Off Shift. Always Hungry.

I used to think the beer was the reward. That first hiss of the can, cracking open a portal to a place where the screaming was over and the tickets stopped printing. Where the line went quiet for the night and you could finally exhale without scalding yourself on the steam. But it was never really the beer. It was the after.

We’d spill out the back door like cons on early release, chef coats untied, burns shining angry red, smelling of fryer oil and stale sweat. We’d pile into battered booths at places that tolerated us—the pho joints with Formica tables and fluorescent lights that made everyone look like a corpse. Late-night sushi bars where the chef barely looked up, too tired to care. Shawarma counters with spit-stained glass, the meat still turning long after midnight, manned by guys who’d seen enough drunks to stop asking questions.

The best nights? When the ramen shops stayed open late enough to feed us—merciful temples serving the unholy. We'd crowd around steaming bowls that fogged our glasses, our arms dotted with old scars, clumsily clinking cheap beers. Laughing. Roasting each other. Breaking down the night like forensic techs at a crime scene.

Who lost their shit in the window. Who almost threw hands over a botched fire time. Who was screwing who in the storage room. Which FOH sociopath to avoid like the plague if you valued your mental health or your genital safety.

We didn’t think it was special at the time. We never do. We treated it like routine, just what happens after service. But it was communion without the priest. Confession without absolution. Family dinner for the damned.

When I got out, I didn’t miss the burns or the cuts, the 86’d specials or the soul-sucking smiles you had to paste on for customers who treated you like sentient furniture. I missed the people. The crew. The unspoken vow that no matter how badly you fucked up, they’d have your back when it counted.

And when the line was gone, I had to find that feeling again. Food became the way I kept the tribe alive. Sitting with new people. Strangers. Ordering things I couldn’t pronounce. Passing plates around like peace treaties. Watching how they ate, how they spoke to the server. Listening to them lie about small things but tell the truth without realizing it over a shared dish.

Because you can’t really lie when your mouth is full.

I started chasing it everywhere. Eating with strangers in Bangkok alleyways, crouched on plastic stools slick with god-knows-what. Slurping noodles at dawn in Tokyo after drinking the night dry. Ripping bread with hands that still remembered the line in dusty little towns in Turkey, learning the names of spices I couldn’t find back home.

Discovering new recipes and flavors became an obsession. A compulsion. A way to keep the ghosts of the kitchen alive, to honor them with every bite. To keep the conversation going even after we all walked out the door for good.

If there’s any religion I practice, it’s this. Always hungry. Always searching for the next table of fellow sinners, the next meal worth telling stories about, the next laugh too loud for polite company.

Eat. Drink. Talk. Learn. Repeat.

Because if you’re lucky, there’s one more bite. One more round. One more night you’ll look back on and miss too much when it’s over.