Who doesn't love a good story?

 I sure do! In fact, stories happen to be how I communicate regularly. It is interesting though that back in the 70s when my Mom would take my sisters Brooke and Amy and me to the library on a midweek night, I would always choose reference books. My pre-digital need for the internet I suppose. Assimilation of information has always been a reward for me.

On a recent gloomy Saturday, Donna and I went to the local used book store. I am always on the hunt for May Pang's book Loving John, an incredibly detailed account of a year and a half of one of the most creative periods of the life of John Lennon. The book has been out of print for decades, so it is hard to find for under $100. Like always, it was not there.

From there, I go to the food section. Cookbooks are great and all, but it would have to be exceptional for me to let one take up space on my kitchen shelf. This I do not find either. I do know however, there is a small spring of refreshing source of information that can quench the thirst for information and tell a story at the same time. It is that narrow, but quickly expanding margin of food writing.

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It is here you can tap into the deepest meanings of what food really represents. It takes our innermost secrets and embarrassments with the personal aspect of feeding ourselves and our families and hangs them on the clothesline for all of the village to see.

Here in the basement of that old bookstore, I find the story of a wonderful experiment. Coincidentally, it happens to be spot on with what I have been trying to convey for years. We CAN make delicious meals for ourselves and our families. We CAN stop eating bland processed food in which the carton tastes a little better than the actual food itself! We CAN stop endorsing restaurants that ride on the coattails of plummeting processed food quality. We can confidently make simple, nutritious, flavorful meals. Our past, nor our busy schedule need to hinder this.

Kathleen Flinn's Kitchen Counter Cooking School was that find. Having returned home to the Pacific Northwest from Le Cordon Bleu's cooking school in Paris, she was unsure of what was next. She noticed while at her local grocery store, a woman with a cart full of processed food. She struck up a conversation and from there she started a project that would find 9 women from different walks of life, all of whom wanted to feel complete by breaking the cycle of consuming processed foods and buying healthy foods that rot in the refrigerator.

If you were to read back through my Fight4Taste blog, I have been on this line of thinking for years. Each, albeit slow, step I take is moving toward the goal of showing people that they can do it. Cooking is not some unattainable superpower only reserved for select people. It is foundationally achievable with a flavor of being unique for every person because it is that personal.

Why read a book about something I think I already know? Wouldn't those John Grisham books found in the State Park book share box provide much more entertainment and suspense? Kat Flynn tapped into something I knew was there, but revealed that the cuts and scars are so much deeper than I realized. How a person cooks, how they shop, and in turn wish they could cook reflects on their perception of their childhood, their upbringing, and their worth as an adult, spouse, and parent. It is a mirror reflection of their self-worth and self-esteem. This is serious business! I knew it was personal, but this is deep.

Ms. Flynn has validated what I am working towards and I am so glad to find another voice in the forest of lost souls trying to find their way. It only makes me want to do more. I hope that never stops.

Period of silence

What is a period of silence, when you expect something else? Many years I have sat beneath the trees with a tattered notebook in my lap. Letters becoming words, finding their way through a sacrifice of ink contained in a small plastic tube. The words trickle and pour in unpredictable volumes, and that is okay.

When the words stop, I stare blankly at the faucet of my misspent youth and wonder, how can this be? Didn’t I suffer? Didn’t I wake up beyond the living dead? Did I not awaken to a lead weight of doom in the pit of my stomach and not know why? But also the mountain tops! I saw them from below and from the top! Certainly those could tell a story! 

It is the nebula that poses the most deception. We enter days to savor and days to regenerate. Those are needed, but they can disconnect us from reality. Untethered I float, slamming into the hull of whatever vessel I arrived upon. Who am I? I ask the unnerving pilot. He smiles and says “ it’s not the turn of a friendly card that wins you the game, it is what door you choose to enter.”

For 30 seconds this morning, I contemplated hitting the reset button, then I came to my senses and recalled that is a seven year journey with all the negative charm of the Oregon Trail.

No, broken stuff may abound, but it is my broken stuff. I can make it not broken, slowly.

