#nychef

[queer-whatchamacallit]

So I watched all of season 3 already (SPOILERS)

Of course I loved it; how could I not?

Because I watched seasons 1 and 2 together though, I think the difference between 3 and the previous ones feels more pronounced to me, but it feels like it’s on a different path, and I think I like it.

After the first couple episodes, I noticed that it’s either presented as a montage or a long dialogue scene, and for those dialogue scenes, characters don’t multitask anymore. They never have anything to do with their hands, and they just talk to each other in spaces they don’t interact with.

And they’ve done this to a lesser extent before, but they repeat things in the dialogue a little too much. Nonnegotiables and c-folds were barely words to me anymore

Now, with the critiques out of the way, the writing is so good it hurts

But my god are those dialogue scenes great sometimes. When Richie and Carmy are bitching at each other, it still manages to feel incredibly tense and nerve-wracking with no other action and no music behind it. The conversations between Donna and Nat fucking killed me. There’s so much shit there, but there’s so much love too. Tina and Mikey’s conversation is so good omg. There’s already so much chemistry and just caring there. And my god, Carm’s conversation with NYChef/David Fields. There is no sympathy there. Carmy hurt so so much, and Chef doesn’t even remember his name. He does not care. Fucking hell dude.

And oh my god, I’m going to be thinking about the montage in episode 1 for forever. I’ve written a lot of fanfic for The Bear, so I sometimes think about it in this overly poetic way, but there was love here. There was a love for creating something. Maybe it used to be more technically difficult, but for a thousand different reasons, Carmy cooking in the modern day is so so much harder.

The way everyone slowly starts to buckle under the stress of the kitchen is devastating. Carmy panics during service, vision going blurry. Richie forgets a birthday. Syd couldn’t imagine having the energy for another project, but this one is destroying her so badly that she’s been heavily considering taking the out and jumping ship to Ever. Everyone seems so worn down, and it’s so rough to watch sometimes.

And the way they show new relationships of the cast this season was PHENOMENAL. Syd and Pete talking about food and the agreement thing? Absolutely adorable. And the Ever funeral was fucking genius. I cannot tell you how much I have wanted Syd and Luca to meet, and Carm seeing NYChef/David Fields again is a nightmare come true.

Anyway, there’s probably so much more I’d love to say, but I’m just going to let it rotate in the mental microwave some more.

[let-it-rip-bear]

I KEEP FORGETTING TO POINT THIS OUT but in "System", when Richie calls Sydney "sweetheart", Carmy immediately goes "Don't say sweetheart, you fucking weirdo". I didn't think anything of it at first, especially because the this is your brothers house then why didn't he leave it you argument happens right after. But then, there's a moment in "Hands" during Carmy's nightmare in which he hears NYChef say "Take a break, sweetheart" and honestly the possibility of there being a connection is chilling to me.

[queer-whatchamacallit]

Thinking about Chef David Fields again, and Carmy is rotating so fast in my head that he might break the sound barrier

Cw: disordered eating, canonical Chef abuse

So Carmy didn’t have to work at Empire.

He didn’t have to stay there when Chef insulted his cooking, cussed him out in passing, got more and more personal, made himself more imposing over Carmy’s shoulder, more cutting, more targeted, more violent, did everything in his power to get in Carmy’s head and entirely succeeded. He didn’t have to stay when Chef told him he was better off dead.

There were other restaurants.

But he wanted to be good. And maybe it started off slow. And it was making him better than good.

No matter what else it did to him, that life or death determination made him push himself into something extraordinary. He got good. He got excellent.

And his mom taught him that perfection can’t be achieved without self-sacrifice, and by fucking god did he give himself up to this thing.

And he just kept getting worse and worse, but it was making him better and better at it, pulling him in, and his meteoric upward momentum was too much to sacrifice.

He was throwing up every day before work. After, he would pass out with his wool jacket still on and only wake up after nightmares about the day before and the day after. Malnutrition breeds brain fog. They say being sleep deprived is as bad as being drunk. Momentum is a powerful beast.

