Flavor, blackouts and Memory Almost Full

Flavor, blackouts and Memory Almost Full 

Lately, I have been throwing myself into the very depths of understanding, the situational flavorings, and breaking free of using recipes. It would seem that as one chef put it, cooking from a recipe is no more than painting by numbers. I know in my heart, that my initial drive is something primal. I have to do it, I have to cook whatever that thing is that hits me like the fever. I’ve become powerless to resist. Suddenly I give in and I fall and keep falling. Then the wonderfulness happens. So, come on! I know who I am there, or at least, I’m knocking on the door. Thinking, analyzing, breathing, and tasting. Feeling the vibrations on the floor. The light breeze. It’s all there, all contributing. What it becomes is that taste that just may never happen again, and if you were here, you were here. You can never tell its story, you can never give it, sing it, or paint it. Maybe. 

I know Poppy Crum how right you are. I am talking about art. With my head in the clouds thinking and meditating, all of this tuning and acoustics of flavor. Uncle Paul is singing in my ear. At first, I did not think much of it as there has literally been a song in my head playing every nanosecond of my life. But the flavor is more than the ingredients, more than the atmosphere, the mood I am in, the season, the weather, and yes, how I will feel walking out of a restaurant on a crisp fall night, or a sweltering humid afternoon. That is a lot to be accountable for man! 

Paul’s voice, feet in the clouds, head on the ground. I realized what was playing in my head was the medley from the "Memory Almost Full" album. This was one of my favorite 21st-century McCartney compositions. The complexities of this medley are staggering. It will certainly take 1000 years to decipher Macca’s genius. 

We start with "Gratitude". I hear Paul’s voice of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s in this. The almost reconstructed musical transitions, that in another universe, and played underwater, listened to through a stethoscope against a glass wall, may be identified as something Zappa was demoing in a home studio, one night when he could not sleep. OK, maybe that’s out there, but this medley is so unprecedented, that it is taking me years to absorb. 

"Gratitude" is followed by a favorite of mine called "Vintage Clothes". It’s happy, it’s gritty, it’s got the carney element to it, and yes, I am afraid it has it all. I never want it to end, but of course, it must. But it does it in such a beautiful way, by which I mean, sort of clumsy, but in a sophisticated way. Instead of that expected climbing and heart-racing speeding around the corners of one of those coastal, California roads, that the star in the movie suddenly loses the brakes on, then arrives like Superman, landing with perfect balance, then, last note, then boom! “She came in through the bathroom window!“ Yeah, not here. In the transition from "Vintage Clothes" to "That Was Me" you might expect that "Abbey Road" and "Red Rose Speedway" interchange but instead, the instruments trip over the threshold in the doorway, and somehow pull that off perfectly! I said, clumsy, OK, but strangely it is clean, too! "That Was Me" is beautiful, hard, and driving, nothing stops it, and it declares I was here! I did it! That was me! 

I think it is a worthy pause between "That Was Me" and "Feet in the Clouds". There needs to be a division here, kind of like that very odd silence that would fill my childhood home before that first note would sound as the theme from "Perry Mason" would start playing on television. You’re in a different place now. This is a song about authority telling a young Paul. This is where he is supposed to be, but he is somewhere else. 

Why am I on this? This medley speaks to me on all of this study of what makes a successful and memorable meal. Food that is said to be made with love, not from habit or script. Something happened! I always say dining should be like snapping life out of the jaws of death! 

This medley from "Memory Almost Full" is the musical, lyrical, artisan expression of what I have been trying to wrap my head around. It is something I do, and yet I understand so little about it. My absolute need to hear the "Memory Almost Full" medley shows that my awareness of this cooking by season, weather, flavor, heart, soul, texture, atmosphere, and letting the night decide what the dish will do is an awakening giant for me. And so, dear friends, y’all need to stand back. …and I sure hope the power comes back on one of these days.

 

Pain, Poverty, Persistence and the Dirt

That ever-expanding explosion of injury that lacerates me again and again, finding constant aftermath of the storm in the light of a new dawn. I don't even know why I keep getting up. It is probably the same reason I kept running and fighting.  Trying to sustain flight in something that cannot fly is exhausting. It has taken so much from me. It has made me compromise precious time, somehow taking from me the things I fight to protect.  Living in a land called panic, developing skills like those of an artful dodger.  Should it be a trophy to be proud of such skills?  Or should it be just a shame that I needed to perfect them? 

Beneath a still watery surface, at great depths, pain wages a war that no one can see.  A universal battle that becomes all that I see, until I demand to subdue it so that I can see beyond its distractions. Believe me, it is short-lived.

There is a young man who keeps trying to make contact with me. He does not know it, but he has answers and wisdom. Time gets turned inside out and the messages have suffered degradation. I struggle to find vital pieces of the message. Sometimes, all I have is microscopic fragments like those Leonard displayed in Dear Heather.  With these very small pieces I try to fabricate a whole bridge, but all I have is Heather, legs, and drink. Is it my fault or his? No matter what, I am he. He is me. It’s true.

Obtaining that which seems unobtainable, I have hiked the long way around. Uncomplaining, steady, without breaking stride, making it seem like the results were just falling like drops of rain, gently watering a life. If I could I would see it now, and although I know that I do see it, I know I am still missing something.

I have to conclude that one can learn so much more from dirt than I ever thought possible.  It has opened the doors to dozens of mathematical questions.  The price you pay sometimes seemingly never ends.  Leonard summed this up well, "Looks like freedom but it feels like death, it's closing time."

The night of Angel of Harlem

 Something was different tonight.  Dad and I were on the smokey night of the Sail Club in Port Aransas, Texas.  I am not sure why we chose this bar since there are so many on the island to go to.  The Sail Club was nicknamed the Jail Club, suggesting that if you stayed till closing, you were probably going to jail.  Actually, I once cleaned this place out, by accident, but that is another story.