In plain sight

 Within me lies a great desire to allow people to take back their lives. Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a war of a different kind and we as individuals, families, and society all together are losing. The OP4 whispered their way into the kitchens of women like Margaret Anderson, June Cleaver, Donna Reed, and those like them. They used soothing words of praise and comfort for weary wives and moms who worked harder than anyone acknowledged, at least for another 30 to 40 years. 

There was an A&P Market in Forestville, Connecticut that we used to shop at around 1970-ish. Not too many aisles, and hardwood floors, and my goodness, at any moment, I was always expecting to see Mr. Whipple guarding the Charmin display. Poor man. He took his responsibility so seriously. He must be turning in his grave every time that stupid bear commercial airs now. The dumbed-down vernacular that it is.

The reason that there were not so many middle aisles in the stores back then is because boxed meals were so much less in abundance. Fresh meats and vegetables were the foundation of food. Those middle aisles contained other staples mostly; flour, sugar, coffee, cornmeal, etc.

In the post-World War 1950s, companies that fed the war machine canned and packaged foods suddenly did not have the customer base that had just come so easy to them. Without thinking fast and coming up with a solution, the great industrial machines that were pumping out cans and boxes of nearly ready-to-eat foods would stop and the factories would die. But, how does one compete with a World War? 

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Cleverly and cunningly focus shifted to the largest army of all, the wives and moms across not only America but the world. Suddenly these CEOs and members of the board of directors were alarmingly concerned about the housewife. She carried us through the war and it was time she got some relief.  The attack, uh ahem! The "relief" - came from every direction. Better Homes and Gardens magazine featured an ad from Campbell's Soup Company for Tuna and Waffles. This is the power of advertising. How could anyone eat homemade food every day and suddenly think mixing a can of cream of mushroom soup, tuna, and waffles together is a meal? But, it really happened.

https://www.midcenturymenu.com/recipe/tuna-n-waffles/

 We were on a fast track to disaster. Dumbed-down food infiltrated our kitchens and the sheer novelty slowly anesthetizes the home chefs previously cooking up recipes handed down through generations. Then a great warrior stepped into view in July of 1962 and during a 10-year run, showed the home cook that nothing was out of reach. In this genre, which she invented Julia Child was a revolutionary and the leader of the resistance to stop the bleeding of kitchen prowess across the world.

The pioneer Julia forged a trail that could not be broken for women because, despite the sexist stereotyping that housewives were saddled with, in a cruel and ignorant twist, women were also ridiculed if they thought they could hang with the fine dining professional chefs of the world. She demolished this myth with a sword that only Julia could wield. 

Like everything in creation, all good things can be twisted into something not-so-good. It is what happened in later decades. All the PBS chefs who showed us how to cook fine dining dishes allowed any of us the chance to step out into an exciting new frontier. This led to the 1990s instant gratification mentality to supercharge cooking television shows. Emeril was an absolute rock star on nightly TV. He brought passion to the screen and really conveyed to the viewer that food is not just sustenance. The whole experience is and can be extraordinary.

In the first decade or so of the Food Network, a great deal of training happened. By the time we got to 2010, you could clearly see, especially if you watched any Next Food Network Star seasons,  that the focus of this industry shifted from teaching and sharing skills to entertainment. Nothing against one of my early favorites, Alton Brown. Good Eats was hugely entertaining and made me extremely teachable, but it is like water torture for me to sit through one episode of Cutthroat Kitchen. I don't fault him, a job is a job. Like the pseudo-Jimmy Doohan once said contemplating losing his job, in his Mr. Scott Scottish accent, "Yeah, I'll have to make credit card commercials with my WIFE!" <sigh> I digress.

This is not the real assault though. This was the diversion. The real assault came in between the episodes in the commercial breaks. Giant armies of processed food companies goose-stepped their regiments into the capital square of our kitchens. They smashed the memories of our ancestors, moms, grandmoms, aunts, and yes fathers, grandfathers, and brothers too. Cookbooks grew more dust on them or were replaced with gimmicky ones with the occasional new classic, must-have copy (Yes those still exist).

As the months and years passed, the shows became more about eating food than making it. This elevated the people who do cook into superheroes which inevitably makes everyone else feel they can never obtain the skill. In Kat Flinn's book, Kitchen Counter Cooking School, she speaks with a woman in the grocery store who has a grocery cart full of processed foods. A conversation ensues and in that conversation, it is revealed that a dish containing pasta, parmesan cheese, and olive oil, in one of the boxes in her cart contained 27 ingredients (most of them chemicals) and cost six times more per serving! Don't get me started about the health impact of that boxed food!  Something is wrong.

