Transcending Chaos With Love

Curtis Duffy, "The Bear," polishing forks, and more...

Good morning,

In the show The Bear, some of the most memorable scenes unfold at a renowned Chicago restaurant called Ever. In Season Two, Richie stages there and is tasked with polishing forks, a job he initially sees as meaningless and beneath him. But as his weeklong apprenticeship progresses, he experiences how the attention and care behind this simple act reflect something bigger for him both personally and professionally.

Polishing the forks becomes a turning point for Richie. In a show whose characters all grapple with profound dysfunction, Richie may carry the most chaos of all. The act of polishing forks teaches him discipline, presence, and pride in subtle details. He realizes that small actions done well and with intention contribute to something greater than himself. In learning to slow down and do something well for its own sake, Richie gains some much-needed confidence and self-esteem. His whole mien shifts after doing this simple task. His time staging at Ever becomes a wellspring for personal growth and enables Richie to show up as a better version of himself for himself, his family, and his colleagues at his own restaurant, The Bear.

I was reminded of this episode while reading a fascinating profile of Curtis Duffy, the acclaimed Chicago fine dining chef behind the shuttered restaurant Grace and the Michelin-starred Ever, who is also releasing a book in August titled Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef.

At the end of the article, Duffy says, “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And then that becomes your identity.” That identity could have taken a very different shape for Duffy had he not transcended the chaos and tragedy of his childhood and young adulthood. Despite experiencing profound loss and abandonment from an early age, Duffy found a lifeline not only in cooking but also in a teacher who entered his life at a time when he desperately needed care and support:

“Salvation came in a sixth-grade home economics class. His teacher, Ruth Snider, taught him to make pizza from refrigerated biscuit dough and sew a backpack for his skateboard with material she bought because his parents were too broke. She cheered him on when he got his first restaurant job and was a balm when his parents died. Mrs. Snider would be the most important guest when he opened Grace, his first restaurant. ‘If anyone says angels don’t walk among us, I’ve got a two-word rebuttal,’ Duffy writes. ‘Ruth. Snider.’”

There’s a quote I’ve heard over the years that goes: “We’ll love you until you can love yourself.” When encountering someone who’s struggling, either internally or externally, if we have the capacity to show them love (whether it’s a friendly hello, a smile, a few bucks, friendship, or mentorship), these acts of kindness can sometimes impact others in mysterious and exponential ways. At times these acts of love and generosity come in the form of warmth, other times they can take the form of toughness. Duffy, who earlier in the article recounts his early days as a young cook working for the pioneering and very demanding fine dining chef Charlie Trotter, shows love to his young employees by setting high standards of excellence:

“Mr. Duffy employs young cooks who say they want to work less and make more. They didn’t come to work at a top-rated restaurant to make bread all day, they tell him. ‘Everybody’s too soft now,’ he said. Even so, Mr. Duffy will keep searching for ways to motivate the next generation. The key, he tells them, is to focus on perfecting one thing a week. ‘I don’t care what it is,’ he said. ‘If it’s folding the towels the right way, do it for a week every single day and make it perfect.’ The perfect fold will lead to the perfect sauce and the perfect dish and the perfect restaurant. It’s the lesson that saved him.”

Not all actions can yield profound results at once, nor can all love cut through the chaos. That’s why persistent acts of loving generosity and care are essential for personal growth. Just like folding napkins or polishing forks or tweezing tiny herbs onto Ōra king salmon, giving and receiving love must become a practice.

How often has someone been complimented on their nice new outfit or haircut only to say, “This old thing? It’s a hand-me-down” or “This haircut? I got it at Great Clips, it’s nothing special.” Or even when we’re given love or a compliment about something bigger, like a professional achievement or creative output, it’s sometimes hard to just say thank you when someone offers us lovingkindness or a compliment. By deflecting love, we take away the gift of giving from those who offer it.

While being perfect isn’t always the goal or even necessary, in The Bear, Richie slowly comes to see that polishing forks perfectly at a fine-dining restaurant isn’t a menial task meant to punish him. Instead, it becomes a spiritual act of simplicity that teaches him how to cultivate and receive a kind of love he had never experienced before.

We might not always know what form love will take or who in our lives will offer it. But if we remain curious and receptive, we can begin to notice the many opportunities to give and receive love, whether with ourselves, with loved ones, or even with strangers we meet in everyday life.

“The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And then that becomes your identity.”

What’s one way you’re doing things today that contribute to the identity you want to have for yourself? What’s a way of doing things that’s not serving your ideal identity? What’s one thing you can do right now to shape the identity you wish to have moving forward?

Until next time,

Matt

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matthewleebaron.com