It was 1989.  I was 24.  I had a rough year.  I quit drinking back in October of 88.  For 7 months I managed to stay clean until I convinced myself that I was OK.  The fact that I had not drunk in that long clearly meant I could control it.  I felt like I was losing my connection with people close to me back in New Hampshire.  For that reason, I rationalized myself right back into my dependency.  Then I did the swan dive off into self-inflicted chaos.  Now, 2400 miles away, 3 months later, unimaginably, I was actually healing. I knew more than ever with no doubt left, not even a fraction of an atom, that I could not drink.  I was going to AA meetings.  I was showing up early, making coffee for the group, and embracing this lifeline that told me that just maybe, I was not dead.

You could count my sobriety in days here at the Sail Club, so why was I here?  My dad and I forged the strongest parts of our friendships in bars.  I am not joking.  Back when I was a kid, they used to still dye pistachio nuts red and when you ate them they would turn your fingertips red.  Bars always had 10-cent bubble gum machines filled with pistachios.  My dad would look at my fingers and say, "Oh man, your mother is going to know I brought you to a bar now."  We were here because he needed this and so did I.  I did not know that I needed it for a reason other than to make memories and grow our friendship.

He was usually pretty together, but tonight he seemed agitated.  Not at me, he loved me. He seemed especially annoyed with this guy I did not know. Both of them kept escalating hostilities and then would cool down a little.  Dad was drinking Lone Stars, and I was drinking a 32-ounce coffee from Ice Box, the local island convenience store.  

Something really was different tonight.  Yes, I was in a bar less than 2 weeks after giving up drinking in the aftermath of the ultimate destruction of my life, but I was OK.  The jukebox stopped and the noise of people talking made the place a little less ok. I walked over to the jukebox and looked around. There were songs that I would play any day and every time. But something jumped out at me. Something I would never normally play. I did it, Angel of Harlem by U2. I loved U2 in 1983, but now they just seemed overplayed. The opening rhythm guitar started followed by the signature percussion. As I walked back to the bar, I realized that I felt alive for the first time in what seemed to be years. I was truly sober, not just not drinking and feeling like there was a hole in my life. I was thinking clearly. I felt powerful, in control, and stealthily invincible.

At the bar, I could tell Dad was wondering why I played that. But it bounced and was liberating. It was a tribute song to Billy Holiday and had nothing to do with me, but for some reason, it worked. I actually knew who I was and that I would become so much more than I ever was. I was a canvas ready for whatever happened next. I was ready. For the first time, it was not going to happen to me, I was going to make things happen.

As the song picked up everyone in the dark club, the liquor bottles glittered their reflections back at all of us. We were all going to different places and some of us were staying. Dad and his annoyance escalated again into another standoff.  I jumped in between them. “No, this is not happening,” I told Dad we really should go as I saw this only getting worse.  Fortunately, he listened.

It may seem strange that in that one moment in time, I knew I placed my addiction where it needed to stay. I knew I was good. Many people would say it is foolish to go into a bar days after quitting drinking, but this is how I had to do it. Foot to the floor, a game of chicken with the enemy. It is the only way I could have done it. I have since learned that every time I push past my breaking point, the wall at the point is only something holding me back from my real potential.

It wasn’t long after this that I went back to New Hampshire. I often wonder if Dad would have survived past 1996 had I just stayed. He was asking questions. I know he was proud to see me beating addiction. I know that the “what ifs” will torture me endlessly if I allow them.

This was the last time that I ever attended the Sail Club. Many lost nights were spent here listening to live music and drinking a lot of beer. Each time I hear Angel of Harlem play, I am there. 1989 Port Aransas, staking my claim on a life that until then, I allowed to steer me. That is the night I started a new life.

The echoes are loud

 It is one of those weeks of gravity.  The heaviest of days rises into view on the horizon. Heavy for me, but billions of times heavier for a dear friend. It is a reminder that one moment in time can change the entire history of the world. It can bend time and rewrite your very story. It seeps into our memories without mercy that it can actually change the brightness of the sun in days passed. Now, today I stand as tattered as ever. I have accumulated more darkness in my heart. But this is not about me.  My experience is a joke if compared. Like the fallout from an atomic bomb, I have not fallen, but I still feel it. I cannot imagine, yet it was so close that I almost did.  The echoes are loud. 

Isolation

 Sunday.

Changes for the weather ahead. I'm going camping today. Of course, the weather is about to change. If I am going to camp, it will rain...Say it again with me, IT WILL RAIN. I seriously am starting to think that if you could just send me to the drought-stricken areas around the globe and let me camp there, I can fix it for them.  

I am doing this outing alone.  We don't usually ever do that, but I have not done anything at all this year.  No vacations, weekend getaways, nothing, just a slave to the dump truck loads of dirt that my yard desperately needs broken cars and trees that need to come down and a few other things.  Donna got to go to Maine the week before, so it was her suggestion that I go since one of our brand-new cats broke down.  She was staying home to take very good care of him (we have gone through a lot of names for him) Leaf, Sorra, Tigger, Tarzan, but my favorite and I am fighting for it to stick is Roo.

After forgetting a chair, sneakers, and charcoal (an afterthought) I quickly ran home and resupplied. What would be cool to cook? Usually, steak is a nice and simple cooking solution. I would like to try out my Coleman dual-fuel stove. 

 There is no sun now. The clouds cover the sky like my list of things to do, in which search as much as you possibly can, you cannot find the end, the edge, the beginning, the terminus. 

Considering steak smothered in onions tonight. I guess I could have tried frozen or canned mushrooms. These are things we need to think about today for the road ahead. Can you take that can stuff and make a phenomenal meal with it? That is what it comes down to. Have you talked to any Midwest farmers lately?  There is a problem.

