“Bruce, you must visit Italy, It Is Your Home.” Those words came to me from an eccentric and charismatic gentleman of great taste named Sante Losio. I met him through his company, Fiume wines; he was importing great organic, Italian wines and our restaurant, Millennium, had one of, if not the largest, best and most thorough exclusively organic wine lists in North America. On the evening in question he was enjoying his first vegan fine dining experience, and like many new diners at that restaurant, was learning that vegan and fine dining were not mutually exclusive terms. I was asked to join him for dinner that evening as the most logical liaison between our food and wine list. While working as Sous chef for the restaurant, I had also been enjoying the “job” of learning about wines and specifically our particular wine list, even to the point where a great deal of decision making regarding it had become my domain. In fact, it had been my suggestion that we take our list, which had been well represented for organic selections up until that point, that last step to becoming a specifically organic themed list. I even wrote the mission statement which they still use:
Millennium is committed to providing the highest quality epicurean experience with a minimum impact to our environment. Naturally, this mission extends to our wine list. Many people are unaware that wine made from organically grown grapes is not a new product that exists only in fringe markets. "Organic" is simply a new name for an artisanal farming method; in fact, the great winemaking regions of Europe would not have survived the centuries without the practice of sustainable agriculture. There are many names on our list that may not be familiar to you, but even more surprising will be the names that are. Many of the world's top wine producers are coming clean about "clean" farming and this list will grow to include the finest of their wines. To the best of our knowledge this is the most comprehensive completely organic wine list on earth which, in our opinion, makes it the best wine list as well.
Of all my accomplishments in the industry, outside of the branch, I am probably the most proud of that achievement. As I have written on this blog and as I wrote in “The Artful Vegan,” Millennium’s second cookbook of which I was a co-author, bringing the knowledge and understanding of organics to any larger audience was, and is, my life’s work.
Sante Losio is a fellow traveler in this journey; his commitment to organic wines was deep and heartfelt...an emotional act by a rational man. Sante, his heart, and his family are from Italy. When I share the anecdote of our meeting with friends, I imitate his rich Italian accent, but cannot reproduce the gravitas or the intention behind the words. For Sante to tell me Italy was my home was for him to claim me as one of his own, a comrade, a brother in arms.
When I was buying wine at Millennium, Italy had over 54,000 hectares of organic vineyards compared to a few hundred in the entire U.S. Italy is also home to a movement called Slow Food, a name which speaks for itself. Though I am not Italian, outside of the vegetarian world, the majority of my fine dining training is in Italian kitchens; I am proud of this experience and feel (I hope fairly) that it gives me an insight in to at least a small bit of Italy’s culture. In my experience, the Italian cooking tradition values flavour over presentation, freshness over technique (without diminishing the importance of presentation or technique) and quality of the basic ingredients above all else. Italian chefs are brand snobs, quick to ask which canned tomato or tinned anchovy were used, which prosciutto, which parmesan... This is to say, I don’t think it was my technique that impressed him. I think it was our ingredients.
Millennium could be described as an extension of the farmer’s market. Our produce was some of the best in the world. Northern California has a long growing season, rich soil and an even richer recent history of organic farming. From the 60s to the present, what started as a handful of environmentalists ‘returning to the land’ has turned into a giant industry where small farmers are celebrated and elevated to positions of honor in a thriving food culture that values variety, flavor, freshness and a loving hand over the thrift, travel-ability and consistency of size and color that seems to govern the majority of the North American vegetable business status quo. And in that market, Millennium, a vegetable-focused restaurant, was monster; we bought directly from farmers and producers who were at the very top of their game, and, thanks to the unwavering leadership of our chef, Eric Tucker, were toe to toe with the top restaurants in California when it came to one on one farmer/chef relationships.
In my experience most people have forgotten or never experienced the difference the qualities that good local organic vegetables bring to food. I’ve heard people who taste these foods say ‘it tastes like something I had when I was a kid.’ And it does, it tastes like a memory of how good food used to be.
After meeting Sante, I was invited to participate in the first Italian Organic Wine Conference (a precursor to EcoWineFest) in Los Angeles as a judge. Our visit also included a dinner that paired these wines with a five course white truffle dinner. White truffles from Alba in Italy are one of the most prized foods on earth, often costing thousands of dollars per pound. If you’ve experienced them, you know why, if you don’t, I can’t possibly explain it. As a result of this event, and our meeting, Millennium was asked to participate in a series of dinners in the San Francisco area also featuring white truffles with a five course dinner and wine pairing of our own. I’d love to share that menu with you, but all I remember are a yuba braciole (it’s a long story), an Italian Merlot by Fasoli Gino, and a porcini flambé, which we presented in the dining room with bright, giant leaping flames. I also remember the overwhelming aroma of truffles seeping in and out of every pore of my being. I was so elated by the evening that I, to this day, value it as the single greatest cooking experience of my life.
When preparing for a wine pairing dinner, in this case a wine and truffle pairing dinner, there is a creative or brainstorming session that precedes the event. We smell, taste, discuss, imagine and relate. We open our minds to ideas that help us deepen our understanding of the wine and of the foods involved. What food makes this wine better? What is about this wine that makes this food better? We are creative, yes, but here's the thing, we must also look to tradition. We want to explore something new, but to do that well, we must also look back to the classic pairings and learn; there’s usually a reason some wines are never paired with some foods as well as a reason why some wines are always paired with others. To not acknowledge and learn from that would be to pretend that we, like the industrialist posing as a farmer, knows what is best without regarding the importance of what has gone before.
Millennium often offered dinners that paired excellent wines with our unique food; it was a great way to not only showcase our creativity, but to celebrate a small winery which usually meant celebrating both a farmer and an artist (two of my favorite things) at the same time. The synergy of wine and food, combined with the opportunity to create something new by their combination is also one of the most satisfying aspects of the trade of cooking. I remember each of these events fondly, as they were, more often than not, also a milestone in my personal journey.
Another milestone in that journey came when I finally followed Sante’s advice and visited Italy. Nicole and I spent three weeks in 2003 visiting Venice, Milan, and working on small farms in Tuscany and Piedmont. We were in Tuscany for the olive harvest and our hostess graciously treated us to a taste rivaling that of the white truffle, a fresh pressed olive oil at the source. I’ll never forget that flavour or the sweet herbaceous smell produced by burning the pruned branches from the ancient olive trees mingling with the salty Mediterranean air. We watched the sunset over the sea each night and worked each morning in a grove that had been tended by human hands for longer than the entire history of the country of my birth. Later, in Piedmont, we spent an entire day peeling chestnuts for a chestnut butter that, when it was finally ready, made the hours of burnt fingertips being torn by stubborn shells seem nonexistent.
Thanks to Sante’s advice, I had learned something about Italy by visiting. I learned that it is a place where tradition and an understanding of food are crucial. The farmers of an area know how to make the best products that can be produced by their patch of soil, because they’ve had generations of trial and error to sort it out. How egotistical it is for us to think our “industrial” farming could be superior to the techniques arrived at in this manner! The followers of traditional foodways know that the best drop of oil is the first, that the chestnut butter will be worth the work, that the best wine is made from a certain local grape, and that the cheese from this cow on this hill will need this much salt and that much time to age.
After visiting Europe, I came back to Canada with a vision; an idea of an old world restaurant in the new world. The branch is not an Italian restaurant. I do make fresh pastas and breads, I’m even curing my own prosciutto; but I also serve recipes from around the world, North America is not the old world, it is a melting pot of cultures and to not acknowledge and celebrate the wealth of recipes we have to choose from would be just as silly as eating at a McDonald’s in Paris. But we can acknowledge the old world and it’s tradition in another and perhaps more meaningful way: in our ingredients.
As I said, the branch is not an Italian restaurant, but I do serve spaghetti and meatballs, a dish which is at once Italian and new world, almost a symbol of the place at which those two worlds collide. My spaghetti is not Rusticella D’Abruzzo, arguably the world’s best product of that class; rather it is organic and Canadian, and still excellent. My tomatoes are not from San Marzano, they are Thomas’ Utopia, an Ontario company. My meatballs are made with local beef and my cheese is not from Parma, it is from the Oxford Mills Creamery, about 10 minutes from the restaurant’s back door. It is a simple dish, exactly like you’d find anywhere and yet nothing like one you’d find any where else; it is not expensive, and in many ways it is the perfect expression of my philosophy: simple, honest, local, comforting, at once traditional and completely new, and prepared with love and care.