We are nearing 3 generations of a non-cooking society. So ironic when there is so much cooking media out there. Oh, yes, there are exceptions, but collectively we are in dire straits and it shows in our health and in our wallets. To some degree, it has let a percentage of restaurants off the quality hook and so they serve substandard food without being called out on it. It affects everything.

The opposing force sits in wait, not hiding, but in plain sight unified for the ruination of health, taste, and skill all for profit and because of profit, power. What they are doing to food is kept in secret board rooms because if we knew, we would run the other way. 

I have a friend who stayed in his workshop one winter in Florida to save money. With a Super Walmart next door he figured he could toaster oven, microwave meals, and when he did not feel like cooking, buy prepared foods from the counter in the Walmart. After a couple of months of eating food like this he noticed if he cut himself, his wounds never seemed to heal. He felt tired all of the time. To quote him, "I don't know what kind of satanic extraction process they use to remove all of the nutrients from their food which would otherwise naturally have some health benefits to it, but I know it's not good."

My sons work for a national sandwich franchise, which means they often find themselves eating the food there on their busy days. My 18-year-old, usually health conscience son points out that when he does, he feels awful, that he keeps crashing after eating it. Something has got to give.

How do we do it? This is now a mess 70-plus years in the making, longer than I have lived. The only hope we have is you. Yes, you. This is my focus, to show as many people that they can do it and can keep doing it. Beautiful, delicious, and creative food is possible for everyone out there, each according to their gifts. If you cook, don't give up. If you have not really learned to cook, find someone who knows how to, family, friends, or even a TV or YouTube personality to whom you relate and do something. Most importantly, cook with your heart, by which I mean, make what you want to eat. 

Don't worry either if mistakes are made either. They are the robust learning moments in which you will gain the most. Like sourdough bread, the more adversity it endures the more excellent and unique the flavors become. Let that be you. You will not be sorry.

Sleeping on the edge of an open window 41 years above the world

 I went to bed that night. I was young, I was in the final days of independence, and approaching the final departure into the unknown. Outside the crickets sang loudly. I drifted off instead into electronic bliss. I did not really know the impact of the sounds I was listening to, but I did know that they were something. They had at this point been around only 13 years, it seemed like so much more. I think because one moment I am a 6-year-old peeling registration stickers off the plate of my father's 63 Plymouth in the driveway, then suddenly I am here, in the modern cold war, contemplating everything.

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I had this old under-dash cassette stereo. Panasonic. No doubt made back in the 70s when 8-track ruled. Because it was built in this time period, there were characteristics of it that were more 8-track-like. It would move the play head, and reverse direction if it reached the end of the tape. This meant that you could put in one cassette tape and it would play forever, just like an 8-track does. Tonight, I chose Paul and Linda McCartney, Ram.

I drifted away from the summer of 1983 as if the bed I slept in was floating across time and space. I could feel the pull of an incredible life tapping almost like Morse code in my brain, imparting what thought?

There was a girl, she met me at one of the turnstiles maybe after Ram had played 40 times or so. I don't believe she ever said anything and if she did, she only said the words of the song Back Seat of My Car. Across the night sky and unattached to time, I could feel my life was so much more than it was earlier that day. It was an incredible encounter that defies definition. I just knew there was more.

As I slept, I was on the precipice of everything, so high up I could not see the ground. Time, clearly created for benefits I am not sure we will ever truly understand. On my small perch in which I slumbered, the world spun hard below me and there were wars, music, flashes of light, so many faces I did not yet know, and voices carried on in conversations I had not yet had. Entire possibilities were mere pinpoints of light as we were gliding across the stratosphere.

Somewhere, the girl left me. Her work was done. She somehow knew that although I seemed like someone who liked change, in reality, I let my knowledge stop in the places I felt comfortable. She would not allow this. I am grateful too, even though it seemed like an impossible mountain to climb.