I love food podcasts that are more informational than entertainment. The more you know, right? Talking about cashews on the kitchen counter podcast. The work that goes into them I had no idea!

 Very soon, I will need to get a fire started so I can cook the steak. I feel stuck. I am not moving forward, and even relaxation is a task that I do not even know how to kick off. I wanted Samin Nosrat's book, Salt Fat Acid Heat with me tonight. But I forgot it. Oh well, I will glean elsewhere, I think. 

 Okay, so improvisation. I was home to pick up the things I forgot, plates, chairs, charcoal. I grabbed the canola oil from the camper, however, while making dinner back at the site I realized that the canola oil was nowhere to be found. I did not pack butter either! The steak had quite a nice fat margin on one side of it. No chef or Bushcraft knife either, but I did have one seriously mean Asian cleaver in my chef's toolbox. I removed the strip of fat and chopped it into 1-inch segments. I placed it into the cast iron skillet along with a piece of cooked bacon that I would be using as part of tomorrow's breakfast. Coated the pan enough to saute chopped cabbage and sliced red onion. Once cooked down, I found a soy sauce packet in the toolbox as well as a sesame oil packet. Both in, stirring in a little salt and pepper. This worked. It was done just in time to meet back up with the steak that I had cooked on the state park hibachi over dead fallen sticks and Kingsford briquettes. Somehow I also forgot a fork but you know me, I have enough chopsticks for about 12 place settings at any given time. This works too. The thing I like about chopsticks is that they double as tongs, which is excellent because they are multitaskers. I love them. Although I also carry real, not disposable chopsticks in the toolbox, the chopsticks I am using tonight are disposable. When I was done with them, into the fire they went. Cleans up in a jiffy! How can you not love that? I absolutely love contingency. 

This may sound twisted, but a worthy punishment for me when I was 11 to 12 years old was to forfeit the light bulbs from my room as well as my radio. Radio was my life, but I took the sentence like a man, not because I was formidable at enduring hardship, but because I thrived on contingency!  Not sure why other than we lived a pretty lean life back in those days.  I actually loved the challenge of finding ways to still have light and yes, even radio. Flashlights even back then were all around so that was easy, but the fact that I had one in my possession meant moving to my base of operation into the closet. Little light little space, perfect then, radio was another challenge. Radios in the 1970s could be small, but they cost money, and that was something we did not have. My radio was a 1962 Lafayette shortwave with an AM band. It was larger than a breadbox and was quite heavy as it was metal and glass and was full of glass vacuum tubes. 

In the summer of 1977, I got an Emerson AM FM cassette player recorder nonetheless, I was grounded, and I did not have these. I did have a crystal radio, which did not even look like a radio. It was a very primitive device consisting of a couple of circuits and a tiny Crystal that you would connect to an earphone and could barely hear AM radio stations.   Back then, they were the social media of the day and played top 40.  It required no electricity of any kind. All you needed to do was clip it to a ground source such as the old iron steam heat pipe that came up through the closet wall. The Battle Bridge if you will. 

There was some compromise on my part in doing this. When I had my regular radios, I reached across the night stratosphere, across the hills of Western Connecticut, and across nearly 400 miles of New York State. I plucked WKBW 1520 AM from Buffalo New York out of the sky. The crystal radio was far weaker. I would have to listen to the local Torrington station, WSNG, or WDRC in Hartford. But I had something and that was what counted. It was fascinating to me, I could almost be giddy about this! These were the days in which I first learned that stealth and suggested perceptions are powerful things. So when there is no butter, oil, cooking spray, or shortening,  I don't care. Somehow, somehow I will get this meal on the plate.

Monday, September 5th. What are all these strange years I am writing in this book? Did age occur to everyone in my family as it is for me?  I am for lack of a better term, not half the person I used to be physically.  All those years I wrote, "1970s, the 1980s", and even the messed up "90s" were all a cakewalk compared to the post-apocalyptic disaster of the now.  Yesterday, I was talking about expedient methods.  It is nice to see that I have not lost my edge. I opened my old Coleman stainless steel percolator to find that it was not clean this morning!  I heated up a little water in it, added soap, then cleaned it.  There were however sections of the funnel part that left me unsettled, especially since I was unsure what it was in the pot in the first place, having not used it in almost a year.  Employing old Army field expediency, I reached to the ground took a good pinch of sand off the ground, and put it in the pot under the wet paper towel I was cleaning with.  The grit instantly removes the offending marks with ease.  Rinse, and wash again, and we were good to go.  No one dies today. Really, why don't I keep a cup of sand by the kitchen sink?  

As I sit here, listening to the rain falling on the woods, and sipping coffee, there is another sound.  It is the Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts families packing up to embark on their miserable rainy journey down the interstate.  We all did it.  I did it back in the 80s and yes, gas was 89 cents a gallon and it was totally worth it.  I suspect at $3.84 a gallon it would still be worth it. 

I had a funny thought this morning.  It was that I had not allowed myself the alone time that I needed in life. I mean like this, sipping coffee, listening to the endless staccato of rain on the mountains. In 1986, in my recording studio days, I was alone.  Did I like it? I am so much like my father I would have to say. I loved to be alone, but then I would binge people later on. 

The spring of 1983. On Friday, April 15th, we drove up to East Canaan Connecticut.  It was the start of a new camping season.  I could not have been happier.  After all, I was 17.  Over the winter, I bought a Voyager Hi-Lo camper from the campground for $200.00.  I was going to be on my own all summer.  I worked at the campground during the season after the school year ended.  I had a great group of friends who also worked at the campground.  I had saved up money to buy a week's worth of food. I was going to stay at the campground for a beautiful warm spring week while on spring break from my wretched high school in the depressed, rusted, and morbid city of Waterbury, Connecticut.