When I met my business partners Brent and Jenn Kelaher, I knew I needed to prepare a meal that would show them that I had the chops, and that partnering with me would not be just some crazy idea. I could have wowed them with one of the baroque vegan presentations from my cookbook; I could even have presented white truffles with a porcini flambé. But instead I served them...you guessed it, spaghetti and meatballs. Nearly two years have passed since that meal and we are all still pushing forward and sharing that vision with whoever cares to see it. It is a vision of new world food with old world care; a bit of tradition with a dash of creativity, or, as we like to say, global flavour and local colour.
Later this month, I am excited to announce, we will be presenting our first wine pairing dinner with Featherstone Vineyards, an Ontario winery that seems to share some of our vision. They are an insecticide and pesticide free vineyard (unless you count Amadeus, the vineyard’s falcon and in house pest control system...) They’ve even taken the gutsy move of cellaring some of their wines in Canadian oak. I’m looking forward to celebrating their courage and craft and to enjoying an evening none of us will forget.
I still appreciate what Sante said, and value our friendship, but these days, in retrospect, I think he got it just wrong...what he should have said was “Bruce, you must visit Italy, learn from it, and bring it home!”
authentic texas specialties, amazing live music, incredible selection of local, microbrewed draft beers and locally sourced and organic foods...
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
working copy, Valentines menu, 2008
Feast of Freya, 2008
pre-game:
Barcelona nights: marinated olives, toasted almonds, roasted peppers, anchovies, figs and dates stuffed with house-smoked bacon
(fino sherry)
first base:
Arugula salad with grilled blood oranges, pine nut brittle, lavender-vanilla aioli
(riesling)
or
Wild mushroom cappuccino with truffle foam
(gamay noir)
second base:
Oysters agrodolce: 3 fresh Malpeque oysters moistened with chocolate sweet and sour sauce, barbecued on the half shell and served warm
(pinot grigio)
or
Teriyaki lamb brochette: honey-soy glazed Aubin Farm lamb, grilled and served over arame, burdock and carrot kimpira with wasabi and sesame “seven secrets” oil and pickled ginger
(sake)
time out:
Lemon-ginger sorbet with poppy seed and rosemary biscotti
(prosecco)
third base:
River Bend Farm duck breast, pan seared with Uncle Bruce’s magic love dust (coffee, chili, mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander and peppercorns) served with port-raspberry demi-glace over a love nest of crispy shoestring fried leeks, potatoes, beets and parsnips
(cabernet)
or
Halibut poached in a lemongrass, damiana, ginseng and coconut love potion served over jasmine rice with bamboo shoots, bok choy, hearts of palm and grilled pineapple
(gruner veltliner)
home run:
Chocolate-chili mole cake with a molten chocolate center, avocado sorbet and smoked cherries
(port)
or
Saffron crepe with rosewater ice cream, pistachios, mandarins and spiced sugar twists
(icewine)
pre-game:
Barcelona nights: marinated olives, toasted almonds, roasted peppers, anchovies, figs and dates stuffed with house-smoked bacon
(fino sherry)
first base:
Arugula salad with grilled blood oranges, pine nut brittle, lavender-vanilla aioli
(riesling)
or
Wild mushroom cappuccino with truffle foam
(gamay noir)
second base:
Oysters agrodolce: 3 fresh Malpeque oysters moistened with chocolate sweet and sour sauce, barbecued on the half shell and served warm
(pinot grigio)
or
Teriyaki lamb brochette: honey-soy glazed Aubin Farm lamb, grilled and served over arame, burdock and carrot kimpira with wasabi and sesame “seven secrets” oil and pickled ginger
(sake)
time out:
Lemon-ginger sorbet with poppy seed and rosemary biscotti
(prosecco)
third base:
River Bend Farm duck breast, pan seared with Uncle Bruce’s magic love dust (coffee, chili, mustard seed, fennel seed, coriander and peppercorns) served with port-raspberry demi-glace over a love nest of crispy shoestring fried leeks, potatoes, beets and parsnips
(cabernet)
or
Halibut poached in a lemongrass, damiana, ginseng and coconut love potion served over jasmine rice with bamboo shoots, bok choy, hearts of palm and grilled pineapple
(gruner veltliner)
home run:
Chocolate-chili mole cake with a molten chocolate center, avocado sorbet and smoked cherries
(port)
or
Saffron crepe with rosewater ice cream, pistachios, mandarins and spiced sugar twists
(icewine)
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
For My Mom
I love quiche. There, I said it. I loved it before I heard the expression “real men don’t eat quiche.” Admittedly, I hid my love for a short period after I heard that phrase but eventually I outgrew the need to prove my manhood by meeting some silly ideal propped up by someone who had obviously never tried my mom’s quiche. My mom makes a spinach quiche that will stop your heart dead in its tracks. Perfect flaky Crisco crust, layers of onions and bacon, Swiss cheese, and a custard of eggs, spinach and cream cheese. She sprinkles on paprika for color and bakes it just right. In my considerable experience eating her quiche, she’s never made a dry one, an under-salted one, an over-salted one or a runny one. It is always just right. And I’ve never seen her use a recipe. She has one, mind you, she made me a copy when I moved to California, seeing as how I wouldn’t be able to eat hers out there. I couldn’t bring myself to do it though. Oh, I’ve made my Bruce variations, Vegan ones with olives and tofu, vegetarian ones with smoked peppers and fried breadcrumbs to replace the bacon. Even now, back in the omnivore world, with good organic bacon and the finest cheeses in the world at my fingertips. I still, rarely if ever can bring myself to make mom’s quiche. And no, it’s not just my fear of Crisco; there are plenty of good organic non trans-fat shortenings available. There’s one ingredient I don’t have and can’t replace. You know what it is. Mom’s love.
You’ve all tasted it; if not mom’s, maybe dad’s...maybe your favorite aunt or granny. I don’t know who cooked that magic meal for you. But somebody did. For me it was my mom.
Earlier this month I went back to Texas to visit my family. My folks laid out a spread from the moment we arrived and tried to take us to every restaurant, BBQ joint, taco stand, kolache house or burger and fries pub that they could to impress us with Texas’ greatest asset. We were groaning and shopping for bigger clothes but couldn’t say no; it was too much, but too good. At one point, I told Nicole, this is how they show us love. It was a simple true statement, but I didn’t realize until I said it out loud how true it was.
Our first great relationship in our lives is with our parents; by bringing us into this world there is a tacit agreement that they will provide food and shelter, keep us warm and not let us shoot our eye out with a BB gun. Parenting is nature’s original charity. It is, although potentially rewarding in increasingly theoretical ways (the statistical decline in the percentage of children taking care of aging parents being an example), and will always be a huge investment with no guarantee of return. Well, other than the overwhelming sense of relief and accomplishment most parents seem to feel when their teenager finally moves out of their house. Parenting is, by many measures a series of gifts; food, shelter, clothing, bicycles, slinkies, Legos and puppies, as required by the child, over time. But food, or nourishment and the ability to grow, is the first and greatest of these gifts.
If survival is the body of our primary instinct then parenting and procreation are its legs. In my mind, it is no coincidence that we associate these two primary human biological functions with the mysterious and difficult to precisely define word (feeling? emotion? concept?) love. And just as parenting is so tied to the providing of food, it is no coincidence that our love for our mates is also characterized by rituals that revolve around eating. Think about it: “Dinner and a movie?” “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” “Bringing home the bacon.” Meeting the parents over dinner, the wedding feast... Food and love are so closely tied together in our nature that it is impossible to separate them.
While I was in Texas I got to see my niece and nephew who are approaching 3 and 5. They are beautiful, intelligent and boisterous little spoiled brats; manipulative, aggravating and impossible not to love intensely. Food is the ultimate bargaining chip with these adorable monsters. A well timed ice cream or ‘eggy’ can mean the difference between a world of love and a world of pain. I’ve definitely noticed in my own relationships how most fights begin with hunger and end over a decent meal. Food and love are built of the same biological stuff.
