In the Weeds

He would often say, “Everyone on TV is afraid of not being on TV,”

Despite having spent twenty-eight years working in a kitchen—or maybe because of it—he usually made a point of leaving the food preparation to the local experts

“For starters, let’s not talk about shit that we don’t know—like whether or not the restaurant will blow up,” Jared said. “Let’s talk about what we do know, like food.”

There was another time Tony kept raving about the pepper crab. “Oh my god, this pepper crab is fantastic. The pepper sauce is so rich and nuanced, it’s unbelievable,” Tony said. “Oh yeah! It is really good pepper crab,” the sidekick said in agreement. After Tony left and we went to the kitchen to film the food prep, the chef looked puzzled, explaining, “We don’t have pepper crab. We don’t have pepper anything.” Confused, I went to talk to the sidekick. As a local, he couldn’t have also been mistaken about the pepper crab. “Tony’s the food expert,” the sidekick said. “I thought I just couldn’t taste the pepper.”

Tony would say, “Painful is funny, one of the essential rules of comedy. The shit that really hurts, your greatest humiliations, they’re funny, you know