On Saturday I helped my parents set up their new pop-up on their site I also helped all of their neighbors too. That is how I was. We were raking cubic yard after cubic yard of leaves it started pouring that day but I continued to rake and do my part because I knew when I was done I could go down the hill to my own little camper that was currently parked outside the campground corral and enjoy my space for the first time in my life. The campground was going to give me a site this week to park it on. Sometime around 6 PM, the hard rain was met by a cold front and the raindrops turned to snowflakes the size of silver dollars. All of my friends around my age packed themselves into my little camper. We made warm drinks on the stove ate snacks played music. We laughed and told stories about our winters. It was the promise of a great year. We lost power that night as the trees took down a lot of power lines. It was over a foot of snow on the ground at daybreak. 

All of the families left the campground Sunday, including mine. I was going to start my beautiful spring week up in East Canaan. But it wasn’t a nice spring week it was a barren, desolate, last guy left on the international space station sort of loneliness. I heard great new artists come out. It was the first time I ever heard of the band called U2. Sunday Bloody Sunday which was the same title as a John Lennon song about the same subject. I lived alone with my thoughts for a week and my radio me and my Writing. It was actually pretty amazing. I kept the camper warm with a pot of water on the stove burner not yet knowing how to run a furnace in a camper. I listened to Men at Work, Aldo Nova, and WPYX in Albany. I loved this week. It felt so good to be isolated.

I sometimes think a thru-hike of the AT, CDT, or PCT would be hard for me psychologically, but when I think of those past times in isolation, I realize that sort of alone time could be incredibly regenerating. Don't get me wrong, sharing is the best. When you create a fantastic meal, and there is a bunch of it, how much better is it to share with others? I think this is why I am drawn to Korean food. Their food is about sharing and celebrating life family and respect.

The passing of seasons

 I always thought it would be easier to live after the cats were gone. We were always saying that we were not going to do it again. Very smugly taking beautiful things for granted. Even Donna said, we just did not understand how exceptional they were. Lava's final cries in pain were of death itself, I just know it, and they were the most harrowing sound I have ever heard. It tears me to the core.  Doctor House was right though, there is no dignity in dying, we all do it alone and it's ugly and horrifically terrible. The only thing we can do is live with dignity. 

Our daily numbness makes us not even do that so well. And in Goodbye, Farewell, Amen, there were light points and deep ones too. Even in hardship, we can take the good for granted. Hardship, well yes, it can have lasting effects. And that is on a chemical level. I heard a summary of societal decade disintegration. I know this all means something yet I am losing the drive to put the idea into a summary. Everything is a mad rush to stay steps ahead of the predator. My elaborate propane system, combat finance strategies, racing the first snowfall, and of course,  paying my rent every day in the tower of song. 

Sadness always brings words. I love words but I do not like the sadness that they ride in on. I think John Lennon said it best in the song I know from 1973. "The years pass by so quickly, one thing I've understood, is I'm only learning to tell the tree from wood." It's like that, you travel so far, only to realize that just maybe you are only just beginning to learn something. What a raw deal that is! Inside fueling the engines there is the rage in the cage, so carefully accessed just like an internal combustion engine. Gives a whole new meaning to Joe Walsh's words "I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime." 

Taking things for granted is like Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away. "He said a bad day is one in which I lay in bed and think about things that might have been." And so many ways, that burning of seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years. I know what that regret will be. So here it is Wednesday. Before the Nights in White Satin and before the Late Lament, can you change what "bedsitter people" will think of? Can you change just a little of this? As I saw with Lava in these last lonely cries, the Late Lament does not take its time, it is not a time of peaceful reflection. It is like being hit by a car. The moments after being so awful and so lonely. Rose Tyler figured it out she could not save her dad, all she could do was make him feel just a little less alone when the moment came. That's all. 

Some days you hit that coffee mark perfectly and other days you think you did but you did not. Harry Callahan asked a detective as he arrived at the diner back in 1984 if coffee could determine a day's worth. 

In all the reflection one can have, there really is only one relevant question, and that is: where do we go from here? Knowing all we know is the total sum of wisdom. What do we do next? Do it now, make it count. In reflection, but looking to draw wisdom from scraped knees and massive falls, I think I might pick an album out each day. It could lead to things to write about. To take my boys sometime in the future on a trip with me to decades before they were even born. "The world's gone crazy nobody gives a damn anymore and they're breaking off relationships and leaving on sailing ships for far and distant shores. For them, it's all over, but I'm going to stay. I wouldn't leave anyway, I know that someday, we'll find a way, we'll be okay." Those words from Ray Davies in 1978 on the Sleepwalker album.  Why did I mention it?  It has been playing in my head since 3:30 this morning.   I totally hear the rain on the rooftop. It has the sounds of autumn to it. If last year has taught me anything, I have learned that you cannot predict what the coming fall and Winter hold. I remember how Rosilee loved my 1982 piece "The Orange Leaf." She saw the words how I intended them to be seen.  They were so profound to her, with the impact of war.  I sent it to Yankee Magazine back then, and they responded with static.  As deep as I thought they might be, of course, they were not.  If you are deep, if you hear the words for what they really are, you know, they must be respected.  

For a beautiful little girl

 Dear Lava,

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love you and how grateful I am that you came into our lives. You brought so much joy to the childhoods of my sons into our family. You were our little Alpha. You owned them all and you were fantastic at it. There were things we never could quite understand, like how you used to try to kill your brother if he got outside because he smelled different. How you love being brushed and did not want to be at the same time. 

Every morning you were at the top of the stairs as I started my day. You complained to me at night when you wanted me to go to bed so you could sleep in the recliner. 

Lava, you were there through good and bad times. From Mom and the kids bringing you out to the camper to do homeschooling, to being there when Noah came home after three weeks in the ICU. I will never forget how Noah cried when you acted like you did not know him when he got home, but you both worked it out. I loved how you used to walk under the dogs' chins, brushing your tail under their faces and reminding them who was really in charge. The look in their eyes showed that they totally understood. You were affectionate and on your terms always. 