When my mom bakes a quiche, she brings something to it that no McDonald’s deep fryer can ever provide. Charity. An open heart. An honest and careful desire to provide sustenance to someone to whom she made a quiet promise many years ago when she realized she was about to meet a new and lifelong friend. Man, I love quiche.
--Chef Bruce
You’ve all tasted it; if not mom’s, maybe dad’s...maybe your favorite aunt or granny. I don’t know who cooked that magic meal for you. But somebody did. For me it was my mom.
Earlier this month I went back to Texas to visit my family. My folks laid out a spread from the moment we arrived and tried to take us to every restaurant, BBQ joint, taco stand, kolache house or burger and fries pub that they could to impress us with Texas’ greatest asset. We were groaning and shopping for bigger clothes but couldn’t say no; it was too much, but too good. At one point, I told Nicole, this is how they show us love. It was a simple true statement, but I didn’t realize until I said it out loud how true it was.
Our first great relationship in our lives is with our parents; by bringing us into this world there is a tacit agreement that they will provide food and shelter, keep us warm and not let us shoot our eye out with a BB gun. Parenting is nature’s original charity. It is, although potentially rewarding in increasingly theoretical ways (the statistical decline in the percentage of children taking care of aging parents being an example), and will always be a huge investment with no guarantee of return. Well, other than the overwhelming sense of relief and accomplishment most parents seem to feel when their teenager finally moves out of their house. Parenting is, by many measures a series of gifts; food, shelter, clothing, bicycles, slinkies, Legos and puppies, as required by the child, over time. But food, or nourishment and the ability to grow, is the first and greatest of these gifts.
If survival is the body of our primary instinct then parenting and procreation are its legs. In my mind, it is no coincidence that we associate these two primary human biological functions with the mysterious and difficult to precisely define word (feeling? emotion? concept?) love. And just as parenting is so tied to the providing of food, it is no coincidence that our love for our mates is also characterized by rituals that revolve around eating. Think about it: “Dinner and a movie?” “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” “Bringing home the bacon.” Meeting the parents over dinner, the wedding feast... Food and love are so closely tied together in our nature that it is impossible to separate them.
While I was in Texas I got to see my niece and nephew who are approaching 3 and 5. They are beautiful, intelligent and boisterous little spoiled brats; manipulative, aggravating and impossible not to love intensely. Food is the ultimate bargaining chip with these adorable monsters. A well timed ice cream or ‘eggy’ can mean the difference between a world of love and a world of pain. I’ve definitely noticed in my own relationships how most fights begin with hunger and end over a decent meal. Food and love are built of the same biological stuff.
When my mom bakes a quiche, she brings something to it that no McDonald’s deep fryer can ever provide. Charity. An open heart. An honest and careful desire to provide sustenance to someone to whom she made a quiet promise many years ago when she realized she was about to meet a new and lifelong friend. Man, I love quiche.
--Chef Bruce
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Why Kemptville?
I was living in Emeryville, California in September, 2001. Emeryville is a small suburb nestled in between Oakland and Berkeley with easy access to San Francisco, where I worked with Nicole at Millennium Restaurant. September was a busy month for me already. Our restaurant had been invited to participate in a large flashy gala event in New York City and my boss, the chef, had flown out with the pastry chef and catering manager to attend, leaving me in charge. Nicole’s grandfather was, coincidentally, turning 100 years old in Boston that week as well, and she too, had flown off to attend that event which meant that I was in charge and alone both at work and at the house.
Nicole and I had been enjoying our urban lifestyle, to some degree; our salaries were good and our apartment was cozy. We weren’t, however, at home. My family and her family both lived thousands of miles away from us and neither was in much of a financial position to visit often. This meant that what little vacation time we could muster was often spent appeasing one family or the other. We loved the work, but not always the hours and we loved the people, but eventually, to get along with people, relationships have to evolve, which is difficult in a workplace with a glass ceiling. The series of events that had taken us each to the west coast and together had been adventures of a lifetime for both of us, but the road west dead ends at Highway 1 and we were both about ready to start looking for another route.
On the 10th of September, I spoke to Nicole briefly; she’d had a great time with her family, I was sad to have missed it, there was some mix-up with her flight, but she’d figured something else out. She was taking a cab and the train back to the house from the airport so I didn’t bother to write down her new flight number.
On the morning of September 11th a phone call woke me, Paul from work said, ‘go turn on the TV, I don’t think we’re opening the restaurant today.’
By now plenty has been written about that morning by lots of people who write better than I do. And for all the ink and column inches it has greedily drunk, it is, at the end, just one more simple example of a day where someone woke up to find the world had turned up different, darker and worse than the one they’d put to bed the night before. For me, for 45 minutes, I wished more than anything else in the world that I’d written down a fucking flight number. Every minute was a million horror movies played out in repeated images on every channel and in my head.
Her plane was grounded in Wichita. She called, she was fine. I was changed. It took a few days to get her back to San Francisco, to Emeryville, but I knew before my heart stopped racing that morning that I was ready to move home. The problem was I didn’t yet know what home meant.
I had another clear thought that morning. I was sad. I was sad because I knew that whoever had done this, however clever they felt for pulling it off, and no matter how loud the voices of logic and sanity shouted, the war hawks were going to fly. If the plan had been to make the world, or even some small corner of it, a better place for anybody, by whatever twisted logic, I knew that it was for nothing because the only possible result of that monumental act of stupidity was that the war hawks were going to fly.
I am fascinated by conspiracy theories, but skeptical. For any conspiracy of grand magnitude to work, the conspirators would have to be incredibly smart. I, personally, don’t think George W. Bush is very smart. He is smart enough, obviously; he has managed to land an excellent job, but I don’t think his ability to reason is fully developed. His thinking is short sighted and he makes snap judgments, he is inflexible and apparently, from his actions, incapable of empathy. I don’t think he orchestrated September 11. I don’t think anyone in Washington did. I think the official script is pretty close to the truth. Incompetence is probably the most accurate charge that can be leveled against him or his people, and one that certainly is consistent with every other action (outside of political maneuvering) that we’ve seen them take before or since. This is not an excuse.
What is not in question is that as of that morning, my and lots of other people’s safe, bland world stopped feeling so safe and so bland. Nicole and I quickly agreed that we needed to get our priorities in order and high on that list was moving closer to family. Getting away from a city. Finding a home.
We didn’t move right away. We were ready in our hearts, but life wasn’t ready for us. We loved and still love our restaurant in San Francisco. We had met there, married there and come of age in our profession there. We are still in touch with the owners and some of our co-workers and still follow their careers with fascination and pleasure. We also felt that our change of life needed to include doing things we had put off; like a honeymoon trip to Europe and a road-trip across this continent. And at the end of that trip we knew we had a devil’s choice. Would we live near her family or mine?
Our road-trip brought us, among other places, to Texas, to Austin and Bryan to visit my family. Nicole and I both loved Austin; I had lived there for a number of years and she had been there twice to visit a childhood friend who had moved there for work. We loved the town and still consider it a second home. The trip also brought us to Kemptville, to visit Nicole’s sister who has lived here for many years. We went for dinner at a groovy restaurant in town, Amanda’s Slip. It was the first time since I’d found Millennium in San Francisco where I read the menu and said “I understand exactly what this chef is trying to do. “ I also told Nicole that night, “This is the kind of place we should open.”
We came for dinner and I stayed for the summer helping in the kitchen while Nicole earned us some spending money for Europe at her old job in Ottawa. When we came back from Europe we were broke. The first stop had to be in Austin where we were both able to work. It was a move brought on by necessity, not a decision, and our belongings remained in storage for the year we were there.
After much soul searching we knew we couldn’t choose between the two families. We loved both options too much to decide. It wasn’t what you’d think either, we both loved our native homes, but Nicole wanted Austin’s sun and my niece and nephew’s hugs and smiles as much or more than me at times, and I was as likely as not to be daydreaming about the little restaurant in Kemptville and universal health care.
But we did know that we were tired and increasingly afraid of the darkening clouds over America. My clear thought on September 11th had turned into an ugly reality, the war hawks were flying. And my opinion? The Afghanistan war would have happened with anyone in the world in the oval office, but the Iraq war was and is to all practical observation a political action designed to promote America’s business interests, and manufactured in whole by an imperial minded executive. Sadly, the whole damned thing was bought and paid for by a blank check of political capital co-written by a handful of extremists in Washington D.C. and Afghanistan and handed over to the world in New York City six years ago.
