The sky is brushed with indigo, lime green
pale yellow, and cornflower blue.
Grey-trunked pines rise up to spindly heights,
cloaked in their ever-present green.
There is eternity in the air above the houses,
the interstate, the capsules of cars in the cold.
The sun cuts a brilliant effigy as it casts its infant glow
across the rolling hills of red clay, sand, and withered grasses.
Streams of incandescent light pore through the magnolias and the live oaks
-fingers of epiphany that beckon me with a knowing wink.
There is a stillness to it all, a calm.
The earth sighs gently as the day begins to break open.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Driving West Across the City
Driving West across the city,
I descend into the valley.
My truck sings across Taylor Street Bridge.
Below, the Broad and the Saluda meet in
a forest of tiny islands and give birth
to the Congaree.
Blue waters fold over rocks,
crease beneath weathered logs,
ripple and foam against banks
of sand and clay.
Twilight tendrils of trees like columns
buttressing the darkening sky.
Dark-winged flocks of birds
circle in unison drawing
invisible sketches on the pale green horizon.
Everything I once thought was empty
is more full and alive
than I could possibly have ever imagined.
The thought-center...
a mind once tied up in pretzel knots...
is loose and untangled.
So this is what it’s like to feel free.
To know these truths...
no matter I didn’t get what I wanted,
or got what I didn’t want.
I have what I need.
To learn it’s not about me.
My life is not my own.
It is a gift.
The blank spaces filled.
The vacuum vanished.
Thought plasma bends and swells around everything.
There is no me and you. There is only us.
What I do to myself I do to you.
What I do to you I do to myself.
Everything that is good is of God.
Everything that is bad is born of fear.
When I lost my mind I found my spirit.
A light reflects in my rear view mirror,
bright, golden, and holy...
A full moon,
huge and swollen in the East.
It winks at me from behind buildings
and rises.
It rises.
December 15, 2008
I descend into the valley.
My truck sings across Taylor Street Bridge.
Below, the Broad and the Saluda meet in
a forest of tiny islands and give birth
to the Congaree.
Blue waters fold over rocks,
crease beneath weathered logs,
ripple and foam against banks
of sand and clay.
Twilight tendrils of trees like columns
buttressing the darkening sky.
Dark-winged flocks of birds
circle in unison drawing
invisible sketches on the pale green horizon.
Everything I once thought was empty
is more full and alive
than I could possibly have ever imagined.
The thought-center...
a mind once tied up in pretzel knots...
is loose and untangled.
So this is what it’s like to feel free.
To know these truths...
no matter I didn’t get what I wanted,
or got what I didn’t want.
I have what I need.
To learn it’s not about me.
My life is not my own.
It is a gift.
The blank spaces filled.
The vacuum vanished.
Thought plasma bends and swells around everything.
There is no me and you. There is only us.
What I do to myself I do to you.
What I do to you I do to myself.
Everything that is good is of God.
Everything that is bad is born of fear.
When I lost my mind I found my spirit.
A light reflects in my rear view mirror,
bright, golden, and holy...
A full moon,
huge and swollen in the East.
It winks at me from behind buildings
and rises.
It rises.
December 15, 2008
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Interviewed by Andy Block
Why cook?
It’s been my experience that, as far as professional cooking is concerned, cooking chooses you. I began my career at age 16 cooking and serving hot dogs at a local sailing club. Of course I didn’t know I had started my career way back then. I never would have imagined the places I’d go, the people I’d meet, the enriching life experiences that I’ve had, all as a result of working with food for a living.
What are your influences?
I’ve been influenced by every chef I’ve worked with coming up in the industry. Early in my career I learned a lot of things NOT to do. I cite David Sellars, Chef/Owner of Amavi in Santa Fe, NM as a strong influence on my cooking style. He had been a friend and peer of mine when I went to work for him as a line cook part-time at Santacafe in Santa Fe, NM. (I was working as a fish butcher during the day.) His passion, focus, restraint, elegant simplicity and self-assured yet personable management style influenced me greatly. I’d also like to mention Chef Dominic Geraghty who hired me as his executive sous chef at Hotel Santa Fe. The man was 20 years my senior but could cook circles around me. His skill, dedication, finesse and attention to detail were astounding. One minute he’d be preparing a terrine of goose liver pate with elk and dried cherries. I’d blink and he’d be rocking out dozens of perfect miniature raspberry tarts. Later he’d be changing the oil in the deep fryer. I’ve yet to meet his equal when it comes to a strong work ethic.
Favorite cuisine?
American
What do you think of American’s eating habits?
Well, it would be great if our eating habits were better, more healthy, sustainable and less destructive to ourselves and the planet. It would be nice if our view of dining and food were more along the lines of the Mediterranean diet. But I love a fast food cheeseburger as much as anyone else in the country!
What are your feelings about east vs. west cooking/ eating styles/ philosophies?
I love all types of cuisine and I appreciate what Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. offer to the gastronomic world. That being said I cook American food. I sometimes get a little irritated by the trend of fusion. My own view is that food should be indicative of “place.” There is a lot to be learned from different cuisines but I rarely cook in the Eastern styles. There is so much of America, both in style and technique, to celebrate in my opinion.
How did cooking in the southwest influence you?
It’s difficult to step back and see how much it has influenced me because it’s become such a part of me as a chef and as a person. The flavors and techniques, the utilization and celebration of native American ingredients such as tomatoes, chiles, corn, bison, watermelons, summer squashes, all of these things have shaped my style and enriched my human experience. The food of the southwest is bold, simple but deceptively complex. It’s fascinating to me. To be in New Mexico during the chile harvest is an experience I wish for everyone who loves food. The aroma of fresh green chiles roasting and mingling with the scent of pinon smoke beneath electric blue skies and distant mountain ranges...it’s just magical.
How can the culinary world become more environmentally sustainable?
It is changing fairly rapidly. I’ve witnessed and been a part of a huge awakening among chefs and diners during my twenty year career. The starting point in my opinion was Alice Waters’ restaurant, Chez Panisse opening in Berkley in the 1970’s. She has had a huge impact on American chefs for decades. I’ve traced my own lineage back to her. Randall Warder hired me to be his sous chef at Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe. Previously he had been the chef at Red Mesa in Washington, D.C. Red Mesa was owned by Mark Miller, widely viewed as the grandfather of southwestern cuisine. Mark Miller came up working for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse.
The farm to table movement is gaining momentum. It’s incredibly trendy right now and my hope is that the trend will stick and become a lasting expression of American cooking. Small, family-owned and operated farms create superior products and less harm on our environment. They are not as profitable as the big agribusiness companies so their prices are often higher. It’s a question of pay now or pay later really. My hope is that diners will continue to want to see sustainable and environmentally sound products on their menus and to be willing to pay for it.
What do you do now? Where do you work? Explain your business.
I work for myself as a personal chef for hire. I have an office and professional kitchen at Let’s Cook Culinary Studio in Columbia, SC. The Studio is owned and operated by Chef John Millitello, a wonderful chef and an amazing person. It is set up as a loose co-operative of four chefs. We each have our own business and share the kitchen space. I do dinner parties in private homes, cooking classes (both in the home and studio), special event catering such as weddings, birthday parties, graduations, family and class reunions as well as business lunches.
How is the internet and digital media changing the food culture and business?
There is so much information out there now. It is incredible. Television has had the greatest impact though in my opinion. The Food Network has changed the industry immeasurably for the better. There has been an explosion of interest in food, cooking, cuisine, chefs and restaurants in the past 15 years. Diners (and professional chefs) may have their own opinions about Emeril Lagasse, Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Paula Deen, etc. but personally I’d like to thank them all! They’ve helped to open up the world of professional cooking to the public. People are hip to technical terms and techniques, products and styles as a result of watching these shows. Diners are more informed and as a result are more adventurous, demanding and discerning. It’s great for the industry and for chefs.
What are some of your favorite cooking styles, chefs, traditions, books, theories of food?
It’s probably clear by now that I sing the praises of American food. I cite James Beard as a strong influence. My very favorite cookbook isn’t really a cookbook at all but more a compendium of ingredients that classically work with each other. The book is called Culinary Artistry and written by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. They spoke to my class at New England Culinary Institute and signed my copy. I highly recommend this book to cooks who want to go beyond following recipes and enter into the world of creating their own dishes. The Food Lover’s Companion is also a great source book, it is a dictionary of culinary and gastronomic terms.
Do you want to own a restaurant and if so what would it be?
I do want to own a restaurant. My plan is to return to my native state of West Virginia and open a small, roadside cafe, a local eating and meeting place. I want the cafe to be small and intimate. The menu will celebrate local and regional ingredients and techniques, the food of the American southeast with a focus on Appalachia.
How has living in the south affected your style and what do you think of the southern culinary tradition?
I love southern food. I love soul food. The one area where I part with southern culinary tradition is in the cooking of vegetables. Green beans should be tender but not mush! But when it comes to frying vegetables we southerners have our technique down pat, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, etc. And I love me some Paula Deen. Oh lawdy! I’d like her to give me one of her big ol’ kisses!
It’s been my experience that, as far as professional cooking is concerned, cooking chooses you. I began my career at age 16 cooking and serving hot dogs at a local sailing club. Of course I didn’t know I had started my career way back then. I never would have imagined the places I’d go, the people I’d meet, the enriching life experiences that I’ve had, all as a result of working with food for a living.
What are your influences?
I’ve been influenced by every chef I’ve worked with coming up in the industry. Early in my career I learned a lot of things NOT to do. I cite David Sellars, Chef/Owner of Amavi in Santa Fe, NM as a strong influence on my cooking style. He had been a friend and peer of mine when I went to work for him as a line cook part-time at Santacafe in Santa Fe, NM. (I was working as a fish butcher during the day.) His passion, focus, restraint, elegant simplicity and self-assured yet personable management style influenced me greatly. I’d also like to mention Chef Dominic Geraghty who hired me as his executive sous chef at Hotel Santa Fe. The man was 20 years my senior but could cook circles around me. His skill, dedication, finesse and attention to detail were astounding. One minute he’d be preparing a terrine of goose liver pate with elk and dried cherries. I’d blink and he’d be rocking out dozens of perfect miniature raspberry tarts. Later he’d be changing the oil in the deep fryer. I’ve yet to meet his equal when it comes to a strong work ethic.
Favorite cuisine?
American
What do you think of American’s eating habits?
Well, it would be great if our eating habits were better, more healthy, sustainable and less destructive to ourselves and the planet. It would be nice if our view of dining and food were more along the lines of the Mediterranean diet. But I love a fast food cheeseburger as much as anyone else in the country!
What are your feelings about east vs. west cooking/ eating styles/ philosophies?
I love all types of cuisine and I appreciate what Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. offer to the gastronomic world. That being said I cook American food. I sometimes get a little irritated by the trend of fusion. My own view is that food should be indicative of “place.” There is a lot to be learned from different cuisines but I rarely cook in the Eastern styles. There is so much of America, both in style and technique, to celebrate in my opinion.
How did cooking in the southwest influence you?
It’s difficult to step back and see how much it has influenced me because it’s become such a part of me as a chef and as a person. The flavors and techniques, the utilization and celebration of native American ingredients such as tomatoes, chiles, corn, bison, watermelons, summer squashes, all of these things have shaped my style and enriched my human experience. The food of the southwest is bold, simple but deceptively complex. It’s fascinating to me. To be in New Mexico during the chile harvest is an experience I wish for everyone who loves food. The aroma of fresh green chiles roasting and mingling with the scent of pinon smoke beneath electric blue skies and distant mountain ranges...it’s just magical.
How can the culinary world become more environmentally sustainable?