As the years have gone by pieces of that night keep coming into view, and their significance gains with each recollection. I will never know who she was or if she was even real. But as I slept dangerously close to the edge that dropped off into the vastness of all of the decisions and their possibilities ahead of me, she kept me well. Every time I hear it, I remember:

"Oh oh, we believe that we can't be wrong
Oh oh, we believe that we can't be wrong
We can make it to Mexico City
Sitting in the back seat of my car, oh oh"

Songwriters: Paul Mccartney

The Back Seat Of My Car lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

The game in me

 You want to make a difference, but old habits die hard. We live in a world full of templates placing us in constant obscurity. When we do not have the time to meditate on the person we are, the person we want to strive to be gets washed away into being a person others want us to be, or who we think they will be pleased with. The self-serving validation inflicted upon one's self is ironic. The person we measure against is not only not demanding something from us, but they are measuring themselves too. It is a lonely crowded land.

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In my lifetime, I have seen even this very human flaw get automated into choreographed algorithm perfection. Now we can put ourselves down under the deceptive lie that we are lifting ourselves up 24 hours a day, and without ever making real contact with another living person. Oh, Simon and Schuster, this new leisure world you taught us about in 1981 was a catastrophic lie. Automate this.

I may be throwing punches in the air because I am sick of myself and my all too familiar habits of falling into the ranks of the digital shadow boxes of the 2020s. I know. I have the bandolier of much. As I fought off the attacks of inaction on complacency, through grit teeth I counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I made my feet move. I found out what I was not and found that the rear tires were stuck in the sand. It is truly amazing to find that all of those colors on the rubiks cube suddenly fall into place when it seemed like what was happening was completely out of control.

I cannot help but think of Alan Parsons's song Games People Play. The song is so deep, but really only has 2 verses. I guess I always heard more. It is an interesting premise. It is a reminder that it is all about fighting and not going with the flow. The flow is easy, the flow seems like a soft landing. The flow is death. The fight is worth it. The fight is good.

The parting of ways

I cannot find the words to say about a fine friend who I have lost. You could not put labels on him, because he encompassed so much more than one person typically does. He walked the earth for many years, and he wore many hats during that time. His focus was always on his family and his neighbor and he always made that look easy because of his steadfast belief in being the true man that he was. 

I remember when I first met him. He was the model of a man who worked hard his whole life and loved that work. He fit perfectly in the life that he led. He was a person who lived in the now. This I always felt was because he was truly honest, making sure that he lived real every moment. Because of that, he made the most of everything, giving the best of himself always to his family, the work that he did, and the friends he showed such appreciation for.

As the seasons passed over the last 22 years, it was always a joy to stop up and see him. One more recent memory was last September. I saw him up in his yard. I walked up there and we began talking in the yard. It was a rainy year, so naturally, with it being a Saturday, it began to rain. He opened the overhead door of the garage and we set up a couple of folding chairs just inside. We sat there talking, looking out over the front yard. I noticed as we talked for over an hour, that I could not tell if it was 2023, 1990, or 1977. The friendship we had was timeless. He had about a quarter century up on me in years, but I may as well been his age or he, mine. 

Of course, like anyone who has lived to see many generations in view, he mourned the old ways, but he had insight and hope in the younger ones who showed that they cared about living a solid life. His respect for people was brave and he viewed them for who they were.

I am sure if I complained about getting old he must have chuckled to himself, but he never made me feel bad about that. Yet he'd look at me like, you just wait kid. 

His wife once paid me the finest compliment when she said to my wife: "Have you noticed that our husbands are different generations of the same person?" I could see the similarities but also feel that I have much to do to achieve the fine, respectful, and humble presence that he so often displayed.

Every day I wake up and I still cannot believe he is gone. I think about his hearty laugh, his big heart, always helpful spirit, and the things I will miss cannot be counted. When in his presence, he was always 100% there. That is something the world could really use.

I lived across the road from Henry and his wonderful wife for 22 years. There is now a very large hole where he once was. Just being his neighbor and feeling this way, I cannot imagine what his family is going through. All of those young ones taught over the years in the Boy Scouts. To those, he served as a mentor, father, uncle, and lifelong friend. I am truly sad for all of you. I wish for the kindness and consideration Henry shared with you to come up as reminders daily to help you with this uncountable loss. He was not my family, but he was the truest friend a person can have. 

