So, Charlie Trotter has been publicly taken to task by the amazing Grant Achatz. Achatz's book proposal, available online for all to ready. details a screaming tirade Trotter delivered to the young chef when he screwed up some peaches in Trotter's kitchen.

Everyone who is anyone was all atwitter yesterday about it on Twitter. (Everyone who is anyone is on Twitter.  Are you?)

A friend of Trotter's from way back in the day - when he and Chuck were themselves line cooks, instead of culinary titans - quickly came to his defense. That Chuck is a card, he wanted us to believe, and more likely than not, what Achatz took as verbal abuse was really just Trotter "kidding around."

I'll keep my opinion on that to myself.  Whomever you choose to believe, have at it. As always, though, there is a lesson and it is simple: If you are a jerk, people remember.

And, even if that cook may not seem know from blanching peaches, you never know where he might end up. That peach-cookin' failure just may turn out to be a Very Important Chef with a Very Public Platform for blasting his missive on your jerkiness.
 
I know, I know: Chefs used to be jerks. It was their shtick, an old-school "something something" I too had personal experience with and try to forget. I am sure it is just fear, which causes people to do really ridiculous things, such as scream at (oh, sorry, "kid with") the lowly line cook who messed up the peaches

Civility is always a good quality, but it is especially important when dealing with media. Seems like a big "duh," right? We really shouldn't have to remind chefs to be nice to the people with pens, TV shows, and the like. But, apparently, we do.

Someday, you and I will go get a whiskey, and I'll tell you the story about the restaurateur who is banned for life from a glossy Chicago pub because of the ridiculous tirade of a letter he shot off to the magazine in anger after a poor review.
 
After the fact, he claimed, "It's no big deal." After his restaurant closed, I think he probably changed his opinion.