It is changing fairly rapidly. I’ve witnessed and been a part of a huge awakening among chefs and diners during my twenty year career. The starting point in my opinion was Alice Waters’ restaurant, Chez Panisse opening in Berkley in the 1970’s. She has had a huge impact on American chefs for decades. I’ve traced my own lineage back to her. Randall Warder hired me to be his sous chef at Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe. Previously he had been the chef at Red Mesa in Washington, D.C. Red Mesa was owned by Mark Miller, widely viewed as the grandfather of southwestern cuisine. Mark Miller came up working for Alice Waters at Chez Panisse.
The farm to table movement is gaining momentum. It’s incredibly trendy right now and my hope is that the trend will stick and become a lasting expression of American cooking. Small, family-owned and operated farms create superior products and less harm on our environment. They are not as profitable as the big agribusiness companies so their prices are often higher. It’s a question of pay now or pay later really. My hope is that diners will continue to want to see sustainable and environmentally sound products on their menus and to be willing to pay for it.
What do you do now? Where do you work? Explain your business.
I work for myself as a personal chef for hire. I have an office and professional kitchen at Let’s Cook Culinary Studio in Columbia, SC. The Studio is owned and operated by Chef John Millitello, a wonderful chef and an amazing person. It is set up as a loose co-operative of four chefs. We each have our own business and share the kitchen space. I do dinner parties in private homes, cooking classes (both in the home and studio), special event catering such as weddings, birthday parties, graduations, family and class reunions as well as business lunches.
How is the internet and digital media changing the food culture and business?
There is so much information out there now. It is incredible. Television has had the greatest impact though in my opinion. The Food Network has changed the industry immeasurably for the better. There has been an explosion of interest in food, cooking, cuisine, chefs and restaurants in the past 15 years. Diners (and professional chefs) may have their own opinions about Emeril Lagasse, Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Paula Deen, etc. but personally I’d like to thank them all! They’ve helped to open up the world of professional cooking to the public. People are hip to technical terms and techniques, products and styles as a result of watching these shows. Diners are more informed and as a result are more adventurous, demanding and discerning. It’s great for the industry and for chefs.
What are some of your favorite cooking styles, chefs, traditions, books, theories of food?
It’s probably clear by now that I sing the praises of American food. I cite James Beard as a strong influence. My very favorite cookbook isn’t really a cookbook at all but more a compendium of ingredients that classically work with each other. The book is called Culinary Artistry and written by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. They spoke to my class at New England Culinary Institute and signed my copy. I highly recommend this book to cooks who want to go beyond following recipes and enter into the world of creating their own dishes. The Food Lover’s Companion is also a great source book, it is a dictionary of culinary and gastronomic terms.
Do you want to own a restaurant and if so what would it be?
I do want to own a restaurant. My plan is to return to my native state of West Virginia and open a small, roadside cafe, a local eating and meeting place. I want the cafe to be small and intimate. The menu will celebrate local and regional ingredients and techniques, the food of the American southeast with a focus on Appalachia.
How has living in the south affected your style and what do you think of the southern culinary tradition?
I love southern food. I love soul food. The one area where I part with southern culinary tradition is in the cooking of vegetables. Green beans should be tender but not mush! But when it comes to frying vegetables we southerners have our technique down pat, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, etc. And I love me some Paula Deen. Oh lawdy! I’d like her to give me one of her big ol’ kisses!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The Arc, Kerouac & Skill Sets
[These are the thoughts running through my head tonight. Strange times but aren’t they all? Often I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a deep, dark unknown, peering out into the void with my tiny consciousness and the built-up arsenal of my previous life experiences as weary guides attempting to point the way. Meditating on the trajectory of my life, the phases and changes, the pivotal moments, the big decisions, the plot twists, the shifting characters. It is not lost on me that I am beginning to stare down the barrel of middle age. I hope that my arc has yet to begin its descent. I hope that I am still rising. Youth is gone, been gone a while now, only my mind has taken a while to catch up. I’ve been trying to read Kerouac today. I find myself not able to stomach it. This is so strange for me because Jack Kerouac has long been one of my biggest literary heroes. After dropping out of college I immersed myself in the College of Beat. I read all the Jack I could get my hands on. At age 19 I worked at a book store for a short while. I built up their literature section with volumes of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Corso, Burroughs, Huncke. It was quite a selection there at the Waldenbooks in Columbiana Mall for a few months! These writers spoke to me on a deep and profound level at the time. Themes of alienation, fear, modern life, suburbs, cities, America, drugs, sex, the whole swirling world of counterculture thought spilling forth from the pages of their books. I wanted to be one of them. I read and read and read. I wrote only a little. I smoke a large amount of marijuana and drank an even greater amount of alcohol. After several years of bumming around and getting my “kicks” I got a wake-up call. The story of that wake-up call is beyond the scope of this little essay but I can say that I had a profound and moving spiritual experience high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1993. It was then that I began wanting a home, needing a home, fantasizing, plotting, scheming and planning on how, what, when and where I would take the next step into adulthood. I was twenty years old.
I’m thirty-seven years old now. “Time and love have wounded me with their claws.” (Bob Dylan) I’ve lived a very full life, even at this age. Last night I finished reading You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe. I was deeply impressed with his writing and the scope of the work. I have known of Thomas Wolfe for a very long time, due in a large part to the fact that Kerouac idolized him. YCGHA was the first entire book of Wolfe I have read. I haven’t read Jack Kerouac in years, maybe even a decade. I looked on my shelf and found a copy of Lonesome Traveler by Kerouac and picked it up. I purchased the book on February 25, 2000 at Borders Bookstore on Montezuma Avenue in Santa Fe, NM at 3:55pm. I know this because the receipt is still in the book. So, anyway, I started reading it today. On the first attempt I got about 20 pages in. The second attempt I made it another 20 pages or so. I couldn’t get into it. I couldn’t relate anymore. The themes were fine; America, traveling, digging people on the road, adventure, drugs, booze, sex. That is all well and good with me. But the writing...God...the writing...I couldn’t stomach it. I feel like such a heel saying this but it was just horrible...painful to read, honestly. I believe that Kerouac had an amazing mind and a brilliant insight but I have to turn my back once and for all on his notion of spontaneous composition. I get it. Blow out the words like notes in jazz improvisation, let it drip and run with feeling and emotion and free yourself of all hang-ups. I get touched by the muse myself from time and time and just let it rip. But I think his experiences and ideas would have been better served by a little more restraint and clarity. But that’s just me, that’s the thirty-seven year-old me. I’ve lived now. I’ve been there. What was once a call to wander now just seems...I don’t know exactly...an excuse to be a fuck-up? That was too harsh but reading Lonesome Traveler earlier I couldn’t help but think just that.
But Kerouac wrote. He did it. And I have not written a single book so I’m not really in a place to judge him. Instead, I can look at myself and my own life’s arc and see the changes that have taken place in my mind and development from the simple fact of not enjoying the work anymore.
On another note, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the next chapter, of my life, I mean. Throughout my life I’ve been sensitive to moments where it seems clear that I am “rounding a corner”, moving into a new phase. In sobriety these moments have been amazingly punctuated with feeling and emotion. In the past, I softened the moments with smoke and booze. Now I just live through them, fully aware and alert as to what is going on around me and inside me. It’s been a thrilling and sometimes terrifying experience. This year has brought on a very heavy sense of mortality. My father has been very sick. My mother is hanging in there as best she can but mentally she is not completely there. She is fragile. To my complete surprise I’ve found myself being the person they can lean on. I can’t overstate how amazing this is for me. I feel truly blessed to be present during this time. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I can somehow, in such small ways, show my love for them by the simplest of acts. Tonight I drove out to their house to scrub the garage floor for them. The beagles have reverted to peeing in the garage, the little bastards! My dad is thin and now wears a beard because his face is too sensitive to shave. I’ve never before seen my dad with a beard. He would shave to go out to the curb to fetch the mail I shit you not. My mother was sitting in the den and I was startled by her appearance. She had two black eyes..purple really...or “magenta” as she said. Over the weekend she had fallen in the yard while tending to her plants and landed face-first on the ground. Heart-breaking. I don’t know if I am prepared for this. But it doesn’t matter because it is happening and there is nothing I can do to stop the clicking of time. We trip blindly forward always. There’s no reprieve. We summon the courage and meet life head-on with what we’ve got. If anyone ever deserved love, care, compassion, tenderness and attentiveness from me it is my mom and dad. The things they’ve done for me in my life...I can’t even begin to recount them here.
Life seems to have 3 main components: work, family and romance. I don’t know where I heard that or if I made it up but it sounds good, it sounds about right. I’m sure there are other things but these 3 are pretty primal. Each of these have been completely insecure for me over this past year. Everything has been uncertain. It’s been wild. If you’re hitting on two of the three the one that’s not firing isn’t felt as badly because the other two are taking up the slack. When only one is hitting, you’re dragging. When all three are seized you’re pretty much fucked, dead-in-the-water, paralyzed. And that is exactly how I’ve been feeling over this past year. This time last year I fell in love with a woman, an amazing woman...came out of nowhere. It was hot and heavy and completely unexpected. I had also begun working with a woman in a loose partnership supplying nutritional meal plans to clients. I had a kitchen to work out of, family was good, romance was in the air. It was one of the brightest moments I’ve had in years...many years. Round about May-June everything fell apart...the romance, the nutrition business, my father’s health. Major crash back down to earth.
I’m not claiming to be a victim by any means. I hope that my words don’t paint that type of picture because that is not my intent. I’m just trying to make some sense out of the past year and the way that I’ve been feeling for many months. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. In the summer I started working for myself, no start-up money or anything, no business plan, no....nothing! Just me and my knives, God and the kindness of strangers, friends and family to scoot me along in the right directions. I’ve tried to step up and be a good son. I honestly don’t know how well I’ve done. I always feel like I could be doing more but part of the frustration is the helplessness of it all. I can’t cure my dad’s cancer. I don’t have that power. I can’t make that woman love me and want to be with me. And as far as being in business for myself goes, well, that is a work in progress. I’m learning so much. I’m trying to make it work. So much of it is outside of my skill set. I’ve spent my entire career behind the swinging door of the kitchen. I’ve lead platoons and brigades of cooks into battle night after night, day after day, year after year. Someone (the hotel or restaurant owner) always footed the bill. All I had to do was show up and do my job: keep the food cost down, put out a quality product, manage the staff and keep labor costs under control. Those things I can do. Total comfort zone. Working for myself (or more specifically directly with the client) has been a sea change for me. Way out of my comfort zone...marketing, liquid capital, expenses...all of it...leaves me pretty bewildered. I didn’t go to business school. I have no business experience. I went to culinary school. I have culinary experience. So in many ways it’s like I’m starting all over again. To be honest, I can’t even believe I haven’t had a “regular” job in almost two years. It’s amazing to me. Ahhhhh, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a regular paycheck again! To be able to KNOW that my rent was going to be paid and the power was going to stay on. I’m not complaining, only explaining. Words on the screen and the catharsis begins.
This arc? It’s rising. The corner is turning. Life is happening and by the grace of God I’m present for it today. And for that I’m forever grateful. Just don’t make me read Jack Kerouac anymore, k?]
