The roach skittered towards a cardboard box, and Cheryl raised her hand to smash it before the customers could see. The kitchen was in the weeds—we were short-staffed because the fry cook had been jailed last night for a DUI. Dad would stop by later to bail him out and give him another futile lecture. Meanwhile, the insistent beep of the drive-through sensor rang out. I scurried back to my post atop an overturned milk crate and pressed the speaker button. “Welcome to Lucky Phoenix, can I help you?” Just another June afternoon working at the family restaurant.

From the million-watt smile of Racheal Ray to the rock star trappings of Anthony Bourdain, there’s no question that it is a very good time to be famous in the kitchen. Americans may not be cooking any more, but they’re certainly soaking up every TV show, cookbook and blog they can find, as food takes on an unprecedented, fetishistic spotlight in pop culture.

But let’s talk about something a little less glamorous: Chinese fast-food restaurants. You know the sort, the dingy corner take-out joint named some combination of {Golden, Lucky, Jade, Happy} {Moon, Buddha, Wok, Phoenix, Panda}. The kind that serves ambiguously Chinese dishes from a 100-item menu, located in a building converted from an old Taco Bell. The kind that relies on labor from family and friends, the unwitting members of a Chinese restaurant fraternity open automatically to FOB immigrants with no English skills and an eye for cash. You walk past this restaurant every day, in Chicago, in Tuscaloosa, in small-town Italy.

This was my playground.
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