Back when I was fresh out of culinary school, and was running the kitchen at a successful little cafe in Wrigleyville, my first wife called me at work, all upset because my life "as a chef" was so much more glamorous--yes, that was the word she used--than hers.

At the moment she called I was cleaning the convection oven and was actually wearing thick rubber gloves while holding the phone to talk to her, so I had to laugh at that one.

There have been some moments that have followed, of course, that have felt glamorous, but that certainly wasn't one of them.

I met with reps from Dietzler Farms and Niman Ranch this week, with both bringing me samples. I'm going to do a side-by-side tasting of the Niman, Dietzler, and our normal beef, which is standard issue IBP USDA choice stuff.

What I'd like to do is have a rotating menu of featured local, natural, organic, humane, grass-fed, whatever, beef producers and offer this meat as an upgrade option for the burgers.

So that felt kind of glamorous. They brought their glossy brochures and nicely explained all the benefits of their products (which I'll comment on at length at some point in the future), and I felt kind of cool. For a little while.

And then this afternoon, I met with a group of students from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Business Management, who have decided to use me for their class project, and so they're offering to do a whole marketing/demographic plan for me for for just the price of a few hours of my time. I'd be a fool to pass that up!

After my hifalutin marketing meeting with my team of very professional grad students, I'm thinking that, yeah, maybe my glamorous moment has finally arrived. But then I got started on my working-late list tonight and crawled up into the ceiling to clean compressors and change furnace filters, and then snaked out the p-trap with a wire hanger in hopes I can get the hand sink back to draining properly.

And I did, so now it does! And I actually got it back together without creating any leaks!

I prefer the small victories to the glamor, anyway, I think.

5 comments

1. Jay on January 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM

   Woah, the "rotating menu of featured local, natural, organic, humane, grass-fed, whatever, beef producers and offer this meat as an upgrade option for the burgers" idea is genius.

    
2. art and chel on January 21, 2010 at 1:47 PM

   Can't wait to see what your product mix statistics are after you get the option rolling for a while.
   
   art.

    
3. James on January 24, 2010 at 8:13 AM

   Running a business sure makes you a man of many talents :]

    
4. Anonymous on January 24, 2010 at 10:09 AM

   I don't remember making that call, at all.

    
5. Anonymous on January 29, 2010 at 1:11 PM

   I would be really into humanely raised, grass fed beef burgers. Doubt I'd eat anywhere else.