cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DJing Who will DJ here in the office after I'm gone? This is the set that I just played at my desk this morning. REM - Radio Free Europe I just got off the phone with my Sl0w Food NYC guy. Long story short, we might actually get B0bby Flay for the goose thing after all. The Institute wants someone cooking for this thing who will really reflect well on their venue and reputation. Given that their board and faculty are full of celebrity chefs, they have a very deep bench of people to draw from. This is insane. How did I do this? How is any of this happening? I really hope that I am not just out of my depth and hopelessly deluded. I've been making a point of deliberately NOT getting out of my depth in any of this stuff by identifying what I am not an expert at and bringing in the very best people for those roles that I can. All the way along over the past year I have tried to always look for people who do things better than I do and delegate those things to them. Like getting F. to teach skinn1ng and hide tanning, paying Paul to act as r@nge safety officer even when I could just do it myself, and finding talented chefs to share the spotlight when its time to cook something. What I have done best throughout this whole thing is arranging people with remarkable skills to make interesting things happen. So long as I stick to that and don't try to act like I'm some great chef or tracking expert then I should be ok. I want this event covered in the NY Times. If I can make that happen -- and I think I can -- it will at least triple the number of interested publishers for the new book. I am horrified by the thought of failure. Horrified at the thought of spending another winter like the last few. Terrified of cold nights with no heating oil and broken appliances and children who don't understand why we don't have any milk. I must not fail. Other things and people have been my inspiration in doing all of this, but it comes down to a question of my basic survival. I don't have any other options for paying the bills. There are no other jobs that I can get here. Either I get really famous and have another, bigger book deal and a TV show, or I am totally fucked. Usually one thinks of someone trying to get rich and famous out of greed or love of the spotlight or something along those lines. In my case, mediocrity is just not an option. My choice is between soul-crushing poverty versus fame and fortune. While I was on the phone with the guy from Sl0w Food he said something that feel so weird. We were discussing who would be the right chef for me to work with for this new event in October and what the French Culina@ry Institute wants out of the event and he said, "you are the main attraction. The chef can be whoever, but you are the main draw for this event and its your name that is going to sell the tickets." Wha...? I mean, even bearing in mind that this is just his opinion as opposed to the Institute's. This is such a strange thing. My TV producer keeps saying the same thing. That we could fiddle with the format for the show and have more or fewer guests but it doesn't matter because I am the main attraction. I keep feeling like some terrible mistake has been made and everyone has confused me with someone else. I feel like I don't do nearly enough. Like I haven't earned the right to any of this. 3:38 p.m. - 2010-08-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||