Nineteen years old, just back from Hellfest, lots of merch. In my natural habitat: dorm room, beer in hand, Piebald hoodie, listening to Jane Doe
My dorm at Humber on the fourth floor, third window on the left
The ol’ murky Humber River
The student kitchen at Humber College
My literal nightmare: being trapped in a glass cage surrounded by sugar sculptures
I moved to Toronto in the summer of 2000 for culinary school at Humber College in North Etobicoke. I got accepted into culinary school only because anyone can who has the money. My parents were on vacation the day I moved into my dorm so my dad’s best friend had to move me. His name is Johnny CC—“CC” not for a motorcycle, but for his love of Canadian Club. He’s a mechanic in Fort Erie and loves the song “Black Betty” by Ram Jam. He’s what you’d call a “beauty”—total Canadian good guy. Beauty can be derogatory or positive, depending on how you use it. For Johnny, it was the latter. I love Johnny like an uncle.
We filled up my dad’s Chevy 454 SS with all my belongings, which were pretty much hardcore records, band shirts, and a few pairs of cargo shorts. We were off on our 170-kilometer drive to Toronto from Fort Erie. I was so stoked to be moving away from our small town. Halfway into the drive we stopped for lunch at a highway stop in Stoney Creek. When we went back to the truck it wouldn’t start. We had to wait to get towed back to Fort Erie, where we unpacked and repacked into another vehicle and started the whole thing over again. At that point I didn’t even care; I was so over the whole fucking day.
We got to the dorm, checked in, got my meal plan card and my residential ID card, and loaded all my shit into a very small room with a single bed, a bar fridge, a window, and a small desk. The room had painted white brick walls, and it was just a few feet bigger than a jail cell, from what I remember. I instantly plastered the walls with hardcore music posters, with bands like Every Time I Die, Poison the Well, All Out War, and Earth Crisis. I set up my record shelf and record player.
I didn’t know a soul. Once I had my shit all set up, I hugged Johnny good-bye and he left. I sat in my room listening to Converge very loudly, and within minutes a residence hall person came to my room to tell me to turn my music down. I was like, Fuck this place, so I went for a walk and met some dudes in the cafeteria who asked if I wanted to smoke some weed. That was my biggest mistake ever! Smoking weed with random people who are connected only by the fact that they are lonely and want to escape is something I should have never been a part of. We got so high I felt like I was gonna die. We walked down to this ravine behind the dorm, and I felt like I was on the set of Jumanji. I became very self-conscious and pretty much just ran back to my dorm room and watched Twin Peaks until I could breathe again. I hate weed—it’s my least favorite drug!
Cooking school was intimidating to me at first. Class was supposed to start at 8 A.M., five days a week, but our chef would lock the door at 7:45. If you were locked out, that meant you wouldn’t be allowed in the classroom. If you missed three classes in a semester, you would be kicked out of the program. Coming from high school, where I would skip almost every other class, this was a huge hurdle for me to overcome. But I had to—I wanted to make my parents proud and to focus on school. I wanted to be better.
I had this amazing chef-instructor named Anthony Bevan, who was this giant Irishman and who was very intimidating at first. I won him over quickly because I was an amazing chef from day one—which meant I was good enough with a knife, and I wasn’t a complete dummy. Culinary school was filled with people of all ages, ethnicities, and skill levels. I loved that you were rated purely on the end result. If I made a clear, uncloudy stock I got good marks; if I made hollandaise that didn’t split I got good marks; if I could butcher a rabbit I got good marks. For the first time in my life I was getting good grades. I was building self-esteem by being on time and showing up ready with clean whites, sharp knives, and the willingness to learn.
In my second year, I had a German chef-instructor named Juergen Lindner, who was missing a thumb. He told me at first that he lost it when he escaped from Nazis during World War II. Later he said he jumped ship and swam to Ireland, and a shark bit it off. I think he liked freaking out the younger chefs. He did, actually, save the tip of my pinky. I was cutting chives; my pinky got in the way, and I cut the tip off. He knew how to quickly calm a naïve, young chef. He grabbed my wrist tight and walked me to a spice blender; he poured some black peppercorns into it and then ground them. Next, Juergen poured the ground peppercorns into a bowl and told me to shove my bleeding pinky into them. It hurt like a motherfucker, but I trusted Chef. I asked why, and he told me because he didn’t have any gunpowder. WTF, this chef was the real deal. I learned a lot from that day—his calmness during my duress still stays with me. Whenever a chef I’m working with is cut, burned, or injured, I am always there to hold a bleeding finger, add egg whites to a burn, or quickly drive to the ER. The minerals in the peppercorns stopped the bleeding. I wrapped my pinky with a few bandages, and I went back to cutting my chives.
In my final few months of culinary training I had this hard-ass pastry chef-instructor, McFadden. Pastry was so difficult for me. I hated it. I had to learn so many techniques that I just didn’t understand. I think that’s why there are so few pastry chefs, because it’s actual science. It’s not as simple as roasting bones, adding water to them, and having stock. This was the toughest course in the program. I was drowning in a frothy sea of butter-cream, marzipan, and pâté à choux. It was the first time that cooking didn’t click for me, and it made it that much easier to leave school. When my best friend’s band—At the Mercy of Inspiration—asked if I wanted to tour Canada for a few weeks, I jumped at the opportunity. If you’ve ever read Get in the Van by Henry Rollins, you know what I’m talking about. Traveling with your best friends in a van can be the best thing in the world. So I left culinary school to drink beer and drive across Canada with my best friends in a stinky, shitty van.
I couldn’t let my parents know I dropped out of school. There were only three weeks left in my program. So punk, right? I still have no regrets for never finishing, and I’m laughing to myself because I’m writing a fucking cookbook! I don’t think everyone should drop out of school; it was just my path. It took a lot of failure to get to where I am now. My mom found out not long after and didn’t tell my dad. Years later in 2009, in the first profile of me in the Toronto Star, written by Ivy Knight, I mentioned that I dropped out of college to tour with a metal band. My dad was like, Wait . . . so, you don’t have a diploma? You may wonder how I got away with never having a conversation about graduation—my parents happened to be on a trip to Mexico so they would have missed it anyway. I always told my dad it was a great day and was sad he missed it, LOL.