You taught me more things than I ever thought possible. It's funny how such a small being can teach us so much. Some of these go pretty deep too. In the hours after we laid you to rest, I scrolled through my phone to see the last photo I took of you. March 5th, I was ashamed of this. It means I take way too much for granted and worry and complain about how much I have to do. I am sorry for that my little friend. I am sorry on a much larger scale that I know will take time to understand. 

The loss of your brother about a year ago did make me focus on you more. I know that I appreciated you more during that time and we got along better than ever. Our beautiful girl, you were so much more than a family pet. You were a defining and essential part of the forming of the people my sons are, each in their own right. One of the most tragically beautiful moments I have ever known is the relief I felt when Liam arrived just after we lost you. That little boy who would place you on top of his head and walk all over the house holding you steady by your front paws. His tender but fierce love was evident as he took the time he needed to say goodbye. Liam's love, which I say comes with so much self-sacrifice and so much honor was so defined by your years with us. Somehow you showed us the inner light that is in Haylie too, not only in her love for you but how she is there for Liam. 

Lava, one thousand thank-yous are not enough to acknowledge the incredible difference you have made for our family. I somehow know that when it comes to you and your crazy brother, this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. I can't imagine we will ever love a cat as much as we have loved you. I can't foresee that one will ever hold such an important job as the one that you had and did so well. 

For every moment I acted like you would just be here always and did not show how appreciated you really were, I am truly sorry my little girl. You were amazing and one of the biggest souls I have ever encountered. Thanks to you, I realize that a life raising your children is a perfect assembling of little parts that are so important.  I miss you and I love you.

and this happened yesterday!

 Yes, there are many hurdles ahead, but this is my declaration that I AM DOING THIS.  Appropriately so, I was at the Miracle Mile Listen Center (regional thrift store) and scored one of the most important books in the world to a professional chef, and what was to be my next printed acquisition on Amazon, The Flavor Bible, for one dollar!  This means I have the CIA official textbook, The New Professional Chef, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and now this one.  These are in the top 6 all-time required chef references.  

In other news, I was had, sort of.  Let's just say, "I see cooking stuff"

吃苦: No I'm Not Afraid

 Someone told me the other day that I am the kind of person people write books about.  There is no doubt there have been times, especially in Port Aransas, in which I can see that.  I have this lingering wonder what the name of my book would be called. "Blind Date" is what keeps coming to mind. Why? In 1984 I read a book, from the late 70s called Blind Date. The book was about a Russian who immigrated to the United States. The things that stood out in that book were the wild shifts in the main character's life, just like mine. 

A friend from Russia eventually makes it to New York and invites him to his humble little studio apartment for dinner.  Our main character notices that the recipe has an odd taste and inquires about what is in it.  "I found the Smiling Dog brand canned meat at the grocery store just like they have back home in Russia," says the host proudly. In the 1970s there was a brand of canned dog food called Strongheart, which featured a German Sheppard seemingly smiling.

At some point later they go out to a bar in the city.  They are speaking Russian at a table in the corner when a patron approaches and inquires about what language they are speaking.  His friend replies, "We are speaking Eskimo!" The patron steps up on the stage in front of the microphone and says, "I wonder if one of these gentlemen would be so kind as to say a few words in their beautiful Eskimo language for all of us?"

The friend walks up to the stage and then passionately swears a blue streak in Russian. The bar crowd is mesmerized until a man from the back of the bar who obviously understood Russian explodes in a fiery rage and chases the two men off the premises. 

I am not totally sure why I feel I identify with the main character who was not the person who cooked dog food and swears at innocent customers. But in many ways, my life has felt like a blind date. If anything, my life has been one of endless improv. So why would I not be willing to step out into the unknown?  I am absolutely going to take those steps: LLC, catering license, food stand license.  You know it's worth it.

Holding one of those Asian cleavers makes me wonder if I should work out with small weights to condition muscles in the arms and hands, these things are really heavy. At my age, I do not have time to fool around with slow culinary programs.  I watch these CIA boot camp cadets handling spoons, bowls, and knives like they are taking a drag off a cigar they know will probably explode in their faces. They are so unstable. That is not me.  I am and have been for over 30 years the "act like you know" guy. I think I have done a pretty good job overall too.  "And so you see...That is, as they say, is that." Gosh! Who even wrote that line for Trek 4?  Acted out by Catherine Hicks.  I guess she did that as good as anyone ever could. I digress.

Most importantly, I earned my confidence in cooking.  Many missed marks in texture, appearance, or flavor have been the building blocks to the successes. I have in effect 吃苦, known as Chi Ku. Translated means 'eat bitter" or "eating bitterness". It means to endure hardship with a good attitude and the wins will taste much sweeter. A Chinese "no pain no gain" if you will. But more so, to endure through the trials that you change the threshold. My favorite chef, (don't tell her I called her that) June Xie referenced this when talking about her father. She said that he suggested if you do not have enough 吃苦, your small challenge will make you feel broken.

It is a beautiful thought really. I would not trade the difficult times for anything, it is from them that I truly learn. I knew this all along, but I got to see the exploded view of this 4 years ago when the Crawford family from Bellvue, KY hiked the Appalachian trail with their 6 kids ages 2-16. All of the stereotypical "cautions" were inflicted upon them, which were hardships in themselves and I would dare say, far more injurious than any mountain, storm, or unfiltered water could ever be. It was that these children were not sheltered from every single thing their parents could anticipate. No, these are rare specimens of parents, yes, rogue copies that made it off the assembly line, not following "the man" programming routines. They allowed their children to experience discomfort because that is where the learning truly happens.