I like to daydream that he and Cheryl are just up the road in Windsor having lunch at their favorite place. I like to think that at any moment they will drive by the house on their way home. Then all will be right in the neighborhood again.

Late arrival

 Our stories eventually mold the hours ahead, days, and decades. Seeing through a dirty glass of yesterday marred with the inexperience of youth, the impulse of withdrawal, and the winds of change, how could we make one right turn?

It is more than just wrong turns. It is a misunderstanding of self and the possibilities before me. Lies, lies, lies and I own them all. The deception of tuning out becomes my self-berating reality. Everyone but me knows it. Lies, lies, lies only to myself. Gullible, ignorant, and indignant. 

It has taken so much hand-to-hand combat within me to understand that I have been the opposing force. The clear, or so it seemed, picture window view of how it was, how it "should be" has caused me to barricade myself within my ignorance. To learn nothing, or at least take the long way around to learning the most important lessons. Time has come today and inevitably, the ambushes of self. Those camouflaged operatives, painted faces, blending into the flora, wielding arms of poison. If I could zoom in on one of them, I would find, they look like me.

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So I walk the footbridge across the canyon 2 miles high. As I take each step, I see it as a concrete super highway structure that can carry a great weight. I also know that it is as delicate as a cloth rope and weathered wood slat structure that I myself can make even weaker. Understanding that it can sway in the wind and have storms overtake me before I reach the other side. Oddly, its composition is my choice.

I arrived on the scene differently than everyone else. That has made everything difficult. It put a blind spot on the objective that I cleverly declared was in my hands. Inside I knew it was not. Now, the sum of all of the fragments has built a scene. As I watched the ship disappear into the sky, I was left with unlocked doors to open and their arrogance. One by one, they took their place, in doing so, their case was heard and tested. I am still here, but now I understand what it is to own only what is given to me. To be here now. That has been my elusive crown jewel. The one I never thought I could know. I'm late, but at least I am here.

The ashes of yesterday

 A younger person, one with a mind that is closed might think that there is nothing more to learn. This of course means that there is everything to learn. In the afternoon he toiled in rusted cities which 25 years earlier were mighty and unstoppable. The disease that brought the mighty steel gears to their stillness defined how he walked and talked. Somehow, remembering the glory days of yesterday through the eyes of a child gave him authority and arrogance. Words that only can exist as though he could restore this lost world. Ironically, for those who were born during the great decline, the words only burned like acid raining from the sky.

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City after city, he looked for the past, hoping for a sign that the world of his father and grandfather still lived somehow. As he saw the cancer had engulfed the entire land, it only fueled the idea that he knew more than all who came after. A generation's entire composition grew out of the ashes of the losses he found. Oddly, he challenged that essence with the indestructible world of his youth, that world that would never end, and yet it did anyway. He talked blatantly as if the world could come back. The crime would creep away like a high tide pulling away from the land. The wrecking balls and excavators could somehow be undone. The rust that weakened the great steel giants could be reversed and the turbines once again snapped and whirled into resonation. All along, his words were those of what is now merely an infection that could be overcome. But, the reality is, he could never go home anymore. It is his world, not the one he was holding onto, but the one he denied living in.

It is after the shocks to the system, the defeats, the pain, and the admissions that he realizes he is fighting for something that has not existed for over 40 years and that could never come back. The time came to take his place in the crowd.

As the sun rose the following day, there were fields, and they were just starting their reach into the sun. It was beautiful and full of hope. The decayed and long-forgotten cities started to change too. Not in the way that he had thought they should, but with a new generation's ideas and creativity. There was the means to go forward when there was no way to go back. Only those raised in the ashes of yesterday could ever make things better. They also needed his perspective to make their vision whole. Only mutual respect could build a new world.

As he walked through the ashes of yesterday, he could see that the land was thriving, bursting forward into the sky. The only thing that could slow that down was to mourn what once was, what could never be again. He noticed as he became awake for what seemed like the first time ever, that it also made him feel the joy of new beginnings. The most important part of this was to listen and learn from those who came after him. After all, they have not been comparing everything to a world they never knew. They are building a world with the resources they have. It took him a very long time to realize that he was one of those resources.