A lot of Americans agree with every word I’m saying. And a lot that don’t agree out loud know in their hearts that I’m right. Everyone who was living in the U.S. on September 11th was emotionally affected, it upset the apple cart and we’ve all got to deal with the fact that we’re never going to go back to the safe world we thought that we had before.
But America is not governed by consensus. It is governed by a government made up of slick political operators chosen by a majority of voters. I knew I didn’t want to continue living a country entranced by a fear-based culture being cultivated in Washington, and frankly, thanks to our unique circumstance, and given the timing, we actually did have a choice. We knew we couldn’t decide ourselves, so we finally decided to let the American voting public decide. It was simple, four more years of Bush and we would move to Canada. Anyone else and we would stay. I can’t say I’m happy Bush was re-elected. I can’t say the outcome increased my faith in America’s political system or gave me much hope for an end to the series of mistakes and the tendency towards incompetence that became so apparent 6 years ago. But I can without a doubt say we made the right decision.
Sometimes, in life we need a jolt to remind us of what is important. September 11th was our generation’s jolt. The question is, and what determines our value as human beings is, what do we do with it? For some, that means taking all that anger and fear and spraying it back out on the world from the barrel of a gun. And to some, to folks like us, it means getting our priorities in order. It means moving home to be with family, finding the kind of work that is fulfilling. It means committing to doing little things to make the big world a better place. Being thankful and gracious for the life we have, for the luck of magic that our lives have given us, and trying to spread that love around in the faint hope and desperate belief that if we could all react this way, we wouldn’t have to live in the kind of world where our kids have to fight and die as our surrogates in a live ammo schoolyard pissing contest.
We were in Canada for a nearly a year when we found out the little restaurant in Kemptville was for sale, and with help from some family and some friends we pitched in and bought it, and it felt so right that we’ve never looked back. Our lives have changed a great deal from that September. We see family now, every few days instead of every few months. I am thankful every day for little graces; my music, my food, my family and friends. I try my hardest to live well, love well and give back some of that love to the world. And I wake up every day thankful that the girl beside me wasn’t on one of the other flights that left that September morning. So, why Kemptville? Because, Kemptville is home.
Nicole and I had been enjoying our urban lifestyle, to some degree; our salaries were good and our apartment was cozy. We weren’t, however, at home. My family and her family both lived thousands of miles away from us and neither was in much of a financial position to visit often. This meant that what little vacation time we could muster was often spent appeasing one family or the other. We loved the work, but not always the hours and we loved the people, but eventually, to get along with people, relationships have to evolve, which is difficult in a workplace with a glass ceiling. The series of events that had taken us each to the west coast and together had been adventures of a lifetime for both of us, but the road west dead ends at Highway 1 and we were both about ready to start looking for another route.
On the 10th of September, I spoke to Nicole briefly; she’d had a great time with her family, I was sad to have missed it, there was some mix-up with her flight, but she’d figured something else out. She was taking a cab and the train back to the house from the airport so I didn’t bother to write down her new flight number.
On the morning of September 11th a phone call woke me, Paul from work said, ‘go turn on the TV, I don’t think we’re opening the restaurant today.’
By now plenty has been written about that morning by lots of people who write better than I do. And for all the ink and column inches it has greedily drunk, it is, at the end, just one more simple example of a day where someone woke up to find the world had turned up different, darker and worse than the one they’d put to bed the night before. For me, for 45 minutes, I wished more than anything else in the world that I’d written down a fucking flight number. Every minute was a million horror movies played out in repeated images on every channel and in my head.
Her plane was grounded in Wichita. She called, she was fine. I was changed. It took a few days to get her back to San Francisco, to Emeryville, but I knew before my heart stopped racing that morning that I was ready to move home. The problem was I didn’t yet know what home meant.
I had another clear thought that morning. I was sad. I was sad because I knew that whoever had done this, however clever they felt for pulling it off, and no matter how loud the voices of logic and sanity shouted, the war hawks were going to fly. If the plan had been to make the world, or even some small corner of it, a better place for anybody, by whatever twisted logic, I knew that it was for nothing because the only possible result of that monumental act of stupidity was that the war hawks were going to fly.
I am fascinated by conspiracy theories, but skeptical. For any conspiracy of grand magnitude to work, the conspirators would have to be incredibly smart. I, personally, don’t think George W. Bush is very smart. He is smart enough, obviously; he has managed to land an excellent job, but I don’t think his ability to reason is fully developed. His thinking is short sighted and he makes snap judgments, he is inflexible and apparently, from his actions, incapable of empathy. I don’t think he orchestrated September 11. I don’t think anyone in Washington did. I think the official script is pretty close to the truth. Incompetence is probably the most accurate charge that can be leveled against him or his people, and one that certainly is consistent with every other action (outside of political maneuvering) that we’ve seen them take before or since. This is not an excuse.
What is not in question is that as of that morning, my and lots of other people’s safe, bland world stopped feeling so safe and so bland. Nicole and I quickly agreed that we needed to get our priorities in order and high on that list was moving closer to family. Getting away from a city. Finding a home.
We didn’t move right away. We were ready in our hearts, but life wasn’t ready for us. We loved and still love our restaurant in San Francisco. We had met there, married there and come of age in our profession there. We are still in touch with the owners and some of our co-workers and still follow their careers with fascination and pleasure. We also felt that our change of life needed to include doing things we had put off; like a honeymoon trip to Europe and a road-trip across this continent. And at the end of that trip we knew we had a devil’s choice. Would we live near her family or mine?
Our road-trip brought us, among other places, to Texas, to Austin and Bryan to visit my family. Nicole and I both loved Austin; I had lived there for a number of years and she had been there twice to visit a childhood friend who had moved there for work. We loved the town and still consider it a second home. The trip also brought us to Kemptville, to visit Nicole’s sister who has lived here for many years. We went for dinner at a groovy restaurant in town, Amanda’s Slip. It was the first time since I’d found Millennium in San Francisco where I read the menu and said “I understand exactly what this chef is trying to do. “ I also told Nicole that night, “This is the kind of place we should open.”
We came for dinner and I stayed for the summer helping in the kitchen while Nicole earned us some spending money for Europe at her old job in Ottawa. When we came back from Europe we were broke. The first stop had to be in Austin where we were both able to work. It was a move brought on by necessity, not a decision, and our belongings remained in storage for the year we were there.
After much soul searching we knew we couldn’t choose between the two families. We loved both options too much to decide. It wasn’t what you’d think either, we both loved our native homes, but Nicole wanted Austin’s sun and my niece and nephew’s hugs and smiles as much or more than me at times, and I was as likely as not to be daydreaming about the little restaurant in Kemptville and universal health care.
But we did know that we were tired and increasingly afraid of the darkening clouds over America. My clear thought on September 11th had turned into an ugly reality, the war hawks were flying. And my opinion? The Afghanistan war would have happened with anyone in the world in the oval office, but the Iraq war was and is to all practical observation a political action designed to promote America’s business interests, and manufactured in whole by an imperial minded executive. Sadly, the whole damned thing was bought and paid for by a blank check of political capital co-written by a handful of extremists in Washington D.C. and Afghanistan and handed over to the world in New York City six years ago.
A lot of Americans agree with every word I’m saying. And a lot that don’t agree out loud know in their hearts that I’m right. Everyone who was living in the U.S. on September 11th was emotionally affected, it upset the apple cart and we’ve all got to deal with the fact that we’re never going to go back to the safe world we thought that we had before.
But America is not governed by consensus. It is governed by a government made up of slick political operators chosen by a majority of voters. I knew I didn’t want to continue living a country entranced by a fear-based culture being cultivated in Washington, and frankly, thanks to our unique circumstance, and given the timing, we actually did have a choice. We knew we couldn’t decide ourselves, so we finally decided to let the American voting public decide. It was simple, four more years of Bush and we would move to Canada. Anyone else and we would stay. I can’t say I’m happy Bush was re-elected. I can’t say the outcome increased my faith in America’s political system or gave me much hope for an end to the series of mistakes and the tendency towards incompetence that became so apparent 6 years ago. But I can without a doubt say we made the right decision.
