Three years gone, but still here.

I initially wrote the following a couple of days after a very good friend's death 3 years ago.  When Craig had his accident we were about two weeks out from my wedding, which he was catering.  I never had the chance to properly grieve for him.  I have also never had the chance to properly and publicly thank the crew of Parlor Market, and specifically Ryan Bell and Jesse Houston for showing up at my wedding and executing the dinner along with Gloria Mejia and Jessie Richardson.  I couldn't even get within ten feet of the kitchen without nearly bursting into tears and to this day what you guys did is still just about the nicest thing anyone has done for me. 

This feels like the first anniversary of that horrible event that I finally feel like I have any kind of perspective or distance on his death. 

Photo credit Mississippi Weekly possibly?  I don't own this image

Craig Ashton Noone 8/12/79-10/14/11

I met Craig in 2004, straight out of culinary school.  He came to the Palace Casino to do his externship training and Chef Jeremy and Chef Josh decided to start him with me on the steakhouse broiler.   Craig was as fresh faced and naïve a kitchen n00b as you will ever find, and many a steak found its way in the bin.  Craig didn’t just get in the weeds, he went on safari.  He was pretty terrible, however his personality and drive to get better won us all over pretty quickly and everyone took a personal interest in breaking his balls as hard as we could, pushing him constantly to get better.  As anyone that has worked in professional kitchens for long enough will tell you, externs are usually abused for long hours of thankless prep until their couple of months is up and they never become part of the family.  This was not the case with Craig. 

We became extremely good friends in a very short period of time.  As we talked, I told him about how much I felt my time as a musician and my time out west had broadened me as a culinarian.  He told me his dream was not to be a chef, but to own his own restaurant and be knowledgeable enough to hire his own chef and not get bent over by some of the more unsavory elements of our business.  I advised him that this was a terrible idea, and told him that it was incredibly risky to open a restaurant, and that it was better to be the chef than the owner.   Craig smiled and nodded as if to say “you silly man, of COURSE it’s going to work.”  Even then, weeks out of culinary school, he was already driven and knew exactly what he wanted, and it was just a matter of figuring out how to get there.

Craig and I got the chance to work together again for a while at the W New Orleans.  Craig had been struggling through a terribly lonely, poor, and exhausting year with a very well known chef who I will not name here.   I ran into Craig for the first time in a couple months and he had gotten so thin I thought he was sick.  I asked him what his plans were and he told me he was thinking of going to Texas, but wasn’t ready to move.  I suggested he come apply at W so he could get insurance and all and get paid better and not have to work the insane hours he was pulling until he made his choice.  He agreed and Chef Roberto had him do a tasting and hired him on the spot.  It was very plain from the minute Craig’s dishes started coming out that he had completely transcended the food that he was doing just a year earlier.  Every single plate was beautifully presented and I was so proud of him I almost couldn’t stand it.  It was that moment when someone you used to teach leaves you so far in the dirt that realize that you have nothing more to teach them.

As I said earlier, I told Craig years ago, “you are too talented to leave the kitchen, don’t do it man!”  I am not vain enough to think that I influenced that choice, but I’m glad that he chose to stay with his culinary roots. As to that other part about not owning the restaurant… well, As anyone that has eaten at Parlor Market can tell you, I was just about as wrong as you can be and still show your face in public. 

Just before he finished up at the Palace, I took on a new position at the Hard Rock Casino, and as a thank you gift for spending so much time with him, Craig bought me a hardcover copy of the Larousse Gastronomique which I had never gotten around to buying for myself.  Inside the front cover, he signed it:

I know one day we will work together again, I will be the owner, and you can be the rock star chef.

                                Cook with passion,

                                                Craig Noone

I am proud to have been one of your teachers, and proud of having been your student later.  I would have been proud to call you my boss.  And I am most grateful of all that I got the opportunity to be your friend.