P.S. It’s 6am. I’m not checking for typos. MG
I’m thirty-seven years old now. “Time and love have wounded me with their claws.” (Bob Dylan) I’ve lived a very full life, even at this age. Last night I finished reading You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe. I was deeply impressed with his writing and the scope of the work. I have known of Thomas Wolfe for a very long time, due in a large part to the fact that Kerouac idolized him. YCGHA was the first entire book of Wolfe I have read. I haven’t read Jack Kerouac in years, maybe even a decade. I looked on my shelf and found a copy of Lonesome Traveler by Kerouac and picked it up. I purchased the book on February 25, 2000 at Borders Bookstore on Montezuma Avenue in Santa Fe, NM at 3:55pm. I know this because the receipt is still in the book. So, anyway, I started reading it today. On the first attempt I got about 20 pages in. The second attempt I made it another 20 pages or so. I couldn’t get into it. I couldn’t relate anymore. The themes were fine; America, traveling, digging people on the road, adventure, drugs, booze, sex. That is all well and good with me. But the writing...God...the writing...I couldn’t stomach it. I feel like such a heel saying this but it was just horrible...painful to read, honestly. I believe that Kerouac had an amazing mind and a brilliant insight but I have to turn my back once and for all on his notion of spontaneous composition. I get it. Blow out the words like notes in jazz improvisation, let it drip and run with feeling and emotion and free yourself of all hang-ups. I get touched by the muse myself from time and time and just let it rip. But I think his experiences and ideas would have been better served by a little more restraint and clarity. But that’s just me, that’s the thirty-seven year-old me. I’ve lived now. I’ve been there. What was once a call to wander now just seems...I don’t know exactly...an excuse to be a fuck-up? That was too harsh but reading Lonesome Traveler earlier I couldn’t help but think just that.
But Kerouac wrote. He did it. And I have not written a single book so I’m not really in a place to judge him. Instead, I can look at myself and my own life’s arc and see the changes that have taken place in my mind and development from the simple fact of not enjoying the work anymore.
On another note, I’ve also been thinking a lot about the next chapter, of my life, I mean. Throughout my life I’ve been sensitive to moments where it seems clear that I am “rounding a corner”, moving into a new phase. In sobriety these moments have been amazingly punctuated with feeling and emotion. In the past, I softened the moments with smoke and booze. Now I just live through them, fully aware and alert as to what is going on around me and inside me. It’s been a thrilling and sometimes terrifying experience. This year has brought on a very heavy sense of mortality. My father has been very sick. My mother is hanging in there as best she can but mentally she is not completely there. She is fragile. To my complete surprise I’ve found myself being the person they can lean on. I can’t overstate how amazing this is for me. I feel truly blessed to be present during this time. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I can somehow, in such small ways, show my love for them by the simplest of acts. Tonight I drove out to their house to scrub the garage floor for them. The beagles have reverted to peeing in the garage, the little bastards! My dad is thin and now wears a beard because his face is too sensitive to shave. I’ve never before seen my dad with a beard. He would shave to go out to the curb to fetch the mail I shit you not. My mother was sitting in the den and I was startled by her appearance. She had two black eyes..purple really...or “magenta” as she said. Over the weekend she had fallen in the yard while tending to her plants and landed face-first on the ground. Heart-breaking. I don’t know if I am prepared for this. But it doesn’t matter because it is happening and there is nothing I can do to stop the clicking of time. We trip blindly forward always. There’s no reprieve. We summon the courage and meet life head-on with what we’ve got. If anyone ever deserved love, care, compassion, tenderness and attentiveness from me it is my mom and dad. The things they’ve done for me in my life...I can’t even begin to recount them here.
Life seems to have 3 main components: work, family and romance. I don’t know where I heard that or if I made it up but it sounds good, it sounds about right. I’m sure there are other things but these 3 are pretty primal. Each of these have been completely insecure for me over this past year. Everything has been uncertain. It’s been wild. If you’re hitting on two of the three the one that’s not firing isn’t felt as badly because the other two are taking up the slack. When only one is hitting, you’re dragging. When all three are seized you’re pretty much fucked, dead-in-the-water, paralyzed. And that is exactly how I’ve been feeling over this past year. This time last year I fell in love with a woman, an amazing woman...came out of nowhere. It was hot and heavy and completely unexpected. I had also begun working with a woman in a loose partnership supplying nutritional meal plans to clients. I had a kitchen to work out of, family was good, romance was in the air. It was one of the brightest moments I’ve had in years...many years. Round about May-June everything fell apart...the romance, the nutrition business, my father’s health. Major crash back down to earth.
I’m not claiming to be a victim by any means. I hope that my words don’t paint that type of picture because that is not my intent. I’m just trying to make some sense out of the past year and the way that I’ve been feeling for many months. I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. In the summer I started working for myself, no start-up money or anything, no business plan, no....nothing! Just me and my knives, God and the kindness of strangers, friends and family to scoot me along in the right directions. I’ve tried to step up and be a good son. I honestly don’t know how well I’ve done. I always feel like I could be doing more but part of the frustration is the helplessness of it all. I can’t cure my dad’s cancer. I don’t have that power. I can’t make that woman love me and want to be with me. And as far as being in business for myself goes, well, that is a work in progress. I’m learning so much. I’m trying to make it work. So much of it is outside of my skill set. I’ve spent my entire career behind the swinging door of the kitchen. I’ve lead platoons and brigades of cooks into battle night after night, day after day, year after year. Someone (the hotel or restaurant owner) always footed the bill. All I had to do was show up and do my job: keep the food cost down, put out a quality product, manage the staff and keep labor costs under control. Those things I can do. Total comfort zone. Working for myself (or more specifically directly with the client) has been a sea change for me. Way out of my comfort zone...marketing, liquid capital, expenses...all of it...leaves me pretty bewildered. I didn’t go to business school. I have no business experience. I went to culinary school. I have culinary experience. So in many ways it’s like I’m starting all over again. To be honest, I can’t even believe I haven’t had a “regular” job in almost two years. It’s amazing to me. Ahhhhh, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a regular paycheck again! To be able to KNOW that my rent was going to be paid and the power was going to stay on. I’m not complaining, only explaining. Words on the screen and the catharsis begins.
This arc? It’s rising. The corner is turning. Life is happening and by the grace of God I’m present for it today. And for that I’m forever grateful. Just don’t make me read Jack Kerouac anymore, k?]
P.S. It’s 6am. I’m not checking for typos. MG
Monday, January 18, 2010
Recipes for 1.18.10 Seasonal Cooking Class
Broccoli Bisque
2 large heads fresh broccoli (about four cups)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 shallot, peeled and sliced
¾ cup white wine
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup roux (equal parts flour and butter)
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
method:
In a large pot gently cook onions, garlic and shallots over low heat until softened. Add broccoli and continue cooking until it turns bright green. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until broccoli is tender. Add cream and roux and simmer for 5-10 minutes longer. Puree with a stick blender, strain through a mesh sieve and serve.
Parmesan Croutons
2 cups bread diced into ½” pieces
Extra-virgin Olive Oil, enough to coat bread
I cup shredded parmesan cheese
method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Mushroom Marsala Sauce
2 cups baby bella mushrooms, quartered
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 shallot, sliced
½ cup Marsala cooking wine
1 cup veal demi-glace
2 T butter
chopped fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley)
method:
In a large pot sear mushrooms in a small amount of olive oil until golden brown. Reduce heat, add garlic and shallots and cook gently until softened. Add marsala and reduce by half. Add veal demi-glace. Bring to a simmer and stir in butter until melted. Season with salt, pepper and fresh herbs.
Kiwi Tart with Honey & Lime
puff pastry shells
4 kiwis, peeled and cut into ¼” slices
¾ cup honey
1 lime, juiced and zested
1 cup sweetened whipped cream
method:
Prebake pastry shells according to the instructions on the package. In a small sauce pan combine honey, lime juice and zest and heat gently until you achieve a syrup consistency. Arrange kiwi slices artfully in the pastry shells. Warm in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes. Serve with honey-lime syrup and sweetened whipped cream.
2 large heads fresh broccoli (about four cups)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 shallot, peeled and sliced
¾ cup white wine
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup roux (equal parts flour and butter)
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
method:
In a large pot gently cook onions, garlic and shallots over low heat until softened. Add broccoli and continue cooking until it turns bright green. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until broccoli is tender. Add cream and roux and simmer for 5-10 minutes longer. Puree with a stick blender, strain through a mesh sieve and serve.
Parmesan Croutons
2 cups bread diced into ½” pieces
Extra-virgin Olive Oil, enough to coat bread
I cup shredded parmesan cheese
method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Mushroom Marsala Sauce
2 cups baby bella mushrooms, quartered
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 shallot, sliced
½ cup Marsala cooking wine
1 cup veal demi-glace
2 T butter
chopped fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley)
method:
In a large pot sear mushrooms in a small amount of olive oil until golden brown. Reduce heat, add garlic and shallots and cook gently until softened. Add marsala and reduce by half. Add veal demi-glace. Bring to a simmer and stir in butter until melted. Season with salt, pepper and fresh herbs.
Kiwi Tart with Honey & Lime
puff pastry shells
4 kiwis, peeled and cut into ¼” slices
¾ cup honey
1 lime, juiced and zested
1 cup sweetened whipped cream
method:
Prebake pastry shells according to the instructions on the package. In a small sauce pan combine honey, lime juice and zest and heat gently until you achieve a syrup consistency. Arrange kiwi slices artfully in the pastry shells. Warm in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes. Serve with honey-lime syrup and sweetened whipped cream.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Riffing
[I've been reading Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again over the past few weeks. I'm midway through it and the effect it's had on me has been profound. I'm not all too sure I can put into words this effect except to say that it has been good. I've not worked in over a month. Tomorrow night I have a cooking class which I always enjoy but it doesn't put any money in my pocket. All proceeds from my classes go to the culinary studio. With only four people signed up it's not like I'm missing out on much anyway. This is starting out sounding really shitty but honestly I've felt pretty good today, especially tonight. I have no idea why really. Nothing tangible has changed but perhaps this most recent depression is beginning to lift. I pray it's true because this one has been the shittiest in a long while. I've learned from it though, as I always do. I seem to be getting closer and closer to knowing myself through the pain of it. One of the things I've learned is that I need to reach out more. I need to be there for my friends more. One of my oldest, dearest friends called me out last week on my flakiness and lack of availability. It hurt me deeply to know that I've let him down and then it all came crashing down on me. All the friendships I've allowed to expire due to my depression and tendency to isolate myself. This isolation I don't understand. It's self-imposed. There's no reason for it. I like people. I love my friends. When my mind isn't right I retreat into myself and it begins a vicious cycle. I retreat and isolate even more. Honestly sometimes it gets so bad I don't leave the house for days. I don't speak a word to anyone. I don't answer the phone. I don't make calls. When I finally do my speech is stunted. I've become somewhat socially awkward as a result. I don't know why all this is. It's okay though. I know I'm coming out of it and learning in the process. I've gone through much MUCH worse. It's just odd to me. I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about myself. After all these years of sobriety and I'm still heavily self-centered. I'm not proud of it but neither am I ashamed. This brings to light one of the most wonderful things I've come upon in reading YCHA lately. Critics of Wolfe said that his work was "too autobiographical." In response to this Thomas Wolfe said that if anything, it wasn't autobiographical enough. He knew that the naked truth of life is infinitely more fascinating than anything the human imagination or literary skill could create. I found it extremely comforting and inspiring to read this from him. I've struggled for years with the dilemma of what to write, what to leave out, etc. I'm beginning to get a handle on it now. The words come, that has always been the easiest part of it for me. It's the form, the structure that has always had me perplexed. It's clear to me that I have a talent with words. I wouldn't call it genius or anything, but I do have a gift. I'm completely untrained, raw and unpolished. Maybe instead of a liability this is an asset. Time and time again Wolfe speaks of writing what one knows and only what one knows. Nothing else will do. That's part of what he meant by saying his work was not autobiographical enough. The naked, unvarnished truth, however painful. That is what I want to achieve. That is what I've always wanted to achieve. I haven't been strong enough in the past to even attempt it but the fear is beginning to fade, some unknown confidence is pushing it away. Part of it is a devil-may-care attitude that has started to develop here in middle age. Who cares if people think it sucks? I need to write it for me. No one else. I need for the things to be said. It's primal. This need is deeply rooted in me. It sprung forth in my childhood and has held me in it's fascinating grip my whole life. When I made the conscious decision to pursue cooking as a career instead of writing I realized at the time that I had freed myself from having to feed, clothe and shelter myself through writing. It took a lot of pressure off, maybe too much pressure. During my 20's the urgent need to write and get these things down ebbed. It wasn't knocking on my door anymore. Instead I was filled with culinary ambition and the drive to be a "success" (or at least to be viewed as one.) I don't feel that need anymore. I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone anymore. I just don't care. I know it doesn't really matter anyway. I like cooking for cooking's sake. I like feeding people. I like the act of using my chef's knife. I like creating dishes. I like selecting vegetables and meats in the market. I don't need to see myself on the cover of Food & Wine magazine anymore. It's a non-issue with me now. Instead of feeling resigned to anonymity I feel freed. I feel released. A crisp focus is beginning to appear before me. (As unfocused as all these words may seem tonight!) Out of the darkness and into the light. It's exhilarating. The panic and fear subsided, the eye clear with purpose and resolve. I don't know what the future will bring but I know it will be good. I know it will be right. I know I will again bask in the sunlight of the spirit. I know that I will draw myself out of this depression and walk again among you. It's already happening. When I don't even know it, when I least expect it, it comes, born of the darkness, mysterious and unknown, it comes.]
