll make it fast i went to do an event in new york june 2009 i flew back home from new york after doing this dinner i got off the plane i got in a taxi went straight to the restaurant where my business partner rushed me the emergency room where i was admitted they thought i had appendicitis they were ready to have immediate surgery because they thought my appendix was going to explode but the blood work showed that they were wrong then they recognized that i was extremely distended this t-shirt would look like a [ __ ] sausage casing it was so big my neck and my head looked like it was just part of my shoulders i was all one it was huge they looked they said if i'd hit me with a pin i would have popped like a [ __ ] balloon rushed me upstairs i was filled with what is called acetus does anybody know what acetis is acetis can only come from two things cirrhosis of an organ or cancer my blood work said my liver was fine so what do you think they told me i was told i had cancer nobody can take that away nobody can take away that [ __ ] moment in my life my wife was on vacation in virginia with my son my business partner almost had a heart attack i didn't have [ __ ] life insurance who the hell would have thought that i would get [ __ ] sick like that no idea they're ready to you know bring me right in i had [ __ ] cameras up both ends at the same time the whole nine i've been going to doctors for five years trying to figure out what the hell's going on third degree alkaline burns i'm sure everybody's seen a burn victim right you know what their skin looks like on the outside most burn victims can't even be in the sun because the nerve endings are so [ __ ] roached the nerve endings were roached so bad in my stomach that i had what was called motility issues motility is when the food in your stomach can't be processed or pushed forward into your intestines and then it sits and ferments once it ferments everybody knows about fermentation here i hope it creates gas you're not the kind of gas you're going to fart either i'm talking gas that hurts because your intestines fill up like balloons pictured filling coat taquino and casings where are you dario you know exactly what i'm talking about filling those sausage casings and they just get fatter and fatter so they want to [ __ ] pop that's what i was that's what was happening to me and nobody knew you know fame my goal to get busy to open another restaurant fame hurt it's not all it's cracked up to be all i wanted to do was have a busy restaurant take care of my staff take care of my family so now five years later very fortunate that i found a really amazing doctor she's got me back on track we actually think that my stomach is fully healed i am training with a trainer to have motility improvement i don't think you guys need to look at that [ __ ] anymore can we make that thing go away thank you why go into tv if somebody like that would do that to you a lot of it for me was ego like i said i wanted to be somewhere be somebody i was a kid with a.d.d was dyslexic you know divorced family told i wasn't going to amount to [ __ ] so this was my way to stick it to everybody that said you can't [ __ ] do it so i'm going to get on tv [ __ ] you i'm going to show you i can do this i'm going to go on tv and show you all i'm not amount to [ __ ] i can do anything i want well it was a wrong way to think really was i think looking back i should have listened to my [ __ ] wife i've never done it i let people down let down my team i let down my family my wife had to put up with this [ __ ] for five years me being sick me traveling for the two years that i did all this crap the worst thing it did was it made me fear everything moving forward made me be concerned about what everybody thought of me because it did have backfire the whole sellout thing the restaurant [ __ ] we lost 45 percent of sales because i was a sellout i wasn't in my restaurant so nobody wanted to come anymore it changed the game it all looks glorious from the [ __ ] outside but it wasn't i'm a very different person now i'm not uh not rushing to do anything like that anymore soon but it did make me fearful and it changed the way i cook which i think was the worst thing of all i was afraid to be myself anymore so i was afraid to be judged being called a sellout for trying to take care of my family and make my restaurant busier went pretty far that being said as a cook you're taught how to set up your station you're taught how to brunoise chef pierre showed everybody how to clean an artichoke how to deeve i had nobody to show me how to deal with this [ __ ] i didn't know i'm hoping that down the future if anybody here the next generation has opportunities that one really looks at those opportunities with other eyes take some help get a mentor i know it's a new world this is a new world you need a mentor in there's chef mentors and then there's tv chef mentors who the [ __ ] would have thought never expected to be on television it wasn't my dream but i did it and now i'm here 42 my restaurant's closed starting over again whole new life it's gonna build up what i want my way and i think that's the most important thing so thank you