OK, I get it. The 吃苦 is an intricate part of the journey. Burning steak, having pork belly not produce a beautiful crackling, having the hollandaise sauce never come together, yes no matter how much I stir it is separate ingredients spinning around in a bowl. So, getting licenses and insurance is also a part of this. Getting up in front of 165, 6, 300, or more people and serving them IS ALL THE SAME JOURNEY. It is 吃苦, and it is needed and required to be where I want to be. The bottom line is, that it is supposed to feel uncomfortable! I think about the difference between the first live cooking class and then the next. Amazing what a little shaking in your boots can do...Well socks, we don't wear shoes in the house.

I will not back down. I am still in the game. I am 吃苦.

Falling Down

I guess you could say that I am a guy who fell down the hole.  16 years ago in the summer of 06, we were just discovering the depths of my 6-month-old Noah’s chronic asthma. Those days were like learning that there was a threat and then later you learned the threat belonged to you. During those early late-night ER runs to DHMC, I noticed that there was something wrong with me. I had pain, I was limping and some of it seemed to be lower back related. I blew it off because I figured this was something residual from when I had back surgery back in 2000. Noah had something serious to deal with. This needed all of our attention.  I wanted denial to make it go away but it was becoming clear that it was not going to happen that way. 

The summer progressed and things began to get even weirder. There was an ill-fated trip to camp in Maine (without reservations) that did not work out.  We ended up driving all the way back home through the night.  I recall having to stop for 20 minutes at one point and noticing this strange almost tendril-like resonation wrapping like fingers around my skull that started at the back of my neck. so many of these oddities I kept dismissing since raising a seven-month-old and a three-year-old was distracting enough. I started to notice that my fingertips to halfway up my arms I had this tremendous pain as if I had my arms submerged and 200° water. It grew and became center stage. I began to wonder if carpal tunnel was like this and if it was, then I have not understood how severe it was or taking things seriously enough! As the weeks went by, all of my joints began to burn and swell. I started to suspect that I had Lyme disease. I made a VA hospital appointment. They referred me to rheumatology, six weeks out. They took blood and sent me away to fend for myself for the next six weeks. 

As we crossed into the fall of 2006, I could not exist in a day unless I ate ibuprofen like it was candy. My range of motion quickly closed in on me and before I knew it, I could not move. I REALLY could not move! It took tremendous effort to get out of bed. I had to take a steaming hot bath to start my day. I could not dress myself anymore. My joints would dislocate with minimum impact. I was just about to turn 41, and my life was over. We had a baby and now, I was going to be this huge burden.

 I worked on a dirt road in Weathersfield Vermont. On a crisp clear fall day, you could look east from that road and across the river at Claremont New Hampshire. I could actually make myself walk 3 miles during lunchtime. At first, I could not walk at all, but each day I would force myself to walk as normally as I possibly could. After a while, my stride and range of motion would open up and for that hour in the brilliant autumn sun, I was normal again. The fall colors and the smells surrounded me. Sadly, 20 minutes after I sat down at my desk, I was 110 years old again. 

When I look back on this, I think I took some chances, like hiking my little family down to Silver Lake up in Goshen Vermont where my family and I used to camp in the late 60s and early 70s in an old bus. 

Finally, six weeks passed of me dealing with this mess every day. On that day of my appointment in rheumatology, I wanted them to see it for what it really was, without any painkillers, or anti-inflammatories. I brazenly did not take any of these things and even worse I was told to fast after midnight. I spent the day up there, full-on flare from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. It was brutal! We had to wait for results to come in from the lab and then meds. 

It was confirmed that I had rheumatoid arthritis. I was to immediately start steroids and then a cancer drug called methotrexate. RA is when your immune system malfunctions and your white blood cells get overactive and identify your joints as a threat and eat away at them like acid. You were left with degraded joints, bone on bone, crippled and disfigured. Methotrexate suppresses your immune system, makes half your hair fall out, and makes you more susceptible to catching viral infections. 

After doing everything I needed to do at the VA, my body was one giant scream, like the painting. Of course, I did not have any money on me and with my sugar levels in the basement, I needed to find food fast. My careful scientific analysis determined that a #2 value meal at McDonald’s would probably fix this quick, fast, and in a hurry. I also needed ibuprofen and water. My plan was fairly simple. I went to Walmart in West Lebanon, got a bottle of Dasani, and wrote a check for $20 over the amount. This would buy the food I needed and put something into my stomach with the ibuprofen. 

I got out 800 mg of ibuprofen and went to open the bottle of water. My compromised joints just hurt and flexed in unhealthy ways. I was this close to the first step of not wishing I would die right here and right now. I could not even open a simple bottle of water!

 I found a young cashier. I felt very odd asking for help. At face value, I looked like I was capable and still looked like I was in my 30s. I held the bottle out to her, “I know this seems like a strange request, but could you please open this?" She opened it right up and I was so grateful. I then went on to McDonald’s and by the time I got home, I was pretty close to my usual in-pain self. I started the steroids at night and within a couple of days, it was like the thing never happened to me. 

In the weeks, months, and years that followed, I learned how to manage this alien thing that had control of me. I played with medication times and days. There are so many people who cannot handle methotrexate. My new limitations were something that I had to come to terms with. In my first year, I could not imagine making it another 20 years. There were not a lot of long-term studies about RA so it all seemed pretty hopeless. I really thought that I was doomed and this was not going to end well.  The meds scared me and I had to really force myself to start them in the first place. I observed other people who had what I had and tried other methods of dealing with it and even some who chose surgical options. It was really not a good thing. 

I decided a couple of years into this thing that the only way that I was going to live with this was to handle it the same way I handled all serious challenges. Anger and rage beat my greatest demons. I knew this was how I would survive. I would not lie down and just let it take me. 

In my life, I have gleaned some of the best methods from the most abstract of sources. For me, it was the words of the outlaw Josey Wales that made such a difference in my life.“When things look bad and it looks like you’re not going to make it, then you got to get mad, I mean plum mad dog mean, because if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is."