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Conversation with a Mentor
[After a burst of writing last week this is my first entry in several days. Just feel like writing about what's going down in my life right now. I haven't had a paying gig in four weeks now. Totally running on fumes. I've been here before but that doesn't make it suck any less, Ha! Interviewed two weeks ago at a local food service management company for a position running 2 corporate kitchens. Can't really say for who exactly for some reason. Did a follow-up call last week and evidently they are in the weeds and dragging their feet with the hiring process. I don't have a great feeling about it but it would be nice to pick up a paycheck for a while. One thing the first interviewer asked me really pissed me off. Fondling my resume she looks up and asks me, "What does Matt want to be when he grows up?" Reflexively I shot her a look that could melt steel and she back-pedaled, "What I mean to say is, 'Where do you see yourself in 10 years?'" Fucking corporate bullshit. Kiss my ass bitch. What do I want to be when I grow up? I've been working in the professional kitchen for almost half of my life. I've got a degree in culinary arts, cooked for Presidents, Rock Stars, Movie Stars, Royalty. You're not too fucking smart are you, bitch? I'm a fucking CHEF. How'd that get past you? I didn't say any of this of course. I just breathed and said I want to have my own business operating a small restaurant. What was I supposed to say? Oh, I really want to be a fucking cog in the corporate machine for the rest of my life. Yeah...that'd be real nice. I felt like asking her what she had wanted to be when she grew up. Did she see herself working for some no name food service company in Columbia-fucking-South Carolina? Was that HER big dream? Hahahaha! I can be such a prick. Thankfully she excused herself and round two of the interview involved talking to the corporate chef. He was a pretty cool cat. Kitchen people I can get down with. Office tools? Not so much.
Long story short I'm not holding my breath. I've been waiting until after the holidays to make this phone call that I made today. Called up one of my mentors, the man who introduced me to the real world of professional cooking. I won't use his name but he cut his teeth in the culinary world at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, WV. It's one of the most fabled hotels in the country and one of the best in the world. If you haven't heard of it look it up. Knowing chefs as I do I didn't want to call during the holidays to inquire about employment. That shit is just not cool. Second week after the new year though? Perfect time. Holidays are over and he'd just be beginning to think about hiring for the summer season. I got bounced around to several different phones at the resort. The last one was the host stand in the main dining room and the lady there was kind enough to go get Chef for me. I've been keeping in touch with this guy for 15 years, just touching base every year or two. In 2005 I even went and had dinner at the summer season dining room where I had worked for him in 1995. I brought along a date on that WV trip (which is a completely different story!) He came out to the table and we chatted for a bit. He was genuinely happy to see me (which is saying a lot because his personality is very, very reserved) he was also impressed with my dining companion. She was a knockout, tall, blonde, sharply dressed. I made a good impression on him for seeing him for the first time in ten years. When he knew me back then I was just a young punk line cook. I had some raw skills, some natural talent but not a whole lot of focus. He helped supply me with that focus. He brought the world of professional cooking into my field of view. Previously I had worked in a handful of so-so restaurants in my hometown of Columbia. When I first interviewed with him he was sitting in his tiny chef's office. (Chefs have THE tiniest offices imaginable. Honestly, they are the size of a closet.) On the wall hung awards and photographs of places he had worked, famous people he had cooked for, plaques and trophies and the accoutrement of a life spent immersed in all things culinary. He was a member of the ACF (American Culinary Federation) and competed in cooking competitions and such. He put a menu in my hands and asked me if I could cook it. Point blank. No bullshit. I looked it over and recognized a few dishes but lots of words seemed to be written in Greek. (It was French, of course.) I gave him an honest answer. I said that I could cook some of the dishes but that others I would need to be taught. He was brow-beating me and I knew it, trying to knock down that young punk arrogance I carried. It worked. He gave me a job and I learned more from him in 4 months than I had learned in the previous 5 years combined.
We had a great chat on the phone today. I could tell there was admiration in his voice. I had kept him up-to-date with my culinary adventures and never failed to give him credit for turning me on to the culinary world, to the dazzling, dynamic, insane world of professional cooking. Before we hung up he said he was sure he'd have a job for me. The guy who had been his sous chef at the summer season dining room wasn't returning this year. I told him I'd touch base with him again soon. Thanked him for his time and told him I'd e-mail my resume. A ten minute conversation but a very important one to me. Moving to WV hinges largely on my ability to find gainful employment. It's looking very much like today I did just that. Only time will tell...a few more months, a matter of weeks really. I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch but I am excited. I am hopeful. And that's an enormous change from the way I've been feeling lately.
Long story short I'm not holding my breath. I've been waiting until after the holidays to make this phone call that I made today. Called up one of my mentors, the man who introduced me to the real world of professional cooking. I won't use his name but he cut his teeth in the culinary world at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, WV. It's one of the most fabled hotels in the country and one of the best in the world. If you haven't heard of it look it up. Knowing chefs as I do I didn't want to call during the holidays to inquire about employment. That shit is just not cool. Second week after the new year though? Perfect time. Holidays are over and he'd just be beginning to think about hiring for the summer season. I got bounced around to several different phones at the resort. The last one was the host stand in the main dining room and the lady there was kind enough to go get Chef for me. I've been keeping in touch with this guy for 15 years, just touching base every year or two. In 2005 I even went and had dinner at the summer season dining room where I had worked for him in 1995. I brought along a date on that WV trip (which is a completely different story!) He came out to the table and we chatted for a bit. He was genuinely happy to see me (which is saying a lot because his personality is very, very reserved) he was also impressed with my dining companion. She was a knockout, tall, blonde, sharply dressed. I made a good impression on him for seeing him for the first time in ten years. When he knew me back then I was just a young punk line cook. I had some raw skills, some natural talent but not a whole lot of focus. He helped supply me with that focus. He brought the world of professional cooking into my field of view. Previously I had worked in a handful of so-so restaurants in my hometown of Columbia. When I first interviewed with him he was sitting in his tiny chef's office. (Chefs have THE tiniest offices imaginable. Honestly, they are the size of a closet.) On the wall hung awards and photographs of places he had worked, famous people he had cooked for, plaques and trophies and the accoutrement of a life spent immersed in all things culinary. He was a member of the ACF (American Culinary Federation) and competed in cooking competitions and such. He put a menu in my hands and asked me if I could cook it. Point blank. No bullshit. I looked it over and recognized a few dishes but lots of words seemed to be written in Greek. (It was French, of course.) I gave him an honest answer. I said that I could cook some of the dishes but that others I would need to be taught. He was brow-beating me and I knew it, trying to knock down that young punk arrogance I carried. It worked. He gave me a job and I learned more from him in 4 months than I had learned in the previous 5 years combined.
We had a great chat on the phone today. I could tell there was admiration in his voice. I had kept him up-to-date with my culinary adventures and never failed to give him credit for turning me on to the culinary world, to the dazzling, dynamic, insane world of professional cooking. Before we hung up he said he was sure he'd have a job for me. The guy who had been his sous chef at the summer season dining room wasn't returning this year. I told him I'd touch base with him again soon. Thanked him for his time and told him I'd e-mail my resume. A ten minute conversation but a very important one to me. Moving to WV hinges largely on my ability to find gainful employment. It's looking very much like today I did just that. Only time will tell...a few more months, a matter of weeks really. I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch but I am excited. I am hopeful. And that's an enormous change from the way I've been feeling lately.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Behind the swinging door
I quit that crappy landscaping job after about 3 months. Just never went back. It was a crappy thing to do and my Dad made me go back and talk to the guy that owned the place. He was actually one of my Dad's customers. His name was Dave and he was actually a really cool person, very intense though. He forgave me for abandoning my job. He knew I was just a dumb kid trying to figure things out. Gave me some good advice though. "Do what you love for a living. Then it won't seem like work." He wished me well and I was grateful for the conversation and the fact that my Dad had made me face the music.
Right after that I got my first job in a restaurant. A friend from high school was working as a kitchen manager at a family steak and seafood restaurant on the shore of the local lake. He got me a job as a prep cook. My first day was spent peeling shrimp. I was positioned in front of a large 3 compartment sink with a red plastic shrimp peeler tool and 50lbs. of shrimp floating in icy water. I'd never peeled shrimp before but by the time I was finished with that first 50lbs. I was pretty expert at it! While I was working away at the shrimp I took in the surroundings of the kitchen. There were four guys on the hot line cooking. All of them were a year or two older than me and had graduated from the same high school as me. They had a great camaraderie. They had the radio blasting a local rock n' roll station. Out of the corner of my eye I'd see columns of flame jump from the grill, plates clattering, the chaotic ballet of line work in full swing. Cute young waitresses came in and out of the swinging door that led to the dining room. They waited on the other side of the line with their hands on their hips, smacking gum, little aprons around their waists stuffed with pens and order pads. The dining room was another world beyond that door. The two areas of the establishment could not have been more different. In the dining room order reigned supreme, employees on their best behavior. In the kitchen it was chaotic and primal but with a rhythm and trajectory that immediately made sense to me. The guys on the line were like cowboy gunslingers with their spatulas and tongs. They dealt in steaks, lobster tails, hush puppies, slinging food from their hips with impressive speed and accuracy.
At the end of the night I helped the guys clean the kitchen. It was a team effort. Everyone wrapped up their food products and stashed it away for the night in coolers. Out came buckets of soapy suds and scrub pads. The whole stainless steel monolith got scrubbed from top to bottom and then wiped clean with bright white cotton towels. Then we swept the floor with brooms from one end to the other. Next came the water hose and not cold water but piping hot. Brian (the friend who had hired me) manned the nozzle and guided streams of scalding water across the terra cotta tile floor. He sprayed beneath all the equipment, got all the corners and nooks and crannies. Then we took a scrub brush and scrubbed it down, every inch. Afterwards we rinsed the deck free of suds, squeegeed off the excess and allowed it to dry. Brian asked me to help him haul the trash up to the dumpster at the top of the parking lot. We loaded bags into the back of a beat up old pickup and went to the cavernous, stinking box. He had the radio on in the truck. Always music. He parked the truck on the opposite side of the container of the restaurant, killed the lights. I began to get out when he said, "Whoah, slow down....We got some smoking to do." With that he pulled out a big fat joint, lit it, took a big long drag and passed it to me. I smiled and took a nice long hit myself, blew a streaming cloud of smoke out the window. I didn't know it at the time but I'd found my niche. I'd found my place. We tossed the trash into the dumpster and went back to the sparkling clean kitchen. Already it was beginning to feel like home.