Sometimes, in life we need a jolt to remind us of what is important. September 11th was our generation’s jolt. The question is, and what determines our value as human beings is, what do we do with it? For some, that means taking all that anger and fear and spraying it back out on the world from the barrel of a gun. And to some, to folks like us, it means getting our priorities in order. It means moving home to be with family, finding the kind of work that is fulfilling. It means committing to doing little things to make the big world a better place. Being thankful and gracious for the life we have, for the luck of magic that our lives have given us, and trying to spread that love around in the faint hope and desperate belief that if we could all react this way, we wouldn’t have to live in the kind of world where our kids have to fight and die as our surrogates in a live ammo schoolyard pissing contest.
We were in Canada for a nearly a year when we found out the little restaurant in Kemptville was for sale, and with help from some family and some friends we pitched in and bought it, and it felt so right that we’ve never looked back. Our lives have changed a great deal from that September. We see family now, every few days instead of every few months. I am thankful every day for little graces; my music, my food, my family and friends. I try my hardest to live well, love well and give back some of that love to the world. And I wake up every day thankful that the girl beside me wasn’t on one of the other flights that left that September morning. So, why Kemptville? Because, Kemptville is home.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Where there's smoke...
One of the best things that ever happened to me was losing everything when I was 17. My family home was engulfed in flames in the middle of the night, a couple of weeks before Christmas. Firefighters never could figure out exactly what happened, except that it started in the furnace. Speculation pointed to a fan malfunction. It didn’t seem like one of the best things that ever happened to me at the time, of course; instead, it seemed incredible, beyond imagining, surreal. I didn’t lose everything either, not really, just some stuff. I was woken by my mother; I recall that it took more than one attempt to wake me and my brother as well...the deep sleep of innocence and youth being what it is. It took us a while to clue in that it was an actual emergency wake-up, as opposed to the usual “emergency” wake-ups that usually ended with us trudging off to school or church. Even after I got out of bed, the strangeness of the situation seemed to blend seamlessly with the dreams I was shaking off. My memories of that night are fragmented, spiked with moments of clarity and mixed with long vague patches of smoke.
I remember being instructed to wake the neighbours to call the fire department and then trying to do so by ringing the doorbell once and waiting, only to be pushed aside, a minute later by my mother who rushed over to ring their bell repeatedly and furiously while pounding on their door, officially signaling that the rules had changed: politeness, the law, was suspended temporarily with the martial law of justifiable rudeness in its place. I remember having to choose what I would take (a trench-coat and a briefcase full of my adolescent poetry). I remember being able to see my sister’s closet on the back of the second floor burning from the street out front. I remember my father salvaging our Apple IIe computer, a prize possession in those days. I remember the dog sleeping through much of the fire in her doghouse out back. I remember being sent to our neighbor’s house to sleep and instead staying up singing the Talking Head’s song ‘Burning Down the House’ and laughing at our precocious sense of ironic detachment, giddy and stupid from the adrenaline overdose. I remember my mother, without makeup, in her nightclothes, sad, scared and as strong as I’ve ever seen her. My father, all action and no talk, after seeing to our safety, defying the smoke for at least three trips back inside the house for things he suddenly realized we couldn’t leave to chance. I remember brave firemen throwing a family heirloom antique desk out of a second story window in a bizarre, unguided and prescient act of preservation. It’s one of my sister’s only possessions that wasn’t burned to cinders.
Silly what you get attached to—I think I was most upset about losing a candle bottle which had been the result of hours of wasted time moulding the wax into interesting patterns by choosing colors, turning candles, and directing the flow of wax as I fell asleep watching it for the several months prior. No, it didn't start the fire. It was worthless, but also uniquely irreplaceable. My family lost some pictures; my mother and father lost some of their childhood talismans, and a family bible. As I mentioned, my sister lost almost the entire contents of her room. My brother lost some things but was and is a stoic and refused to complain. We all lost our home. It was rebuilt, different, but similar, but the old building is and will always be gone. We lost furniture, of course, and clothing. Even some things that seemed to survive were damaged by the smoke and disintegrated in the ensuing months. We mourned, at first, and felt a gap, and moved on as people do. But we didn’t lose everything. We were insured. We had a supportive community. We replaced all the things, even the emotional attachments which broke free of their moorings, in time, docked on the fertile shores of new possessions.
Later, on the morning of the fire, I remember the church, our community, arriving, the pastor and his wife at first, then the church, as a group, arriving with hands to help and ratty clothes on, scrambling through the muck and salvaging what they could, our neighbors and friends, ankle deep in ashy mud. I remember the soggy crumpled Christmas tree and crushed presents and how strange it all looked with the sunlight streaming through where the ceiling used to be. I remember that the fish survived, and how important that was. Everyone survived. I remember a miracle; my mother’s wooden box of love letters from my father was less than ten feet from the origin of the blaze and opened to reveal not a single singed page. I remember coming home to my grandmother’s house within two days of the fire to find a room stacked from floor to ceiling with donated clothes, canned foods and household goods. I remember my school collecting hundreds of dollars for us.
I was confused and gracious. I had never been on the receiving end of charity, and did not (and still do not) fully comprehend the degree to which a community is capable of and even desires being good to one other. I have had my share of personal struggles with the dogma and philosophy of the Baptist church; but one thing is for certain, I was a Baptist that day. Specifically I was a full fledged member of the First Baptist Church of Bryan, Texas. Unless you are a member of a community that joins together in times of need (and I hope that you are) you’d have a hard time understanding. That day was not about dogma or philosophy, it was not even about ‘whether or not to help’ it was about ‘how to help.’
Speaking of the church: I always recall, when thinking of this time in my life, a bible verse that instructs the reader not to ‘lay up treasures on earth, where moths and rust doth corrupt’ (colorful language, that...). Whether or not you lend any credence to the source, it, for me, summarizes a very valid philosophical point. One shared, knowingly or not, by every society that has ever engaged in any actions that result in the banding together of people to help equalize the quality of life for others in their community. It is a philosophy of setting aside, at times, that very human compulsion to collect, store, accumulate and pack away material goods for oneself alone, and instead to share with, to give to and to help carry the burden of those in need.
The fire was, in its own way, one of the best things that ever happened to me. I can feel my mom cringe when I say that, but it’s true. I wouldn’t be who I am today if it had not happened. Standing on the lawn that night I saw everything we owned going away and I learned in an instant that things could be lost. Then, over time, I learned that things could be replaced. I learned that communities can and do come together.
It is not a lesson I wish on anyone, but one I am grateful to have learned: unfortunately, nothing else can teach you the importance of charity more than being the person who needs it.
We are very happy to have found, in Kemptville, a generous and charitable community. Our efforts on behalf of the Salvation Army Food Bank in particular have been met with an outpouring of generosity that astounds me. I have no doubts, seeing the caliber and depth of character of the people here, that I am again a member of the kind of group that does not hesitate to come together to help those in need.
And for that, I'd like to say thank you.
I remember being instructed to wake the neighbours to call the fire department and then trying to do so by ringing the doorbell once and waiting, only to be pushed aside, a minute later by my mother who rushed over to ring their bell repeatedly and furiously while pounding on their door, officially signaling that the rules had changed: politeness, the law, was suspended temporarily with the martial law of justifiable rudeness in its place. I remember having to choose what I would take (a trench-coat and a briefcase full of my adolescent poetry). I remember being able to see my sister’s closet on the back of the second floor burning from the street out front. I remember my father salvaging our Apple IIe computer, a prize possession in those days. I remember the dog sleeping through much of the fire in her doghouse out back. I remember being sent to our neighbor’s house to sleep and instead staying up singing the Talking Head’s song ‘Burning Down the House’ and laughing at our precocious sense of ironic detachment, giddy and stupid from the adrenaline overdose. I remember my mother, without makeup, in her nightclothes, sad, scared and as strong as I’ve ever seen her. My father, all action and no talk, after seeing to our safety, defying the smoke for at least three trips back inside the house for things he suddenly realized we couldn’t leave to chance. I remember brave firemen throwing a family heirloom antique desk out of a second story window in a bizarre, unguided and prescient act of preservation. It’s one of my sister’s only possessions that wasn’t burned to cinders.
