The part they can't teach in culinary school, didn't ever show on TV. The unscheduled death and disasters and heat and blistering adrenaline highs, the tunnel vision, the crashing din, smell of calluses burning, crushing pressure and pure, raw joy of it all as the entire rest of the world falls away and you're whole universe becomes a small, hot steel box filled with knives and meat and fire; everything turning on the next call, the next fire order, the twenty thirty fourty steaks in front of you and the hundreds on the way. This was what made everything else forgivable. And I knew that if I could just do this one thing, all night, every night under the worst conditions and without fail, nothing else mattered.

- Jason Sheehan, Cooking Dirty

"Respect the old, but seek out the new."

- Rokusaburo Michiba

"Pain throws your heart to the ground; Love turns the whole thing around; No it won't all go the way it should; But I know the heart of life is good."

- John Mayer

My name's Tom. Or TStan if you prefer... I do anyway. I'm working my way through life trying to someday become a Chef and have a restaurant of my own somewhere... someday. I've got a lot to do before I get there, which hopefully includes meeting awesome people, having awesome adventures, and getting a little bit better and making the world around me a little bit better each time I try something. Feel free to let me know how I did.