Right after that I got my first job in a restaurant. A friend from high school was working as a kitchen manager at a family steak and seafood restaurant on the shore of the local lake. He got me a job as a prep cook. My first day was spent peeling shrimp. I was positioned in front of a large 3 compartment sink with a red plastic shrimp peeler tool and 50lbs. of shrimp floating in icy water. I'd never peeled shrimp before but by the time I was finished with that first 50lbs. I was pretty expert at it! While I was working away at the shrimp I took in the surroundings of the kitchen. There were four guys on the hot line cooking. All of them were a year or two older than me and had graduated from the same high school as me. They had a great camaraderie. They had the radio blasting a local rock n' roll station. Out of the corner of my eye I'd see columns of flame jump from the grill, plates clattering, the chaotic ballet of line work in full swing. Cute young waitresses came in and out of the swinging door that led to the dining room. They waited on the other side of the line with their hands on their hips, smacking gum, little aprons around their waists stuffed with pens and order pads. The dining room was another world beyond that door. The two areas of the establishment could not have been more different. In the dining room order reigned supreme, employees on their best behavior. In the kitchen it was chaotic and primal but with a rhythm and trajectory that immediately made sense to me. The guys on the line were like cowboy gunslingers with their spatulas and tongs. They dealt in steaks, lobster tails, hush puppies, slinging food from their hips with impressive speed and accuracy.
At the end of the night I helped the guys clean the kitchen. It was a team effort. Everyone wrapped up their food products and stashed it away for the night in coolers. Out came buckets of soapy suds and scrub pads. The whole stainless steel monolith got scrubbed from top to bottom and then wiped clean with bright white cotton towels. Then we swept the floor with brooms from one end to the other. Next came the water hose and not cold water but piping hot. Brian (the friend who had hired me) manned the nozzle and guided streams of scalding water across the terra cotta tile floor. He sprayed beneath all the equipment, got all the corners and nooks and crannies. Then we took a scrub brush and scrubbed it down, every inch. Afterwards we rinsed the deck free of suds, squeegeed off the excess and allowed it to dry. Brian asked me to help him haul the trash up to the dumpster at the top of the parking lot. We loaded bags into the back of a beat up old pickup and went to the cavernous, stinking box. He had the radio on in the truck. Always music. He parked the truck on the opposite side of the container of the restaurant, killed the lights. I began to get out when he said, "Whoah, slow down....We got some smoking to do." With that he pulled out a big fat joint, lit it, took a big long drag and passed it to me. I smiled and took a nice long hit myself, blew a streaming cloud of smoke out the window. I didn't know it at the time but I'd found my niche. I'd found my place. We tossed the trash into the dumpster and went back to the sparkling clean kitchen. Already it was beginning to feel like home.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
"Dysphoric Mood?!?"
[There is so much more than can be written. It's hard to know what to include and what to just disregard. That's part of the reason that it's taken me so long to start writing things down. I could devise a million and a half reasons not to write, so many excuses, wanting it to be perfect. I'm beginning to let go of them though. I'm beginning to let my guard down and just let the words flow. It really doesn't matter. It's no big deal. One of my most favorite quotes is from Hemingway when he said something to the effect of it is more important to live than to write. My friend Bay would counter that with another quote from Hemingway, that it is better for your instrument to be worn out and blunt from use than sitting in the closet in pristine condition. I don't have the exact quotes on either count. I should look them up. Hemingway was a smart dude. I admire him. He was troubled. He ended up going into the woods alone and shooting himself with his shotgun. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to take things that seriously ever again. What I really want in regards to my writing is for it to ring true, for it to be interesting to read and unapologetically truthful and honest. I want it to be raw. I want to share things about myself that most would be ashamed to admit about themselves. I want the veils lifted. I'm not ashamed of who I am, who I was, what I've done. It's all a myth anyway. This life is a dream within a dream. Even that dream is a dream within a dream. It never ends. This life has seemed like some sort of test or experiment. Often I've felt like I was out of my own body, watching my life take place from the outside looking in. It's crazy how often I've felt just that way. Like Waylon Jennings sang, "I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane." I do remember being a very young boy in West Virginia. I remember so much of it. It's part of the work too but I just can't seem to access that right now. It's almost too much for me. It's too special, too rare, those memories. It cuts to the bone and cuts close. There is great deal of my life that I can expose though and I have no rhyme or reason in the way that it is coming out. I've given up on having any sort of structure for the thing. Memories come and I write them down. It hops and skips and jumps all over the place, just like my mind does most of the time. I've got the general theme down and maybe that's all that matters. Maybe the skipping back and forth from one period to the next will make sense once it's all done. Maybe it will be cool. If not, the pieces can always be fitted together like a puzzle. It'll probably be cool just the way it is though. I think perhaps there's something insouciant going on, something mystical. I like to think that. I like that thought a lot. One thing's for sure. Nothing is being forced or fabricated. If it doesn't come, it doesn't come. Who cares?
I've suffered from depression for a very, very long time. When I was 33 years old I went to treatment for it. I attended an intensive outpatient program at a local mental health facility for four weeks. The classes lasted from 8am-4pm. It was an incredibly valuable experience for me. What led up to that was that I was thinking of killing myself. Now, I've had suicidal thoughts all my life. Honestly I have. It's something I'd been use to. But this time it was much, much different. It was involuntary. I couldn't stop the spiral. I kept falling deeper and deeper into the well. I began blacking out. Coming to and not knowing what had happened. This was one year after I started staying sober. I was a sick, sick fellow. I became very frightened. One evening I came to in my little studio cottage house. I was lying in the floor. Everything was trashed. Bookcases were turned over. Everything was on the floor. Pictures were smashed. And there was a big knife in my hand. I heard the telephone ringing and crawled across the floor to answer it. It was my Mom on the line. She had called just to check on me. I could barely talk. She drove across town to get me. I was in bad shape. The next day my Father took me to our family doctor. She asked me what was going on and I began telling her. Told her about the blackouts. Told her about how I'd bee driving down the road and it seemed like trees and bridges were calling my name, beckoning me to drive my truck into them. The suicidal ideation had never been like that before. It'd never been so...I don't know....easy? Unforced? I don't know exactly how to explain it but it scared the shit out of me. She left the room and then came back a short while later. "I've made an appointment for you at Richland Springs. They are expecting you. Your dad will drive you over there. Okay? You're going to be alright."
My Dad drove me to the mental health center and we waited. Shortly a very pretty young woman came out to greet us. Her name was Autumn. I'll never forget her. I sat in a room with her. My father stayed in the lobby. In the room she gave me a mental health evaluation. It was so humiliating. Here I was sitting across from this truly lovely and beautiful woman I was an utter and complete wreck, crying my eyes out, telling her all these crazy things. She couldn't have been more kind, caring and reassuring. I'd like to marry a woman like that someday. I really would. So that is how I received treatment for my depression. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with a "dysphoric mood." I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to sound worse. I'm a crazy bastard like that. "Dysphoric mood!" I thought, "Well this is some sort of bad mood!" I felt like I had been in the dysphoric mood my entire life. The program was great though. Those people taught me things about myself and the way in which I had been reacting to the world that really helped me. It changed my life immeasurably for the better. This was in the summer of 2005. I started getting better after that.
I used to use the goal and dream of writing a book as an excuse not to kill myself. I'd tell myself, "You can't off yourself. You have this book to write." I'd have to find a new reason to live. I didn't know what it would be but I'd find it. I knew I would.]
I've suffered from depression for a very, very long time. When I was 33 years old I went to treatment for it. I attended an intensive outpatient program at a local mental health facility for four weeks. The classes lasted from 8am-4pm. It was an incredibly valuable experience for me. What led up to that was that I was thinking of killing myself. Now, I've had suicidal thoughts all my life. Honestly I have. It's something I'd been use to. But this time it was much, much different. It was involuntary. I couldn't stop the spiral. I kept falling deeper and deeper into the well. I began blacking out. Coming to and not knowing what had happened. This was one year after I started staying sober. I was a sick, sick fellow. I became very frightened. One evening I came to in my little studio cottage house. I was lying in the floor. Everything was trashed. Bookcases were turned over. Everything was on the floor. Pictures were smashed. And there was a big knife in my hand. I heard the telephone ringing and crawled across the floor to answer it. It was my Mom on the line. She had called just to check on me. I could barely talk. She drove across town to get me. I was in bad shape. The next day my Father took me to our family doctor. She asked me what was going on and I began telling her. Told her about the blackouts. Told her about how I'd bee driving down the road and it seemed like trees and bridges were calling my name, beckoning me to drive my truck into them. The suicidal ideation had never been like that before. It'd never been so...I don't know....easy? Unforced? I don't know exactly how to explain it but it scared the shit out of me. She left the room and then came back a short while later. "I've made an appointment for you at Richland Springs. They are expecting you. Your dad will drive you over there. Okay? You're going to be alright."
My Dad drove me to the mental health center and we waited. Shortly a very pretty young woman came out to greet us. Her name was Autumn. I'll never forget her. I sat in a room with her. My father stayed in the lobby. In the room she gave me a mental health evaluation. It was so humiliating. Here I was sitting across from this truly lovely and beautiful woman I was an utter and complete wreck, crying my eyes out, telling her all these crazy things. She couldn't have been more kind, caring and reassuring. I'd like to marry a woman like that someday. I really would. So that is how I received treatment for my depression. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with a "dysphoric mood." I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to sound worse. I'm a crazy bastard like that. "Dysphoric mood!" I thought, "Well this is some sort of bad mood!" I felt like I had been in the dysphoric mood my entire life. The program was great though. Those people taught me things about myself and the way in which I had been reacting to the world that really helped me. It changed my life immeasurably for the better. This was in the summer of 2005. I started getting better after that.
I used to use the goal and dream of writing a book as an excuse not to kill myself. I'd tell myself, "You can't off yourself. You have this book to write." I'd have to find a new reason to live. I didn't know what it would be but I'd find it. I knew I would.]
Beat
CDTM:
After 3 months of working as a day laborer I was beginning to lose my mind. Ten to twelve hours a day out in the hot South Carolina sun digging ditches, running leaf blowers, weed-whackers, pulling weeds, picking up trash. I'd walk home to my parents' house, take a shower, get something to eat and call one of my friends to come rescue me. We'd drive out somewhere desolate, a local water tower was a favorite spot. We'd drink beer, smoke weed, talk about all kinds of crazy things. Things we wanted to do, see, touch, taste, hear. It was a visceral and electric time. I had no idea how I would get out of this place but I wanted out. And I wanted out yesterday. In addition to the drinking and drugs I lost myself in reading. It was a great escape. I'd been an avid reader since I first learned how. When I was a boy I read the typical boy stuff, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped!, Sherlock Holmes, those kinds of things. In my English classes in school we were assigned some fantastic books to read. I'd skip ahead. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stay on the one chapter we were studying. I had to know what was going to happen next. I wanted it all. I remember reading The Count of Monte Cristo, Brave New World, All Quiet on the Western Front, Canterbury Tales, The Mayor of Casterbridge and many others. At this point though I was reading titles that I had selected, volumes recommended by like-minded friends. It was a whirlwind of literature. J.D. Salinger was one of the first authors who took me by storm. I read all of his published work in no time. Then I read them again, then again. I was reading Jack Kerouac too. On the Road blew my mind into a million little pieces and then put the pieces back together again but in a different order, an entirely different makeup and operating system. I'd never be the same. I'd use the Kerouacian ideal as my life's template for years to come. I nailed the drinking and kicks, got the travelling down pretty good too. The actual writing though? That would have to wait. I had too much living to do.