 With those words, I made it out of my 20s alive, I quit smoking for good and they are what allow me to do anything even when I feel that I cannot. When the pain is too much for me, my rage pushes me hard to move on through it, like a car driving through a showroom window. It may not be the most eloquent solution, but it has allowed the 16 years with RA to be possible and on my terms. Most importantly, it has allowed me to not be a burden on my family and for my sons to have a father.  I cannot put a value on that and I would not change it for anything.

Much more to an old comfort

 Day four of Covid. I have watched half seasons of TV shows just simply to make them go away. But the real comfort is found in what I always do when I am sick. I watch old episodes of M*A*S*H.   Watching each episode is like finding pieces of myself that I have not seen in 40 or 50 years. Like a large glass vase that shattered into hundreds of pieces. These pieces of me lay on a desolate floor that is untouched by the passage of time. The theme music, sounds, and visuals were such a peg in the contemporary consciousness of who we were in the 1970s and 1980s. I have an associative memory.  My memories of every moment of my life are stored secretly in the things I was seeing and the sounds that I was hearing.  This causes so many things to start coming back to me. The shards of my young self are in these pieces of glass, the sounds, the images, and my associative memory take me back in time to my grandmother's house.  I can hear her talking with my sisters in the kitchen.  I can smell the food she is cooking.  I see my dad‘s and my mom‘s young faces. I feel closer to my 15-year-old self than I have in years.  I know deep down that I am given a second chance at a memory that I have not had of Dad or Grandma in decades. Of all the gifts one can receive, this is priceless. I don’t really know what I am going to find but I know that I look forward to it.

 An interesting observation regarding M*A*S*H back in 2020. I recall a Facebook post about the show. So many people chimed in with very heartfelt sentimental memories. One person replied, “I have never watched it and I never will. I do not think war is funny!“ Of course, I bristled at this statement. He was putting M*A*S*H down for glorifying war or making fun of the suffering. Of course, M*A*S*H was the exact opposite of that, and it made its anti-war statement with such craft. So I responded that had he ever watched M*A*S*H he would know that it was actually the all-time anti-war show. They used its incredible popularity to show the absolute senselessness of war. How politicians and generals mastered sending young people away to die in war and that outcomes were measured in mathematical equations. It showed the innocence of those involved, a stark human view, stripped free of all the facade.  In a television show that lasted 3 times longer than the war it depicted, the creators of this masterpiece had the opportunity to take war apart with molecular honesty. The angle at which its story was told was beautiful as well. The story shifted to interesting perspectives in so many creative ways, but over all, it was told by a bunch of people who never asked for any of this and had placed before them a conveyor belt of young boys on the edge of death. What came next was the incredible sacrifice of everything that made up these doctors and nurses in an effort to not lose another one. I can recall instantly two episodes in which the war was infiltrating their dreams. I have no doubt this would happen to me if I were in the shoes of those doctors. I once got to see one of these units in Saudi Arabia. They are actually called CASH units (Combat Army Surgical Hospital). I delivered a truckload of supplies from Log Base Alpha. 

I’m glad I responded to the Facebook commenter this way because I received a reply from him that said “I did not realize this. I will have to give it a try sometime.

M*A*S*H gave us so much and I have a feeling that as far as my own personal memories are concerned, it has yet to give more.  But today, I want to just say thank you for the sick day comfort it provides.  M*A*S*H is like a warm familiar blanket.

Please Don't Pass the Potatoes

 Every now and then, I feel like I might be losing my identity.  It started innocently enough today while I was in my 8th hour of splitting wood this weekend. I was listening to the Splendid Table podcast episode 758: Summer Parties with Nicole A. Taylor.  She is the author of the new cookbook, Watermelon and Red Birds, and also The Up South Cookbook: Chasing Dixie in a Brooklyn Kitchen.

Her segment was on the foods of Juneteenth and took a turn into southern potato salad. Her enthusiasm for this beloved side dish came through with a fireworks-ish delivery. She points out that the supreme potato salad-making artist is a "special person" who can read flavors off the back of their hand. "And it always tends to be that very special person that's super funny, or super stylish, they have a personality because potato salad is its  own conversation and it tends to match that person." She sold me on the idea that if I go somewhere and I hear people asking, "Who made the potato salad?" Then I will know that I am in the presence of that "special person".

Ms Taylor, after hearing you describe how you create your potato salad, I believe I would have a difficult time not trying it.  This is where the conflict begins.  Potatoes and I, well to put it lightly, things have not been good.   My parents tried SO hard to get me to eat potatoes.  My father, unstoppable when determined could not win in the battle to get me to eat this starch at any age.  I was raised in the age before microwaves.  In the early 70's you were not American unless you served potatoes at seemingly every meal. I was not allowed to get up from the table, until the potatoes were gone, which meant, I never left the table, until bedtime.  This was before microwaves, so in the morning, the cold plate of potatoes was placed before me for reconsideration.  I did not yield.

My father told the story of the period of time in which I seemed to be eating the potatoes.  At least that is what he thought until the kitchen developed an odor. We had those old chrome-leg, vinyl-covered kitchen chairs that were popular in the 1950s.  Ours had cracks in the vinyl, which to a young person like me, offered a rare opportunity.  In retrospect, my father was pretty proud of me for my creativity.  At the time, I am sure there was probably some good old-fashioned spanking.

Flash forward to 1979, we were living on Earl Street in Bristol CT and my wonderful mom had been making a homemade beef stew from scratch.  A jar fell off the back of the stove and broke into the stew pot.  Because of the broken glass, we threw away the stew and drove down to the McDonalds in Bristol center and ate in the Dodge.  At the time, I felt it was the best thing ever since the stew contained potatoes.  The ungrateful fourteen-year-old self that I was, rejoiced. If you are reading this Mom, I am sorry.  I know you worked hard to make that stew.  It was a Thursday night and you worked all day.  I appreciate both, the home-cooked meal and the fast food.