Silly what you get attached to—I think I was most upset about losing a candle bottle which had been the result of hours of wasted time moulding the wax into interesting patterns by choosing colors, turning candles, and directing the flow of wax as I fell asleep watching it for the several months prior. No, it didn't start the fire. It was worthless, but also uniquely irreplaceable. My family lost some pictures; my mother and father lost some of their childhood talismans, and a family bible. As I mentioned, my sister lost almost the entire contents of her room. My brother lost some things but was and is a stoic and refused to complain. We all lost our home. It was rebuilt, different, but similar, but the old building is and will always be gone. We lost furniture, of course, and clothing. Even some things that seemed to survive were damaged by the smoke and disintegrated in the ensuing months. We mourned, at first, and felt a gap, and moved on as people do. But we didn’t lose everything. We were insured. We had a supportive community. We replaced all the things, even the emotional attachments which broke free of their moorings, in time, docked on the fertile shores of new possessions.
Later, on the morning of the fire, I remember the church, our community, arriving, the pastor and his wife at first, then the church, as a group, arriving with hands to help and ratty clothes on, scrambling through the muck and salvaging what they could, our neighbors and friends, ankle deep in ashy mud. I remember the soggy crumpled Christmas tree and crushed presents and how strange it all looked with the sunlight streaming through where the ceiling used to be. I remember that the fish survived, and how important that was. Everyone survived. I remember a miracle; my mother’s wooden box of love letters from my father was less than ten feet from the origin of the blaze and opened to reveal not a single singed page. I remember coming home to my grandmother’s house within two days of the fire to find a room stacked from floor to ceiling with donated clothes, canned foods and household goods. I remember my school collecting hundreds of dollars for us.
I was confused and gracious. I had never been on the receiving end of charity, and did not (and still do not) fully comprehend the degree to which a community is capable of and even desires being good to one other. I have had my share of personal struggles with the dogma and philosophy of the Baptist church; but one thing is for certain, I was a Baptist that day. Specifically I was a full fledged member of the First Baptist Church of Bryan, Texas. Unless you are a member of a community that joins together in times of need (and I hope that you are) you’d have a hard time understanding. That day was not about dogma or philosophy, it was not even about ‘whether or not to help’ it was about ‘how to help.’
Speaking of the church: I always recall, when thinking of this time in my life, a bible verse that instructs the reader not to ‘lay up treasures on earth, where moths and rust doth corrupt’ (colorful language, that...). Whether or not you lend any credence to the source, it, for me, summarizes a very valid philosophical point. One shared, knowingly or not, by every society that has ever engaged in any actions that result in the banding together of people to help equalize the quality of life for others in their community. It is a philosophy of setting aside, at times, that very human compulsion to collect, store, accumulate and pack away material goods for oneself alone, and instead to share with, to give to and to help carry the burden of those in need.
The fire was, in its own way, one of the best things that ever happened to me. I can feel my mom cringe when I say that, but it’s true. I wouldn’t be who I am today if it had not happened. Standing on the lawn that night I saw everything we owned going away and I learned in an instant that things could be lost. Then, over time, I learned that things could be replaced. I learned that communities can and do come together.
It is not a lesson I wish on anyone, but one I am grateful to have learned: unfortunately, nothing else can teach you the importance of charity more than being the person who needs it.
We are very happy to have found, in Kemptville, a generous and charitable community. Our efforts on behalf of the Salvation Army Food Bank in particular have been met with an outpouring of generosity that astounds me. I have no doubts, seeing the caliber and depth of character of the people here, that I am again a member of the kind of group that does not hesitate to come together to help those in need.
And for that, I'd like to say thank you.
Smoke, part 3, Why Organic?
Travelling and being a strict vegan are a great combination. If you want to starve to death. In case you don't know, a vegan is sort of an executive vegetarian, eschewing not only animal meat, but all animal products as well, including: eggs, cheese, milk and in some cases (like my own, at the time), fringe animal products like honey and even wearing leather.
In 1994, I was a couple of years into the vegan thing, and dead serious about it, but after about a week on the roads of America with a rucksack, a very light money belt, and little more than a sense of adventure, saying no to free food became, well, silly. I tried sticking to the salad bar in Vegas, eating lots of trail mix, finding Chinese restaurants in obscure places where the soy protein was supplemented by a healthy dollop of vitamin MSG. I even lived for days at a time on bread dipped in olive oil. After a while, though, the vegan thing definitely started to wear thin. Traveling alone is not easy when you are young and poor. Traveling alone when you love social contact as much as I do AND you happen to have weird food restrictions can be scary as hell. Which is, of course, why I was doing it.
‘The Journey’ is a time honored tradition, at least according to Joseph Campbell, in which a person can test oneself, and find out if the structure of his or her belief system can actually stand up to the rigors of reality, kind of like Luke Skywalker following Ben Kenobi, or Superman slipping off to the South pole... As a literary device, or even as a teaching tool, ‘The Journey’ is the story of a person who takes a risk, goes off on their own, and comes to terms with some piece of knowledge, which transforms them. For some, it is the move to college, joining the military, fishing in Alaska, or the ubiquitous backpacking trip to Europe. For me, it was a giant move to San Francisco, to work (somewhat ironically) in a vegan restaurant. It was a little strange, realizing that I was losing my religion while I was on the path to Mecca, but it was definitely what was happening.
I kept thinking, on that trip, about how some of my core values; things like friendship, family, community and sharing, were starting to conflict with some of my other values; things like not doing harm, or honoring life (by not killing it to eat, for instance...). I even started to feel a little selfish for the times I had turned up my nose at food that had been offered to me with good intentions and love. I knew, in my mind, that my snubs were not meant as insults, but I was also beginning to understand how easy it would have been to interpret them as such. It’s easy to think about these things when you’re hungry.
I did move to San Francisco, and I did go to work for the vegan restaurant. I even managed to maintain a vegetarian and mostly vegan diet for another few years. You see, and this is hard for me to admit, the last two years of my vegan life had become a sort of exercise in ‘more vegan than you’ posturing for me. My incessant thirst for knowledge had forced me to face the nasty truths about the presence of animal byproducts in so many places in my life, and each new bit of knowledge became on one hand another restriction for me, and on the other hand, a weapon in my arsenal of how much better I was than those around me. It was a manifestation of my own insecurity. Part of my transformation, on my (capital ‘J’) ‘Journey’ was that bit of realization. I have never lost my belief in eating healthy foods, or in my desire to feed healthy foods to others; what I lost was the religious fervor and the deep rock solid belief that I was right.
Many vegetarians and vegans are also motivated by the environmental impact eating meat has on the world we share. Therefore, most have at least a passing familiarity with the concept of organic agriculture; now much of the world seems to be waking up to it as well. During this time, I became more and more familiar with its nuance and meaning. The restaurant where I was training purchased much of its food directly from organic farmers. Over the years of working there, I got to know and like them and I began asking simple questions about how these small farmers managed without the chemical pesticides and fertilizers used by the factory farmers. The answers were surprising. Instead of pesticides, they relied on biodiversity, or the keeping of many different crops and different types of even the same crops (‘the bugs won’t get all of them’), which, you may note, is the same system used by Mother Nature. And instead of chemical fertilizers? They used compost, sure, but also manure, bone meal, blood meal, even fish meal. In two words, animal husbandry. Many of these small farmers kept animals for their own food, and knew volumes about both meat and livestock handling and especially, how much well-cared-for animals made for better health for the farm. As a practicing vegetarian, and a vegetarian chef, charged with the work of bringing strict vegan meals to a passionate clientele, I was horrified. I mean, how could a responsible vegan eat organic food? And where did it go from there? What was next, eating only wild harvested foods? Air-itarianism (read it again, you'll get it...)? I was thinking myself into a corner and I knew I had to reassess my ideals. It may sound silly, but I honestly felt like I had to choose between organic and vegan. I guess I was transforming.