Although Kerouac cast a large shadow in my reading life I read countless others, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, suffered though Joyce and Proust, read Wolfe only because Kerouac liked him then quickly realized I probably had a lot more in common with Wolfe than I did with Kerouac. Didn't matter though. I liked Kerouac's style better. I liked the spontaneity of it, the passion, the thirst, the enthusiasm, the easily disregarded and ridiculed grandiosity. I read and I read and I read. I tried to spend most of my time out of my parents house but when I was there I was in my bedroom with the door shut reading. I was long gone. My parents, god bless them, they didn't know what to do with me. We had some fantastic fights. Some real doozies. My Dad would say stuff like "Those damn books aren't going to pay your bills!" We would laugh about it later. Much later though. Like years and years and years later. At the time it was deadly serious. It was no laughing matter. Their son was throwing his life away and didn't seem to even give a fuck.
One night it got especially bad and our argument got physical. Dad grabbed my scrawny ass by the front of my shirt and jacked me up against the wall, screamed in my face, "You better get your shit together, son! Can't you see what you're doing to your mother and I?? What the fuck is wrong with you??" I didn't fight back although I wanted to. He tossed me around a bit and then let me go. I thought it was over but he went into my bedroom, started grabbing my stuff and throwing it out the front door into the yard. "You wanna be all independent and free? There! Go get it, boy! Be free! Get the fuck out of my house!" Christ it was humiliating and frightening. I managed to get a friend on the phone to come pick me up. I didn't even have my own car. I'd like to say that was the end of it. That we made a clean break from there but that is far from what happened. We'd make up, both apologize. Then we'd lock horns again. It was crazy.
After 3 months of working as a day laborer I was beginning to lose my mind. Ten to twelve hours a day out in the hot South Carolina sun digging ditches, running leaf blowers, weed-whackers, pulling weeds, picking up trash. I'd walk home to my parents' house, take a shower, get something to eat and call one of my friends to come rescue me. We'd drive out somewhere desolate, a local water tower was a favorite spot. We'd drink beer, smoke weed, talk about all kinds of crazy things. Things we wanted to do, see, touch, taste, hear. It was a visceral and electric time. I had no idea how I would get out of this place but I wanted out. And I wanted out yesterday. In addition to the drinking and drugs I lost myself in reading. It was a great escape. I'd been an avid reader since I first learned how. When I was a boy I read the typical boy stuff, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped!, Sherlock Holmes, those kinds of things. In my English classes in school we were assigned some fantastic books to read. I'd skip ahead. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stay on the one chapter we were studying. I had to know what was going to happen next. I wanted it all. I remember reading The Count of Monte Cristo, Brave New World, All Quiet on the Western Front, Canterbury Tales, The Mayor of Casterbridge and many others. At this point though I was reading titles that I had selected, volumes recommended by like-minded friends. It was a whirlwind of literature. J.D. Salinger was one of the first authors who took me by storm. I read all of his published work in no time. Then I read them again, then again. I was reading Jack Kerouac too. On the Road blew my mind into a million little pieces and then put the pieces back together again but in a different order, an entirely different makeup and operating system. I'd never be the same. I'd use the Kerouacian ideal as my life's template for years to come. I nailed the drinking and kicks, got the travelling down pretty good too. The actual writing though? That would have to wait. I had too much living to do.
Although Kerouac cast a large shadow in my reading life I read countless others, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, suffered though Joyce and Proust, read Wolfe only because Kerouac liked him then quickly realized I probably had a lot more in common with Wolfe than I did with Kerouac. Didn't matter though. I liked Kerouac's style better. I liked the spontaneity of it, the passion, the thirst, the enthusiasm, the easily disregarded and ridiculed grandiosity. I read and I read and I read. I tried to spend most of my time out of my parents house but when I was there I was in my bedroom with the door shut reading. I was long gone. My parents, god bless them, they didn't know what to do with me. We had some fantastic fights. Some real doozies. My Dad would say stuff like "Those damn books aren't going to pay your bills!" We would laugh about it later. Much later though. Like years and years and years later. At the time it was deadly serious. It was no laughing matter. Their son was throwing his life away and didn't seem to even give a fuck.
One night it got especially bad and our argument got physical. Dad grabbed my scrawny ass by the front of my shirt and jacked me up against the wall, screamed in my face, "You better get your shit together, son! Can't you see what you're doing to your mother and I?? What the fuck is wrong with you??" I didn't fight back although I wanted to. He tossed me around a bit and then let me go. I thought it was over but he went into my bedroom, started grabbing my stuff and throwing it out the front door into the yard. "You wanna be all independent and free? There! Go get it, boy! Be free! Get the fuck out of my house!" Christ it was humiliating and frightening. I managed to get a friend on the phone to come pick me up. I didn't even have my own car. I'd like to say that was the end of it. That we made a clean break from there but that is far from what happened. We'd make up, both apologize. Then we'd lock horns again. It was crazy.
Monday, January 4, 2010
"Fuck Math."
CDTM:
I never imagined I'd grow up to be chef. I never really had any idea of what I'd do for a living when I became an adult. As a boy I had a little journal my mother gave me that I filled out every school year. It was filled with questions to chronicle the years. One of the questions was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Every year I answered something different. The only answer I can remember was when I printed the word "hero" one year. Not a superhero. Not Superman, or Batman, or Spiderman. Just "hero." During my teenage years I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. It was a wild dream. Tony Hawk was just starting to be successful. Before that being a pro skateboarder didn't mean much financially. I remember when it was reported Tony Hawk was earning six figures a year by riding his skateboard. That's the norm now for professional skateboarders. Many are making seven figures. It's become a big business. I was a pretty good skater but nowhere near good enough to turn professional. During high school I took journalism classes and worked on the school newspaper. I began to think I might like to be a journalist. I was also interested in politics. I served in the student council and was even an officer my senior year. I ran in an election and got to serve as the Mayor of my hometown for the day. I appeared on the local evening news. I thought maybe I would study law and journalism and pursue a career in writing and politics. I also began writing as a hobby, poems mostly and a few short stories. I applied to the School of Journalism at the local university (University of South Carolina) but was not accepted. Instead I was offered enrollment at a satellite campus of the University in a small town called Aiken. I attended the school pretty regularly the first semester but by the second semester my mind began to wander. I would go to the school library and study things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the classes I was taking. I wasn't serious about school. I did well in English and Philosophy but failed the rest of my classes. I didn't even go to them and was too lazy or absent-minded to withdraw from them. At the end of my first (and only) year of college my parents asked me if I wanted to go back the next year. Would I really apply myself this time? Did I even want a college education? They were worried sick about me and deeply disappointed. My answer was "no."
If I have heard this once I've heard it a thousand times: "Matt is very intelligent but he just doesn't apply himself." When I was in second grade I was asked to take some sort of IQ test. I took the test with several of my classmates. When the results came back everyone else was accepted into the gifted program at my elementary school but me. One day a week they got to leave school and go to somewhere else for the day's classes. I don't know what they did. I had missed being accepted into the gifted program by one point. I wish they wouldn't have told me that. I was hurt. I honestly didn't give a crap about school after that and that was in second grade! I'm sensitive like that. I was able to coast through my school years with barely any effort on my part. I made A's in the things that I liked, B's in the things that I somewhat liked, and so on. I hated Math, still do. I struggled with all my Math classes. Even after I had graduated from high school my parents made me take Algebra II again in summer school, something about I needed it for "college prep" or something. I passed with a B but when I enrolled in college in the Fall I had to take it over again anyway. I went to the very first class, sat in the back. Not even five minutes went by and I got up and walked out. "Fuck Math," I thought.
The summer after that failed year of college I took a job for a landscaping company that was within walking distance of my parents house. I had to be there at 6 in the morning. I was the young punk suburban kid on the crew. All the other guys were older, had families, etc. I worked 10 to 12 hours a day making $3 and something an hour. I walked around all day with a weed-eater in my hands. It really, really sucked. All of my high school friends were enrolled in well-regarded colleges and universities and I was humiliated and pissed off at my circumstances. The "real world" that teachers and parents and other authority figures had been warning me about was staring me in the face. I sought refuge in bottles of beer, sex, marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs. I also kept reading and writing. I decided that I would become a writer, that I'd chart my own course. I had always been unconventional and non-conformist but I was about to take it to a completely different level. I was scared shitless. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't want a house in the suburbs with a shiny new car in the driveway. I was full of piss and vinegar. I wasn't ready to take on the world. I was ready to drop out. And that's pretty much exactly what I did.
I never imagined I'd grow up to be chef. I never really had any idea of what I'd do for a living when I became an adult. As a boy I had a little journal my mother gave me that I filled out every school year. It was filled with questions to chronicle the years. One of the questions was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Every year I answered something different. The only answer I can remember was when I printed the word "hero" one year. Not a superhero. Not Superman, or Batman, or Spiderman. Just "hero." During my teenage years I wanted to be a professional skateboarder. It was a wild dream. Tony Hawk was just starting to be successful. Before that being a pro skateboarder didn't mean much financially. I remember when it was reported Tony Hawk was earning six figures a year by riding his skateboard. That's the norm now for professional skateboarders. Many are making seven figures. It's become a big business. I was a pretty good skater but nowhere near good enough to turn professional. During high school I took journalism classes and worked on the school newspaper. I began to think I might like to be a journalist. I was also interested in politics. I served in the student council and was even an officer my senior year. I ran in an election and got to serve as the Mayor of my hometown for the day. I appeared on the local evening news. I thought maybe I would study law and journalism and pursue a career in writing and politics. I also began writing as a hobby, poems mostly and a few short stories. I applied to the School of Journalism at the local university (University of South Carolina) but was not accepted. Instead I was offered enrollment at a satellite campus of the University in a small town called Aiken. I attended the school pretty regularly the first semester but by the second semester my mind began to wander. I would go to the school library and study things that had nothing whatsoever to do with the classes I was taking. I wasn't serious about school. I did well in English and Philosophy but failed the rest of my classes. I didn't even go to them and was too lazy or absent-minded to withdraw from them. At the end of my first (and only) year of college my parents asked me if I wanted to go back the next year. Would I really apply myself this time? Did I even want a college education? They were worried sick about me and deeply disappointed. My answer was "no."
If I have heard this once I've heard it a thousand times: "Matt is very intelligent but he just doesn't apply himself." When I was in second grade I was asked to take some sort of IQ test. I took the test with several of my classmates. When the results came back everyone else was accepted into the gifted program at my elementary school but me. One day a week they got to leave school and go to somewhere else for the day's classes. I don't know what they did. I had missed being accepted into the gifted program by one point. I wish they wouldn't have told me that. I was hurt. I honestly didn't give a crap about school after that and that was in second grade! I'm sensitive like that. I was able to coast through my school years with barely any effort on my part. I made A's in the things that I liked, B's in the things that I somewhat liked, and so on. I hated Math, still do. I struggled with all my Math classes. Even after I had graduated from high school my parents made me take Algebra II again in summer school, something about I needed it for "college prep" or something. I passed with a B but when I enrolled in college in the Fall I had to take it over again anyway. I went to the very first class, sat in the back. Not even five minutes went by and I got up and walked out. "Fuck Math," I thought.