People still just cannot understand how significant this is for me.  Even social media cannot comprehend my unique, by which I mean "correct" perspective.  How many times on Facebook do I see one of those inane scorecards that list like 50 foods and you have to count 1 point for every food you hate, except, there are NO POTATOES listed on this scorecard!  It is starting to feel political now! Because of this, I tend to score zero on these.

In a coffee pals survey at work, we were asked the question, "If you could only eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?" My manager answered "Shepherds Pie".  It struck me as funny because his favorite basically is my definition of hell.

After years of marriage, my own wife called me weird last night and gave me that speech that I have heard a thousand times about "I have never met anyone before you who does not like potatoes." The years of resistance still do not sink in.  Is this that difficult to comprehend?  I have been pretty straightforward about this, well except for that strange Cravin incident in 2010.

In June of 2010, my son Noah returned to the ICU for 10 days, 18 months after his big stay there at the hospital for asthma-related treatment. I went down to Cravin's store in the hospital food court area to get lunch for Donna and I.  Donna stopped after the first bite of her mashed potatoes with a look of surprise.  "Wow!  These potatoes are great!" "Like that can happen" I murmured under my breath.  "No, seriously!  You need to try these!"  Something about her drive on this subject made me think, "I probably won't die!"

The next thing I knew, I assimilated the taste and texture (both of which I was born to hate), and then I took another.  "I actually don't hate this!"  2 more spoonfuls.  "I might actually like these." Suddenly, Rod Serling was standing there facing the camera talking about a man who had just taken a hard right turn, into the Twilight Zone. "I feel like everything I ever knew was wrong!" Donna definitely enjoying my joining the potato drones of the world.

Later when I inquired about the potatoes at the store I found out they came from one of those Sysco food service squeeze bags.  I felt so violated until I talked with another guy at the store later on who assured me some serious "doctoring-up" was happening to make them taste like they did.  

I don't know who that guy was from temporary insanity land that day, but I can tell you now, he scared me.  If you can't trust yourself.

I know the struggle to help people understand that I must come from a parallel universe in which potatoes either do not exist or they are an invasive species.  Even tonight, Donna asked me if I wanted a potato pancake that she engineered from leftover mashed potatoes.  I declined of course.

I can honestly say that I cannot remember ever tasting potato salad. I am sure that I was forced to perhaps in a dental-style chair with belts restraining me, or was that a dream.  Anyway, Nicole A. Taylor your description of potato salad, the people who make it, the art that it is, and most profoundly, your potato salad, I promise to try your recipe if I ever have the pleasure of meeting you.  I may be from a potato-hating parallel universe, but what could possibly stand against the heart and soul of what you described when talking about potato salad.

Until then, please don't pass the potatoes.

Just Another Brick in the Flavor Wall

 Dropping Noah off at school on a beautiful June morning, I've returned to face the ten dump truckloads of dirt that I volunteered to take. I need them, but I need them to take the forms that I need them to. That is okay. It is my famous "Give a Mouse a Cookie From Hell" scenario. This needs to happen, but you can't spread dirt till you stack firewood in the shed, you can't do that until the rest of the splitting happens, you can't do that unless... And So It Goes. I suspect that deviously, my garage is probably involved, I just know it is! 

Work time begins soon. I could sit and watch the news, but I don't want all that negativity in my life on such a beautiful morning. Lately, for me, it is been about understanding that I can finish things.  I have learned that having too many unfinished projects damages me into thinking that I am succeeding at nothing. It is a house of cards. 

So what about the kitchen? I am years beyond just going to stores and buying ingredients that become fantastic meals later on. In fact, with many composite ingredients, I have learned to create many myself. Chili crisp and chili oil for instance. Yes, I can buy this off the shelf and just crack open a new jar. It's convenient, delicious, fast, and comes with a price. What about Mirin? Same deal. I do not use Mirin too much, but when I buy it, it seems like I am always on the last ounce of it in the bottle. Money again. So what do you do when you have 15 minutes to burn in which you can do something to remind yourself that you are capable of completing SOMETHING?  Just a little sense of accomplishment that uses that time block wisely investing time and resources. 

The brown sugar is low. Downstairs to retrieve a 4 lb bag of sugar I go. By the way, when did they change these bags from 5 lbs down to 4 anyway? Deception lives everywhere, especially in Commerce. Food processor, molasses, and half of the 4 lb bag whirl their way into brown sugar. Then it is time to go to work for the day.

 

You may wonder why I put myself through all of this. To start with, a penny saved is truly a penny earned, right? My $20 tire changer and $59 balancer have saved me about $1,000, with more savings to come. This is real money.

Brown sugar though? I buy staples and turn them into things that modern society is brainwashed into thinking that they have to buy at a store, inadvertently I'm elevating the experience. You eat at my house and there are all these differences in small places such as chili oil and mirin, brown sugar, fried shallots, pickled onions, homemade teriyaki sauce, homemade rubs, vinegar, and sauces that are otherwise packaged and bottled, you crossed the line from black and white to Technicolor to your senses. The end result cannot be duplicated just by telling someone to marinade or brine before composing!  It's more granular.  In this way, the flavors make a grand entrance. This is a far cry from going to Dunkin Donuts and getting a breakfast sandwich that tastes more like cardboard and it does actual food that its appearance suggests. 

When you give it a chance and make use of things you have, you just might find that you have crossed over into the flavor zone that you did not know existed.  The food blasts colorful flavors at you like that autumn day that you know as you take photographs of it, that the end result will never truly capture what you are seeing right now.

I highly recommend this.  No one has the time to make everything, but pick something you love, research it, and give it a try.  I just know you will find joy in doing so.