So with everything fighting him, his teeth rotting with stomach acid, panic attacks burning up his lungs when he thought he would have a second to breathe, he takes paths of least resistance.

Chef’s voice intertwines with his own, inseparable. It gets harder to answer texts. He doesn’t want to lie to anyone. So he doesn’t.

He can leave. Chef is impossibly, gut-churningly close, insulting him from behind until it sounds like it’s coming from the back of his mind. The highest praise he could get from Chef was silence. It’s no way to live. This sway between becoming God or scum is no way to live. But he’s already here. He has momentum.

It’s easier this way. He tells himself it’s necessary. This place’s claws are deep into him, past the layer of sweat into his lungs, into his stomach, already torn through everything in his head.

So there’s some half-meaningless last text he sent months ago, the last text he sent to his family, to anyone. Since then, it’s been pure radio silence, static all the way through him.

It’s 2022. It’s for the best to stay away from people. Order groceries online. Let his license stay expired when he hasn’t used it in years. The world follows his isolation, smooths that path over for him.

So for months if not years, the only voices he hears are his own, tight, determined, desperate, and Chef’s.

He chose to stay here. It’s not like he’s never had bosses like this before. Chef stood impossibly tall over his shoulder, and Carmy decided ‘Yes. I can take this. I want to be here.’

So he’s here. Maybe it’s doing something to him. He’s less than 30, and his stomach is lined with ulcers. He keeps sleepwalking, waking in the hall to his apartment then at the edge between the sidewalk and the road. But he works at Empire. It’s the top of the world, the highest he can go.

And then, he finally picks up a call from Sugar. Mikey’s dead. The one that he did this to himself for, the one he did everything for, is dead.

Momentum keeps him going. He doesn’t know how.

It’s impossible to describe what everything does to him.

But he just keeps going.

He throws up every day before work, he has ulcers and panic attacks and nightmares, and it’s been so long since he talked to someone he doesn’t fantasize about burning alive, and he’s never going to work at his brother’s restaurant, and this thing is killing him slowly and painfully.

It takes the reading of Mikey’s will to change his course, break the momentum. Suddenly, leaving is the easiest thing in the world now that he’s responsible for The Beef.

So yes, he chose this. But also, it broke him down into something unrecognizable, taking his neuroses, the buds of unhealthy habits, and making them grow like cancers.

[queer-whatchamacallit]

Rewatching the “I think about you too much” scene because yknow, and oh my fucking god that song.

It’s “Just One More Day” by Otis Redding, and the lyrics are killing me

“I keep wanting you, lord in so many ways

I can’t get you off my mind”

“And I can be anything you want me to be now

The sweetest things you used to do to me

Sometimes you used to say them to me

I can’t forget those lovely days

But this is the price I am about to pay”

That fucked up obsession. Through the entire conversation, through him both cussing Chef out and admitting what Chef had done to him, there is this all-consuming not want, but need for him to give just a single fuck.

Even a year or so out, Empire has such a hold on him that he hasn’t shaken in the slightest. There is horror and trauma in every day he spent there, and he’s built his life around it. No matter how violently awful it is that Chef expects thanks from him, Carmy has sometimes thought about it in the same way.

He keeps wanting that perfection. Through an entire year, he can’t fully get it off his mind.

[meangreenchef]

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[theoriginalaaronktaylor]

Kitchen's closed... #anthonybourdain #kitchenconfidential #nychef #truecook #celebritychef #chefauthor #thereasonicook (at Southeast Edmonton)

[cheffarrow]

Let me know your thoughts on this Autumn market bowl #farmtotable #eeeeats #nychef #lunch #italy

[cheffarrow]

After an awesome day of making great food and feeding people. Time to feed myself. #LambMeatBall #hero #fresh #mozzarella #arugula #basil #ItalianBread #eeeeeats #jerseyFresh #nychef #farmtotable #lateNight #wednesday