The summer after that failed year of college I took a job for a landscaping company that was within walking distance of my parents house. I had to be there at 6 in the morning. I was the young punk suburban kid on the crew. All the other guys were older, had families, etc. I worked 10 to 12 hours a day making $3 and something an hour. I walked around all day with a weed-eater in my hands. It really, really sucked. All of my high school friends were enrolled in well-regarded colleges and universities and I was humiliated and pissed off at my circumstances. The "real world" that teachers and parents and other authority figures had been warning me about was staring me in the face. I sought refuge in bottles of beer, sex, marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs. I also kept reading and writing. I decided that I would become a writer, that I'd chart my own course. I had always been unconventional and non-conformist but I was about to take it to a completely different level. I was scared shitless. I didn't want to grow up. I didn't want a house in the suburbs with a shiny new car in the driveway. I was full of piss and vinegar. I wasn't ready to take on the world. I was ready to drop out. And that's pretty much exactly what I did.
Seasonal Cooking Class Recipes 1.4.10
Cream of Parsnip Soup
4 cups parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 cup onion, peeled and chopped
¼ cup butter
¼ cup cream
2 ½ cup chicken stock
dash nutmeg
1 bay leaf
juice of 1 lemon
method: Gently cook onions and garlic in butter until soft and translucent. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add parsnips, bay leaf, nutmeg and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook until parsnips are tender. Puree with a stick blender, adding cream and seasoning with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Strain and serve.
Bourbon-glazed Beef Shortribs
method: Place shortribs in a large pot of cold salted water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Turn off heat and allow ribs to sit in the liquid until ready to use.
Bourbon Glaze
½ cup bourbon whiskey
¼ cup honey
¼ cup butter
method: Flambé whiskey in a sauté pan until alcohol is burned off. Add honey and stir until incorporated. Finish by stirring in butter until incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove shortribs from liquid, brush with glaze and roast on a baking pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, brush again with glaze and serve.
Vidalia Onion Rings
1 cup all purpose flour
2 T chile powder
3 T paprika
1 T garlic powder
1 t ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
1 T kosher salt
1 t ground black pepper
method: Slice onions into thin rings (1/8”). Coat in flour and fry in hot vegetable oil until crisp.
Banana Cream Pie
Pastry Cream
1 pint heavy cream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 t vanilla extract
method: Scald cream. Turn off heat. Mix sugar, egg yolks and vanilla in a bowl into smooth. Slowly add the scalded cream to the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Once incorporated completely return the mixture to the pot. With the heat on low cook until thick, stirring regularly until thickened. Remove from heat, transfer to a separate container and refrigerate until ready to use.
Prebake pastry shells by following the instructions on the box. Slice bananas and fold into pastry cream. Fill pastry shells, top with whipped cream, white chocolate shavings and serve.
recipes by Chef Matt Gillespie
www.chefmattgillespie.com
4 cups parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 cup onion, peeled and chopped
¼ cup butter
¼ cup cream
2 ½ cup chicken stock
dash nutmeg
1 bay leaf
juice of 1 lemon
method: Gently cook onions and garlic in butter until soft and translucent. Add white wine and reduce by half. Add parsnips, bay leaf, nutmeg and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook until parsnips are tender. Puree with a stick blender, adding cream and seasoning with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Strain and serve.
Bourbon-glazed Beef Shortribs
method: Place shortribs in a large pot of cold salted water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Turn off heat and allow ribs to sit in the liquid until ready to use.
Bourbon Glaze
½ cup bourbon whiskey
¼ cup honey
¼ cup butter
method: Flambé whiskey in a sauté pan until alcohol is burned off. Add honey and stir until incorporated. Finish by stirring in butter until incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove shortribs from liquid, brush with glaze and roast on a baking pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven, brush again with glaze and serve.
Vidalia Onion Rings
1 cup all purpose flour
2 T chile powder
3 T paprika
1 T garlic powder
1 t ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
1 T kosher salt
1 t ground black pepper
method: Slice onions into thin rings (1/8”). Coat in flour and fry in hot vegetable oil until crisp.
Banana Cream Pie
Pastry Cream
1 pint heavy cream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 t vanilla extract
method: Scald cream. Turn off heat. Mix sugar, egg yolks and vanilla in a bowl into smooth. Slowly add the scalded cream to the egg mixture, stirring constantly. Once incorporated completely return the mixture to the pot. With the heat on low cook until thick, stirring regularly until thickened. Remove from heat, transfer to a separate container and refrigerate until ready to use.
Prebake pastry shells by following the instructions on the box. Slice bananas and fold into pastry cream. Fill pastry shells, top with whipped cream, white chocolate shavings and serve.
recipes by Chef Matt Gillespie
www.chefmattgillespie.com
Sunday, January 3, 2010
"On the Road Again"
[Spent the afternoon at my parents' house with them, my sister and her family. So nice to all be together and to watch the kids open Christmas gifts. It's not often that I feel paternal urges but it happens every so often when I am around my nephews and neice. They really are a hoot, especially the twins, Luke and John. Dad played Santa and handed out gifts to everyone and they kids had a blast ripping open presents and playing with their new toys. It's always nice to see my sister Julie and her husband Wesley. They are really good people and I like being around them. Was also nice to see my mother surrounded by her grandkids and playing with their toys with them. They are such a source of happiness to her. Dad looked and sounded good excpet his face is still broken out with the rash. I don't know why bad things happen to good people. It doesn't seem fair but there's no sense in dwelling on the whys I guess. My Dad has never done anything to hurt anyone in his entire life. He's a great man, greater than I will probably ever be. I admire him so much. It's crazy how much I used to hate him when I was a teenager. God I was such a brat. Some of it was just your everyday run of the mill teenage crap but a lot of it was due to the disease of alcoholism. For most of my life I considered myself before everyone else. I was self-centered in the extreme. I wasn't always this way though. It took time to develop. By all accounts I was a very good child, sensitive, polite, kind, playful, good-natured. I'm not exactly sure what happened but my Mom has said that it seemed like one day I went off to school and another kid came home. This would have been when I was around 12 or 13. Perhaps not coincidentally this was around the same time I got drunk for the first time and started being sexually active with girls.
At one point during the day my Dad went outside to smoke and I followed him. Suffering from lung cancer and still smoking I know but what are you gonna do? We stood next to the garage out of sight of the kids and talked in the cold beneath bright blue skies and trees stripped of leaves. Their branches skeletal and shifting in the winter breeze. Dad said he'd been thinking about the farm and came up with an idea last night. He ran it by me to see what I thought. His idea is to buy a mobile home and put it in the upper field, a place where I'd told him years ago I wanted to build a house. Instead of trying to remake the cabin into something it was never intended to be he thought it more effecient to just put a pre-made structure up on the mountainside, put in a septic tank, central heating and air, pump water up from the spring box or dig a well. He'd make the investment and I could pay him rent to recoup the costs. I could live there while I'm starting my new life and building a real house. He's so much more realistic than me about things. I've always been a risk-taker and not afraid to just put myself out there on a limb, let the challenges come and I'll deal with them at that time, cross that bridge when I come to it kind of attitude. Often it's been burn that bridge when I come to it actually! He's wise. For years I thought I was smarter than him. He still tells me I am but I know I'm not. As far as I've come I know life has so much more to teach me. There is no substitute for time and experience. I've done a lot of living in my 37 years but he's done more in his 66 for sure.
Dad hasn't mentioned this little plan to my Mom yet and asked me to keep it quiet for now, to just think it over. It's a sound idea, more sound and plausible than trying to retrofit a one room summer cabin into a year round residence. It's 10 degrees at the farm today with a wind chill dipping down below zero. I check the weather up there everyday on weather.com to see what it's like up there. I've been up there in those conditions before, living in the cabin.]
CDTM:
When I was 23 years old I moved to the farm and made it 9 months. Come January a giant snowstorm blew in and dumped 40 inches of snow. It was so beautiful and surreal. The cabin sits in a valley a few hundred yards from the Bluestone River. The gravel and dirt road that serves as the driveway through our farm is steep and rutted. With 40" of snow laying on it we needed a bulldozer to get it clear. We got two separate 4 wheel drive pickup trucks with snowplows on the front stuck trying to push the snow away. Mammoth banks of snow piled up in just a few feet of scraping. It was crazy. For heat I had a wood-burning stove inserted into the fireplace and kept it going around the clock. In addition I turned on the electric heat registers. With the wood burning and the electric heat going I was able to get the inside temperature to a balmy 50-60 degrees. considering it was below zero outside with 40 inches of snow that wasn't half bad! Before the storm I had wisely parked my truck at the top of our road. I had chains which I used to make it into town and back so I wasn't stranded but in order to even get to my truck I had to hike a mile up our road through the snow drifts. I was 23 years old. I didn't care. It was an adventure. I had 3 quart mason jars filled with sticky, bright green buds of marijuana and an old refrigerator outside under the woodshed stocked full of homemade beer. Let it snow. I stayed stoned for weeks with my dog, my cat and my hillbilly neighbors. We played cards and darts, smoked joint after joint and drank up all my beer. I wasn't working at the time and once supplies started running low I decided it was time to leave. I packed a bag, locked up the cabin, put the cat inside my coat and climbed into the back of a friends 4 wheel drive. My dog jumped up beside me and we rode in the bed of the truck up the steep pass to my truck which waited at the top of the long hillside. Snow was still falling and the cat was kind of freaking out wondering what the hell was going on. I could see her little head inside my coat and flakes falling onto her whiskers. She was meowing and carrying on like the world was coming to end. Jack, my dog, didn't care. Hell, he was up for anything. Aslong as I was by his side he'd follow me into the gates of hell without hesitation. Mercifully we made it to the top of the hill and I loaded my little furry family into my truck, bid the neighbors adieu and drove the truck along the snowpacked two-lane state highway towards the interstate on ramp at Camp Creek. I stopped at the little general store where I had worked during the previous Spring and Summer and took the chains off the tires in preparation for the interstate 77, the road that originally took me and my family to South Carolina from West Virginia and would again this day. Jack lay curled up beside me on the truck's bench seat and the cat was still freaking out so I had to make a jerry-rigged pet carrier out of a cardboard beer box and stuff her in there. She still wailed and moaned but I just turned up the radio and drowned her out. The song was Willie Nelson belting out "On the Road Again." On the road again indeed but I had no idea how long that road would be at the time. I had no idea where it would take me. I just looked out the window and kept my eye fixed on the highway ahead.
At one point during the day my Dad went outside to smoke and I followed him. Suffering from lung cancer and still smoking I know but what are you gonna do? We stood next to the garage out of sight of the kids and talked in the cold beneath bright blue skies and trees stripped of leaves. Their branches skeletal and shifting in the winter breeze. Dad said he'd been thinking about the farm and came up with an idea last night. He ran it by me to see what I thought. His idea is to buy a mobile home and put it in the upper field, a place where I'd told him years ago I wanted to build a house. Instead of trying to remake the cabin into something it was never intended to be he thought it more effecient to just put a pre-made structure up on the mountainside, put in a septic tank, central heating and air, pump water up from the spring box or dig a well. He'd make the investment and I could pay him rent to recoup the costs. I could live there while I'm starting my new life and building a real house. He's so much more realistic than me about things. I've always been a risk-taker and not afraid to just put myself out there on a limb, let the challenges come and I'll deal with them at that time, cross that bridge when I come to it kind of attitude. Often it's been burn that bridge when I come to it actually! He's wise. For years I thought I was smarter than him. He still tells me I am but I know I'm not. As far as I've come I know life has so much more to teach me. There is no substitute for time and experience. I've done a lot of living in my 37 years but he's done more in his 66 for sure.
