I was born in Los Angeles and have been cooking in and around Los Angeles for 20 years.  I started my career with Ed la Doux at Cayote Restaurant in Laurel Canyon.  It was the closest restaurant to my parent’s house.  I still remember the first day walking in and asking for a job… and they said yes!  For those of you who don’t know Ed Ladoux – he was the guy who invented the California Pizza up in Prego in the Bay Area.   He was then hired by Wolfgang Puck to be the opening pizza chef at Spago.  Ed then went on to open California Pizza Kitchen. 

Later on, Ed went on to open a little restaurant in Laurel Canyon called Cayote.  And that is where my culinary adventures started. 

It was hell.  Ed (who passed away last year) was crazy -- always doing something to piss someone off in the kitchen or the front of the house.  To give you an idea of what Cayote looked like, it was built in the basement of a house that was built around the turn of the century.  The kitchen was tiny, greasy and falling apart.  One night in the middle of service the fridge stopped working.  Ed yelled at me for a couple of minutes and then told me to take it apart and fix it.  I looked at him cross eyed for a moment and then proceeded to do as he said.   The evaporator coil was not working, so I took it apart, cleaned it and put it back together.  I actually fixed it.  I’m not sure how but I did. 
Ed taught me how to get things done. Whatever it takes.  That was one of the first lessons I learned in the restaurant business.  You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.   Ed was part of the solution.  He was a great guy and I was sad to see him go. 

Once you work in a restaurant long enough you start to smell like the environment you work in.  Mine was BBQ sauce for the BBQ Chicken pizza and oil from the garlic rolls.  A smell that was only Cayote.  I miss the early days when I walked out the door at the end of service and that was that.  Now I can’t leave it, I have become it.