Monday, February 7, 2011

All hopped up on pain meds...

And brain full.

Man whatever these muscle relaxers are... they are AWESOME. I spent a few hours in the bath today reading old Gourmet magazines. The best magazine in the whole world. And it's dead now. We just don't write about food and our world that way any more. Everything is dumbed down... which is ironic since home chefs are getting more and more sophisticated.

In the later years, Gourmet was dumbed down too... but I remember when Ruth Reichle first took over and did this great series of writers doing short essays on all different topics... one was about this woman's childhood Thanksgiving dinners. Her mom would toss her into the car and drive all over town with the heat off (to keep the food fresher) to pick up the food from various merchants and the peice d'resistance... a ceramic cornocopia filled with flowers. A line stands out in my mind... "It wasn't quick and it wasn't easy. It was slow and delicious". The picture was of a 7 year old with curls and a bonnet, in a mid-thigh a-line wool button up coat with her mom, in a 1940's button up dress, hair looking very Carol Lombard, in front of a 56' Chevy.

Today I read this great article from the July 1970 issue which about a British guy traveling with his wife in Hong Kong. All tea and dim sum and boat people. They restaurant critique, also from that issue, focused on two British female chefs. La Chef-Patronne. I will be a chef-Patronne.

I wish I could say it was an egalitarian world out there... but in the last bundle of stuff from Pebble Beach Food and Wine that Katherine Goodpasture gave me there was a playbill of sorts for the event... not one female savory chef out of 50. Lots of female pastry chefs. Not a one on the savory side. I know I am good at this thing. I know I know my shit. I am not the greatest, or an expert. But I am confident in what I am. I can do this. I am not afraid to put my food up against anyone else.

But it is depressing to see how scarce we are out there. I think it is probably because if you are a woman who wants to earn as much as man and make it in a "man's world", you are far more likely to do something that is actually financially lucrative LOL (like be a doctor or lawyer). I've worked with a great woman chef, and I really loved it. I feel like I learned a lot from Sarah about how to handle myself in the kitchen. Nothing to prove... just do the job. Be respectful. Be nice.

I am also surprised at how common it is for vendors/etc to talk around me to whatever male is in the room. Even when I am catering, people will ask Brion (who is great help but is often the only person on the team with out a culinary degree) questions and not me. It is strange to me since I know I carry myself with confidence... I feel like it should be obvious just by my mojo/franchise that I am a leader!

I know there is no malice involved... it is one of those weird things... In supervisory management we studied communication barriers to communication. Communication can be stymied by subconscious predjudices such as... if you were abused by a man who was blond with a mustache when you were little, you might always be leery of blond moustachioed men regardless of their individual merits. I think my blond bubbliness just doesn't yeild to instant "She's the Boss".

I find my mind instantly adjusting in those situations... they are talking to David and not me, I will smile and ask David what he thinks of the situation. David will just look at me and say, "I think this, but you are the boss." Use the full force of my people skills to appeal to their inner Knight in Shining Armor so I get what I am after without making the situation a pissing match. I don't need to assert myself for all womankind 45 times a day... I need to know what my checklist is for my buidling permit in the shortest time possible... and I know next to nothing about what that checklist might entail. Am I a little bit taken aback that some of these guys have such deep seated cultural biases... I mean, I GET IT, there really are not that many female restaurant owners so it might not even be anything more than an unconscious stereotyping. I don't think I am annoyed... more like... surprised and interested from a cultural anthropology perspective.

Anyway, MAN I miss Gourmet magazine. The writing was so awesome MK Fisher, James Beard, Naomi Barry, Lucious Bebe... they just don't make 'em like that any more. It wasn't made for a mass audience, it was made for US... the shameless foodies. The true believers. There is a short story in a 1967 Gourmet about a wedding of minor Russian landed nobility where dad and his friends spend a month on the road by carriage gathering the wines and other wedding neccesities for his only daughter. Mom stops on her way back from the stables to cry by the lake where her daughter swam as a child. The townswomen personally decorate the curch with flowers for "their Erziske".

Another story was of Americans traveling thru Persia in the early 70's and commenting on the common sex between men, amazing hopsitality and deeply flavorful pistachios. How the young American couple spent a month there and became good friends with a rug merchant who finally talked them into a beautifully hand woven wool rug they could not afford... but they bought it anyway, like a starving student buying fine art, to be treasured and admired in all of it's decadent glory... for what is life without art?

And the food, beautiful food. James Beard writes of decadent Italian small bites.... of pickled and preserved things, meat and fish... mushroom caps stuffed with fresh sausage, pineapple rum ice cream, steamed lobster with parsley potatoes. All doused with a civil dram of excellent wine.

These were the dreams of my youth. My young mother studying hard in college, suddenly the head of house for her three children. Times were always tight but I could always pick up a book and read about food, dream about the luxury of traveling the world. Always ALWAYS I wanted to know... what do they eat? We slipped into a quiet Chinese restaurant one night for cheap eats when I was about 10 and I asked, "What do you eat for breakfast?" The pretty young waitress looked confused by my question but answered, "We eat pickles and rice and sometimes some soup." I, of course, made myself rice with dill pickles for my very next breakfast... not understanding the complex variety of Chinese pickles might be different from my grocery stores German style kosher dills. But I WANTED to understand, I WANTED to experience.

The first time I had Pho I was leaving Rhonda's house with Sam and he was starved. We stopped at a place in San Ramon called American Food. It was a hole in the wall with a gaggle of professional women eating soup, large plates of condiments on the table. The menu read

  • Chicken Soup
  • Beef Soup
  • Hot Dogs
  • Hamburgers
  • Fries

I tried to order a hot dog for Sam... they were out. I tried to order a hamburger... they were out. Soup it was! He LOVES Pho to this day. And Hoisin sauce. American food, indeed.

I just can't WAIT to get back into the kitchen. God I miss it. I try to temper my enthusiasm because the process has been so difficult and had many ups and downs. I can't get hopelessly lost in my emotional investment until the day I open the doors. We watched Bourdain today during the day and he went to this little Salumi maker in Seattle. The guy lived in Italy for a year learning how to make salumi. They showed him casing capicolla and hot coppa. The glistening wet proto salumi hanging in sparlkingly clean cases. I felt painly palpable lust. For all of it... the space, the salumi, the lines out the door. I want the quiet afternoons in the kitchen casing salumi. I want to collaborate with my staff on specials. I want to spend a Sunday a month in the wine country scouting out wines. I want to engage with my customers. I want to feed them, get to know them. I WANT. The strange rediculous desire bordering on need.

Passion. I am familiar with the word.

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