Dad hasn't mentioned this little plan to my Mom yet and asked me to keep it quiet for now, to just think it over. It's a sound idea, more sound and plausible than trying to retrofit a one room summer cabin into a year round residence. It's 10 degrees at the farm today with a wind chill dipping down below zero. I check the weather up there everyday on weather.com to see what it's like up there. I've been up there in those conditions before, living in the cabin.]
CDTM:
When I was 23 years old I moved to the farm and made it 9 months. Come January a giant snowstorm blew in and dumped 40 inches of snow. It was so beautiful and surreal. The cabin sits in a valley a few hundred yards from the Bluestone River. The gravel and dirt road that serves as the driveway through our farm is steep and rutted. With 40" of snow laying on it we needed a bulldozer to get it clear. We got two separate 4 wheel drive pickup trucks with snowplows on the front stuck trying to push the snow away. Mammoth banks of snow piled up in just a few feet of scraping. It was crazy. For heat I had a wood-burning stove inserted into the fireplace and kept it going around the clock. In addition I turned on the electric heat registers. With the wood burning and the electric heat going I was able to get the inside temperature to a balmy 50-60 degrees. considering it was below zero outside with 40 inches of snow that wasn't half bad! Before the storm I had wisely parked my truck at the top of our road. I had chains which I used to make it into town and back so I wasn't stranded but in order to even get to my truck I had to hike a mile up our road through the snow drifts. I was 23 years old. I didn't care. It was an adventure. I had 3 quart mason jars filled with sticky, bright green buds of marijuana and an old refrigerator outside under the woodshed stocked full of homemade beer. Let it snow. I stayed stoned for weeks with my dog, my cat and my hillbilly neighbors. We played cards and darts, smoked joint after joint and drank up all my beer. I wasn't working at the time and once supplies started running low I decided it was time to leave. I packed a bag, locked up the cabin, put the cat inside my coat and climbed into the back of a friends 4 wheel drive. My dog jumped up beside me and we rode in the bed of the truck up the steep pass to my truck which waited at the top of the long hillside. Snow was still falling and the cat was kind of freaking out wondering what the hell was going on. I could see her little head inside my coat and flakes falling onto her whiskers. She was meowing and carrying on like the world was coming to end. Jack, my dog, didn't care. Hell, he was up for anything. Aslong as I was by his side he'd follow me into the gates of hell without hesitation. Mercifully we made it to the top of the hill and I loaded my little furry family into my truck, bid the neighbors adieu and drove the truck along the snowpacked two-lane state highway towards the interstate on ramp at Camp Creek. I stopped at the little general store where I had worked during the previous Spring and Summer and took the chains off the tires in preparation for the interstate 77, the road that originally took me and my family to South Carolina from West Virginia and would again this day. Jack lay curled up beside me on the truck's bench seat and the cat was still freaking out so I had to make a jerry-rigged pet carrier out of a cardboard beer box and stuff her in there. She still wailed and moaned but I just turned up the radio and drowned her out. The song was Willie Nelson belting out "On the Road Again." On the road again indeed but I had no idea how long that road would be at the time. I had no idea where it would take me. I just looked out the window and kept my eye fixed on the highway ahead.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
The stranger things become
[Visited Mom and Dad today. Drove out to Irmo to watch the Gamecock football game with them. I don't really like watching the Gamecocks. They are a sorry-ass team but my parents root for them and it gave us an activity to do while visiting rather than just sitting there looking at each other. My Dad's face has broken out into a rash due to some medication he's taking. It looks like really bad acne. It should clear up soon though. He's getting a chest x-ray on Tuesday to check the status of the lung cancer, i.e. whether it's continuing to decrease in size, increase or stayed the same. Sitting there on the couch I told them about my job interview last week. Then I told them about my really wanting to live at the Farm. I've been dreading telling them but it's been weighing on my mind for months and months and months. They reacted exactly how I predicted. My Dad was quiet and reserved and my Mom cried. Immediately I felt badly for bringing it up. I know I've been a bright spot in their lives this past year especially and they want me to stay close. We talked about all the reasons for me not to go, how difficult it will be to find work, the fact that the cabin isn't really made for year-round living, all the same stuff. In the past I would have gotten pissed off at their nay-saying but not anymore. They make valid points and I have come to expect the resistance. It's not that they don't want me to be happy. It's just that they have always been more realistic about things than me, more conservative, more cautious. After a while of talking about it and suffering through watching my Mom cry I finally said, "Let's just think about the fact that I had a promising job interview last week and let the rest alone for a while." After I got home I got a phone call from my Dad. He told me that he and my Mom want me to be happy and that they will support me no matter what. He said he's really proud of me and all kinds of other nice things. I apologized again for bringing it up but he said it was okay and that he was glad we had talked about it.
Right now it's just another night alone here in the apartment in Columbia. I probably spend about 95% of my time alone. I eat alone. I work alone. I sleep alone. I go grocery shopping alone. I drive alone. I watch tv alone. I've never really minded being alone and often preferred it. I know it's not the best thing for me but for some reason it has become my default setting over these past few years. I lay in my bed with three comforters on top of me covering my entire body including my head and I think. I do some of my best thinking in this manner. I have insomnia. I've had it for years. It used to be much worse than it is now. Most nights I lay awake until 5am or so just laying in my bed thinking. I used to be a thrill-seeker. I used to be a do'er. Now I've become a thinker. I think think think. It's probably why all my hair has turned silvery gray!
The longer I get into this new sober life the stranger things become. Most of what I once accepted as gospel I now call hogwash. I'm not as certain as I used to be. I'm a lot more calm. I don't know if I've gotten softer or harder. A little bit of both I think if that makes any sense. I've assumed a world-weariness that suits my personality but at the same time I am more compassionate and thoughtful than I've ever been in the past. It's odd. I remember looking into the mirror all the time when I was 18 years old (often when I was stoned or tripping on acid.) I used to wonder what my life would turn out like. I never thought I'd grow old. Or if I did I just had no idea how I'd feel about things. I was so young, naive, so untouched. I thought I knew so much! I thought I had it all figured out! What a laugh! I looked into the mirror a short while ago and the face I saw looking back at me was that of a man. I'm no longer a boy even though my drinking and drug use stunted my emotional growth substantially. The past five years have been a crash course in being an adult. The last six months (since my father's cancer diagnosis) have been like graduate school in getting old.
I long for adventure. Today I have other people to consider, namely my parents. And the fear of becoming my mother's keeper when my father passes away is real and terrifying. I'm sure that is one of the reasons I feel a renewed sense of urgency about moving to the farm and starting a new life there. I love my mother dearly but she is a handful and I can easily see a co-dependent relationship brewing in the future. Like I said earlier life just gets more and more strange. When I first started staying sober I feared I would become "normal" or something. Maybe that has happened. I honestly don't know. Living sober is so upside down for me that maybe this is "normal" and I just think it's strange because I'm not used to it.
Thankfully the pain of the past year's breakup is beginning to wane. I still think about her every single day but the emotional grip that once held me hostage is beginning to loosen. For the life of me I still don't know what that was all about. I probably won't know either, not for a long time. I've basically resigned myself to the fact that I will most likely be single for a good long time to come. It doesn't make the lonely nights any easier, nor does it weaken the flame of desire for true love that burns inside me. I mean, what am I to do? Go on Match.com? Hahaha! Hit up the singles bars in town and be the creepy middle-aged guy? No thanks. It will happen when it's supposed to happen and not a moment sooner. But again, those thoughts don't fill the empty space in my bed at night, nor the empty space in my heart.]
Right now it's just another night alone here in the apartment in Columbia. I probably spend about 95% of my time alone. I eat alone. I work alone. I sleep alone. I go grocery shopping alone. I drive alone. I watch tv alone. I've never really minded being alone and often preferred it. I know it's not the best thing for me but for some reason it has become my default setting over these past few years. I lay in my bed with three comforters on top of me covering my entire body including my head and I think. I do some of my best thinking in this manner. I have insomnia. I've had it for years. It used to be much worse than it is now. Most nights I lay awake until 5am or so just laying in my bed thinking. I used to be a thrill-seeker. I used to be a do'er. Now I've become a thinker. I think think think. It's probably why all my hair has turned silvery gray!
The longer I get into this new sober life the stranger things become. Most of what I once accepted as gospel I now call hogwash. I'm not as certain as I used to be. I'm a lot more calm. I don't know if I've gotten softer or harder. A little bit of both I think if that makes any sense. I've assumed a world-weariness that suits my personality but at the same time I am more compassionate and thoughtful than I've ever been in the past. It's odd. I remember looking into the mirror all the time when I was 18 years old (often when I was stoned or tripping on acid.) I used to wonder what my life would turn out like. I never thought I'd grow old. Or if I did I just had no idea how I'd feel about things. I was so young, naive, so untouched. I thought I knew so much! I thought I had it all figured out! What a laugh! I looked into the mirror a short while ago and the face I saw looking back at me was that of a man. I'm no longer a boy even though my drinking and drug use stunted my emotional growth substantially. The past five years have been a crash course in being an adult. The last six months (since my father's cancer diagnosis) have been like graduate school in getting old.
I long for adventure. Today I have other people to consider, namely my parents. And the fear of becoming my mother's keeper when my father passes away is real and terrifying. I'm sure that is one of the reasons I feel a renewed sense of urgency about moving to the farm and starting a new life there. I love my mother dearly but she is a handful and I can easily see a co-dependent relationship brewing in the future. Like I said earlier life just gets more and more strange. When I first started staying sober I feared I would become "normal" or something. Maybe that has happened. I honestly don't know. Living sober is so upside down for me that maybe this is "normal" and I just think it's strange because I'm not used to it.
Thankfully the pain of the past year's breakup is beginning to wane. I still think about her every single day but the emotional grip that once held me hostage is beginning to loosen. For the life of me I still don't know what that was all about. I probably won't know either, not for a long time. I've basically resigned myself to the fact that I will most likely be single for a good long time to come. It doesn't make the lonely nights any easier, nor does it weaken the flame of desire for true love that burns inside me. I mean, what am I to do? Go on Match.com? Hahaha! Hit up the singles bars in town and be the creepy middle-aged guy? No thanks. It will happen when it's supposed to happen and not a moment sooner. But again, those thoughts don't fill the empty space in my bed at night, nor the empty space in my heart.]
Friday, January 1, 2010
"Home"
[The not knowing is always the hardest part I think. Catering is fizzling out. I'm looking for a job. Had an interview last week and it looks promising but it's hard to get jazzed about because what it all comes down to is that I don't want to be here anymore. I want to be at The Farm in WV. It just feels like home. It is home. Even when I am not there it is home. And so I've been feeling for a long time that I've just been biding my time until I return. I know it won't be easy. Like my Dad is fond of saying, "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it." But I feel it in my very soul and spirit that is the place where I am meant to be. I know this will sound ridiculously melodramatic but I know it is the place to make my stand, to live my dreams, to finally be at HOME. I can't overstate how much the notion of "home" resonates with me. I've not felt it in sooo long. I have an apartment here in SC, a rental. Like the Dido song goes "If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy I deserve nothing more than I get cause nothing I have is truly mine." or something like that. I'm ready for a home, a base, a place to plant roots, a place to make a stand. I don't want to do it here. I don't like this place that much. It's fine..I've made my peace with Columbia. For once I won't be running away. I'll be running to. And that makes all the difference.]
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