There was one other important part of the transformation that lead me back to barbecue. Forgiveness. Much of my overwrought thinking and philosophizing were the products of my single minded ambition. Like many ambitious young men with good intentions, I was determined to be pure and perfect. To fix myself. Like some sort of religious zealot, I felt like I was driven to achieve some sort of higher state through constant and unflagging self discipline, but the fact was, all of my experiences were leading me to an inevitable conclusion: I was never going to get there. And neither is anyone else. It is the same mistake being made everyday by factory farmers and war hawks with their ideals of a perfect, pure, neat and ordered world. The same mistake. We are never going to conquer nature, least of all our own, and we will always fail if we try. Oh, we won’t stop trying, and we can easily be better people, and being good to other people around you has a tendency to draw people who like to be good and be surrounded by good people to you (get all that?) But we will never be perfect. And the only way to be happy is to realize that and forgive it. To say, ‘I tried, I’ll keep trying, and that’s worth something, but this time, I didn’t make it.’
I guess it all really started on my trip to San Francisco. You see, I ate a pancake in Vegas. I knew it had eggs and milk in it. It tasted pretty good, it was free, and I forgave myself (later) and began to accept that I will keep trying to do the right thing, will keep trying to do the best things, and that in the end I’ll fail sometimes, and things will still turn out pretty good either way. And after years of arguing with myself over the political, environmental, and spiritual implications of a meat based diet, I came to some honest conclusions. You see, I like meat, I like the way it tastes, I like the people who raise it responsibly, and I like the idea that when I purchase it, I can choose to purchase responsibly. I like that when I do, my impact is probably a more successful form of activism than my holier-than-thou vegan rhetoric. I like that when I purchase it, handle it and cook it I both have and take the oppurtunity to treat the whole animal with respect and with gratitude.
A couple of years after my move to San Francisco, I found out about an organic barbecue joint in the suburbs of Oakland. Nicole and I went there for my birthday and enjoyed some of the best brisket I have ever eaten; I asked the guy, ‘Why do you use organic beef?’ He said, ‘I work here and eat here every day, and so does my family.’ Sounds like a good enough reason to me.
In 1994, I was a couple of years into the vegan thing, and dead serious about it, but after about a week on the roads of America with a rucksack, a very light money belt, and little more than a sense of adventure, saying no to free food became, well, silly. I tried sticking to the salad bar in Vegas, eating lots of trail mix, finding Chinese restaurants in obscure places where the soy protein was supplemented by a healthy dollop of vitamin MSG. I even lived for days at a time on bread dipped in olive oil. After a while, though, the vegan thing definitely started to wear thin. Traveling alone is not easy when you are young and poor. Traveling alone when you love social contact as much as I do AND you happen to have weird food restrictions can be scary as hell. Which is, of course, why I was doing it.
‘The Journey’ is a time honored tradition, at least according to Joseph Campbell, in which a person can test oneself, and find out if the structure of his or her belief system can actually stand up to the rigors of reality, kind of like Luke Skywalker following Ben Kenobi, or Superman slipping off to the South pole... As a literary device, or even as a teaching tool, ‘The Journey’ is the story of a person who takes a risk, goes off on their own, and comes to terms with some piece of knowledge, which transforms them. For some, it is the move to college, joining the military, fishing in Alaska, or the ubiquitous backpacking trip to Europe. For me, it was a giant move to San Francisco, to work (somewhat ironically) in a vegan restaurant. It was a little strange, realizing that I was losing my religion while I was on the path to Mecca, but it was definitely what was happening.
I kept thinking, on that trip, about how some of my core values; things like friendship, family, community and sharing, were starting to conflict with some of my other values; things like not doing harm, or honoring life (by not killing it to eat, for instance...). I even started to feel a little selfish for the times I had turned up my nose at food that had been offered to me with good intentions and love. I knew, in my mind, that my snubs were not meant as insults, but I was also beginning to understand how easy it would have been to interpret them as such. It’s easy to think about these things when you’re hungry.
I did move to San Francisco, and I did go to work for the vegan restaurant. I even managed to maintain a vegetarian and mostly vegan diet for another few years. You see, and this is hard for me to admit, the last two years of my vegan life had become a sort of exercise in ‘more vegan than you’ posturing for me. My incessant thirst for knowledge had forced me to face the nasty truths about the presence of animal byproducts in so many places in my life, and each new bit of knowledge became on one hand another restriction for me, and on the other hand, a weapon in my arsenal of how much better I was than those around me. It was a manifestation of my own insecurity. Part of my transformation, on my (capital ‘J’) ‘Journey’ was that bit of realization. I have never lost my belief in eating healthy foods, or in my desire to feed healthy foods to others; what I lost was the religious fervor and the deep rock solid belief that I was right.
Many vegetarians and vegans are also motivated by the environmental impact eating meat has on the world we share. Therefore, most have at least a passing familiarity with the concept of organic agriculture; now much of the world seems to be waking up to it as well. During this time, I became more and more familiar with its nuance and meaning. The restaurant where I was training purchased much of its food directly from organic farmers. Over the years of working there, I got to know and like them and I began asking simple questions about how these small farmers managed without the chemical pesticides and fertilizers used by the factory farmers. The answers were surprising. Instead of pesticides, they relied on biodiversity, or the keeping of many different crops and different types of even the same crops (‘the bugs won’t get all of them’), which, you may note, is the same system used by Mother Nature. And instead of chemical fertilizers? They used compost, sure, but also manure, bone meal, blood meal, even fish meal. In two words, animal husbandry. Many of these small farmers kept animals for their own food, and knew volumes about both meat and livestock handling and especially, how much well-cared-for animals made for better health for the farm. As a practicing vegetarian, and a vegetarian chef, charged with the work of bringing strict vegan meals to a passionate clientele, I was horrified. I mean, how could a responsible vegan eat organic food? And where did it go from there? What was next, eating only wild harvested foods? Air-itarianism (read it again, you'll get it...)? I was thinking myself into a corner and I knew I had to reassess my ideals. It may sound silly, but I honestly felt like I had to choose between organic and vegan. I guess I was transforming.
There was one other important part of the transformation that lead me back to barbecue. Forgiveness. Much of my overwrought thinking and philosophizing were the products of my single minded ambition. Like many ambitious young men with good intentions, I was determined to be pure and perfect. To fix myself. Like some sort of religious zealot, I felt like I was driven to achieve some sort of higher state through constant and unflagging self discipline, but the fact was, all of my experiences were leading me to an inevitable conclusion: I was never going to get there. And neither is anyone else. It is the same mistake being made everyday by factory farmers and war hawks with their ideals of a perfect, pure, neat and ordered world. The same mistake. We are never going to conquer nature, least of all our own, and we will always fail if we try. Oh, we won’t stop trying, and we can easily be better people, and being good to other people around you has a tendency to draw people who like to be good and be surrounded by good people to you (get all that?) But we will never be perfect. And the only way to be happy is to realize that and forgive it. To say, ‘I tried, I’ll keep trying, and that’s worth something, but this time, I didn’t make it.’
I guess it all really started on my trip to San Francisco. You see, I ate a pancake in Vegas. I knew it had eggs and milk in it. It tasted pretty good, it was free, and I forgave myself (later) and began to accept that I will keep trying to do the right thing, will keep trying to do the best things, and that in the end I’ll fail sometimes, and things will still turn out pretty good either way. And after years of arguing with myself over the political, environmental, and spiritual implications of a meat based diet, I came to some honest conclusions. You see, I like meat, I like the way it tastes, I like the people who raise it responsibly, and I like the idea that when I purchase it, I can choose to purchase responsibly. I like that when I do, my impact is probably a more successful form of activism than my holier-than-thou vegan rhetoric. I like that when I purchase it, handle it and cook it I both have and take the oppurtunity to treat the whole animal with respect and with gratitude.
A couple of years after my move to San Francisco, I found out about an organic barbecue joint in the suburbs of Oakland. Nicole and I went there for my birthday and enjoyed some of the best brisket I have ever eaten; I asked the guy, ‘Why do you use organic beef?’ He said, ‘I work here and eat here every day, and so does my family.’ Sounds like a good enough reason to me.
Smoke; part two, the lean years…
SCENE: A household in Texas in the early 90’s, a son confronts his parents with a startling revelation:
SON: “Mom, Dad I’ve got something to tell you.”
FATHER: “You’re gay?”
SON: “No, worse…”
MOTHER: “Oh my god, Sam, he’s a vegetarian!”
There are a lot of things that can go through the mind of a cook or a butcher whose profession involves the handling of meats daily and often. I’m sure I don’t speak only for myself when I consider the speculation involved in the quartering of a chicken or a rabbit, when the mind wanders to a pet cat or dog, or the way a knife passes through a meaty joint of pork or lamb and considering one’s own cut-ability. Perhaps even more disturbing are the thoughts that creep in when handling the less blatantly obviously animal of the meats, for instance opening a case of four layers of six ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts, twenty-four to a layer, each identical piece separated into its own little plastic tray. What kind of world produces such cases upon cases of these disturbing ‘protein delivery systems’, and what is to be said about the consumers who demand it? These can be weird and terrible thoughts, and they inevitably lead to a black sense of humour among cooks. I used to love the way the fat trimmed from the chicken breasts looked like giant loogies; the waitresses, however, were not nearly as impressed. No doubt, some Sigmund would describe this as some sort of coping mechanism, which is fine, and I would hope we could all laugh in the face of our own darkness, but not too much, and not to excuse it. All things considered, we are meat and our rationalizations for consuming it will always be tempered by that honest truth. In the early nineties, my response to this philosophical hypocrisy was simple: I quit eating it.
My first wife’s father was a rancher; it was his first and third career. In between, he was a civil engineer. His first career, because he was raised with it, and his third, because even after years of schooling and years of well-paid high level work in engineering firms in Dallas, he couldn’t get it out of his blood and returned. In the city, he heard (herded?) the cows in his sleep, mooing for him to come home. Or something like that. He was a good intentioned man, which is not to say he was a good man. Cattle were something he thought he understood, unlike the employees at the big firm or even his own family. He worked with the cattle like he would have approached an engineering question: with a desire to produce the most beef per acre at the lowest cost. Dogs and cats on the farm were treated with the same callous disregard for health or hardship and were only allowed their share of the food when their usefulness (as mousers or herders) warranted it; they certainly weren’t allowed inside and affection (or a trip to the vet) was out of the question.
Maybe my ex-wife’s inheritance of this attitude of disrespect for animals was what lead to our demise-- our last big fight was about the fact that I shelled out a pile of cash to save our dog’s life without consulting her (how many marriages have cell phones saved?), but probably not, as we were headed apart anyway. But it is no coincidence that my exit from that animal-hating family put me off the meat industry for a while. When people ask me about why I became a vegetarian, I usually crack wise about getting thin to pick up chicks after my first divorce or crack sincere about how I was always a lover of the environment and animals and life in general and couldn’t reconcile that with my experience of the meat production industry from within. Well there’s actually a partial explanation within both of those reasons and in the story of the rancher above, and in the meat cutting story in the previous paragraph. None of us do anything for just one reason, we do things for one just reason. To me it all goes back to one little lie. One day in the field with my father-in-law I pushed the punch into the calf’s ear for a tag and felt the large animal shudder with pain, and my father-in-law said the following:
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt them.”
They say that one of those stages of addiction (or is it grief?) is denial. And we are addicted to the consumption of meat, without question. There are millions of us who satisfy our itches with booze or drugs, but there are billions and billions of us who satisfy our itches with a Big Mac. The only way we can collectively justify that industry created by our addiction to cheap meat is to hide it on the fringes of our vision. We don’t see the killing floors on our televisions or in our grocery stores; our feedlots do not offer guided tours. Our meat comes to us on sale, pre-cut and pre-cleaned on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane, and we buy it with out ever looking at the guts, brains or the eyeballs of the animal from which it came. We collectively deny the animal’s pain. When I lost my ability to deny it, I had to confront it, and I had to quit.
But wait, isn’t this supposed to be about barbecue? Now you’ve got us addicted to eating food? That’s like saying we are addicted to air! We have to breathe don’t we? Well, to that point I must ask, how quickly would our lives change if we had to pay for air? Bet the cheap stuff would go quick and somebody would figure out a way to market second hand smoke to children (“Keeps you alive for a few years for under 99 cents and it comes with a free toy!”) In other words, there are right ways and wrong ways to do everything. There is always more to the story than meets (meats? Sorry, that was completely uncalled for…) the eye…
Stay tuned for part three…
SON: “Mom, Dad I’ve got something to tell you.”
FATHER: “You’re gay?”
SON: “No, worse…”
MOTHER: “Oh my god, Sam, he’s a vegetarian!”
There are a lot of things that can go through the mind of a cook or a butcher whose profession involves the handling of meats daily and often. I’m sure I don’t speak only for myself when I consider the speculation involved in the quartering of a chicken or a rabbit, when the mind wanders to a pet cat or dog, or the way a knife passes through a meaty joint of pork or lamb and considering one’s own cut-ability. Perhaps even more disturbing are the thoughts that creep in when handling the less blatantly obviously animal of the meats, for instance opening a case of four layers of six ounce boneless, skinless chicken breasts, twenty-four to a layer, each identical piece separated into its own little plastic tray. What kind of world produces such cases upon cases of these disturbing ‘protein delivery systems’, and what is to be said about the consumers who demand it? These can be weird and terrible thoughts, and they inevitably lead to a black sense of humour among cooks. I used to love the way the fat trimmed from the chicken breasts looked like giant loogies; the waitresses, however, were not nearly as impressed. No doubt, some Sigmund would describe this as some sort of coping mechanism, which is fine, and I would hope we could all laugh in the face of our own darkness, but not too much, and not to excuse it. All things considered, we are meat and our rationalizations for consuming it will always be tempered by that honest truth. In the early nineties, my response to this philosophical hypocrisy was simple: I quit eating it.
My first wife’s father was a rancher; it was his first and third career. In between, he was a civil engineer. His first career, because he was raised with it, and his third, because even after years of schooling and years of well-paid high level work in engineering firms in Dallas, he couldn’t get it out of his blood and returned. In the city, he heard (herded?) the cows in his sleep, mooing for him to come home. Or something like that. He was a good intentioned man, which is not to say he was a good man. Cattle were something he thought he understood, unlike the employees at the big firm or even his own family. He worked with the cattle like he would have approached an engineering question: with a desire to produce the most beef per acre at the lowest cost. Dogs and cats on the farm were treated with the same callous disregard for health or hardship and were only allowed their share of the food when their usefulness (as mousers or herders) warranted it; they certainly weren’t allowed inside and affection (or a trip to the vet) was out of the question.
Maybe my ex-wife’s inheritance of this attitude of disrespect for animals was what lead to our demise-- our last big fight was about the fact that I shelled out a pile of cash to save our dog’s life without consulting her (how many marriages have cell phones saved?), but probably not, as we were headed apart anyway. But it is no coincidence that my exit from that animal-hating family put me off the meat industry for a while. When people ask me about why I became a vegetarian, I usually crack wise about getting thin to pick up chicks after my first divorce or crack sincere about how I was always a lover of the environment and animals and life in general and couldn’t reconcile that with my experience of the meat production industry from within. Well there’s actually a partial explanation within both of those reasons and in the story of the rancher above, and in the meat cutting story in the previous paragraph. None of us do anything for just one reason, we do things for one just reason. To me it all goes back to one little lie. One day in the field with my father-in-law I pushed the punch into the calf’s ear for a tag and felt the large animal shudder with pain, and my father-in-law said the following:
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt them.”
They say that one of those stages of addiction (or is it grief?) is denial. And we are addicted to the consumption of meat, without question. There are millions of us who satisfy our itches with booze or drugs, but there are billions and billions of us who satisfy our itches with a Big Mac. The only way we can collectively justify that industry created by our addiction to cheap meat is to hide it on the fringes of our vision. We don’t see the killing floors on our televisions or in our grocery stores; our feedlots do not offer guided tours. Our meat comes to us on sale, pre-cut and pre-cleaned on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane, and we buy it with out ever looking at the guts, brains or the eyeballs of the animal from which it came. We collectively deny the animal’s pain. When I lost my ability to deny it, I had to confront it, and I had to quit.
But wait, isn’t this supposed to be about barbecue? Now you’ve got us addicted to eating food? That’s like saying we are addicted to air! We have to breathe don’t we? Well, to that point I must ask, how quickly would our lives change if we had to pay for air? Bet the cheap stuff would go quick and somebody would figure out a way to market second hand smoke to children (“Keeps you alive for a few years for under 99 cents and it comes with a free toy!”) In other words, there are right ways and wrong ways to do everything. There is always more to the story than meets (meats? Sorry, that was completely uncalled for…) the eye…
Stay tuned for part three…
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