Bourdain Day, or How To Stay

Dear Tony,

Well. Maybe I can address you that way. It's been one year since you've gone. Four days from today. The resurgence of your name in print has made it familiar again. But there's something about you no longer occupying physical space that allows for you to become more of a sentiment, an idea, one no longer concerned with formalities.

People are talking about you again. And, because of your friends, it has nothing to do with the way you left us, but the way you lived.

Uncertainty abounds. We've all but sold our house, and that is wonderful, but it leaves me with a lot of time on my hands that I never know how to fill because 90% of the time I am physically unable to relax. Reading feels impossible. Writing even harder. I feel like my synapses are firing so fast I find myself wobbling from one project to the next, desperate to expel energy but never fully succeeding.

What's next? What's the next project? If I'm not fully immersed in something, am I even really here? How will I ground myself?

We were considering any number of "fixer uppers" for our next home; rambling, forgotten farmhouses I was desperate to resuscitate. The most recent of which needed a new roof, new electric, new plumbing, new septic, new basement, to be reverted to a one family from two, insulation, and jesus lord knows what else. I was all ready to go until I slammed 350mph into a towering cinderblock wall of exhaustion. Around that time, I found a little house in Hudson. It is near friends, fully renovated, move-in ready, and I confused the ever living hell out of my husband by proclaiming that I was done. Search over. Here we go. No seclusion, no land, no privacy. Essentially the opposite of what we've been looking for.

I wonder sometimes if you felt this way. Always pushing further and further from normalcy - desperate to find more land to conquer. More projects, more people, more conversations, more hearts to heal. We cannot keep this up. You, me, the collective we. At what point does life become living? At what point does the Bataan Death March towards greatness give way to life?

Maybe it's now. Maybe now when I'm seriously considering more meds to manage my mental illnesses. When I feel as though my pain and anxiety have taken up permanent residence in my heart. It's wild to feel as though some aspects are mostly managed (depression), while others took the reins and ran the fuck away with the horse.

Eric Ripert and Jose Andres have started a campaign - a global toast to you on June 25th, your birthday, so that we may celebrate your life rather than the anniversary of your death on June 8th.

You chose to leave us. Was it because of a girl? Or was it the Push.

I will celebrate you. I celebrate you.

But let us not forget that we need to be talking about mental health and suicide all the time. ALL THE TIME. We need to reach to the darkest corners and shine the light on those who suffer, because this cannot continue, and I know better than most that those who really need help are the best at hiding it. Hiding from everyone. Professional chameleon pros who are always too busy to hang out. To talk. The funniest, the loudest, those filled with life.

You're not alone. I'm not alone.

But I know I need to start talking. And maybe stop with the projects for now. Maybe it's like driving a car for hours and hours and hours then arriving at your destination, and firm ground, still feeling like you're being propelled forward. Maybe if your feet stay planted on solid ground for long enough, they will learn how to stay.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

There aren't many places for a girl to stop for a bite en route to work. Not around here, anyway. When a new joint opened a few months back, I was elated. Over the moon. Ecstatic. I'm familiar with the group and confident I could finally get a coffee and a muffin with the peace of mind that it hadn't recently been reconstituted in a microwave.

(I eat the shit out of reconstituted food things, especially the apple fritters from a certain local gas station chain).

This morning I even grabbed a quarter on my way out the door, guaranteeing to avoid the $10 "but I was just stopping for a second" parking meter damnation.

This place calls itself a cafe, but is unlike any cafe I've ever know. I've never been to Morocco or the Maldives or Singapore and in my mind this place has em all beat, on the rails, got nothin. Crazy beautiful, detailed, and nuanced. The decor is unmatchable.

So this morning, bolstered by my parking victory, I wanted to treat myself to a muffin. It's decent, healthy-ish, and has little crunchy bits, which I'm into. Also at $3.95 I consider it a bargain, as it's enough muffin for two breakfasts. Or, let's be honest, second breakfast.

I walk up to the gleaming pastry counter - awash in curds and swirls and ganache and gold dusted raspberries - feeling like I can't possibly belong here but YOU HAVE MY MUFFIN and so here I am. The young woman at the counter was staring at me, blinking, looking down at the register, looked back up at me. Blink. There I stood. Blink. After a few desperately awkward minutes I had to break the silence -

"Are you...can I order from you? I'm sorry". (I don't know why I apologized)

"Yes."

".....can I just have that muffin to go?"

"Yes."

"Do you guys have any juices...? I need something green in my life." (Desperate laugh)

"Yes."

I'll spare you the remainder of the transaction, as none of it improved. I basically ran away from the cafe with its hand polished, hand carved floor tile imported from wherever.

I know. I know. It's just a goddamn muffin. Not even a great muffin, just a softball-sized excuse for fiber that doesn't come packaged in a gummy bear. (Does anyone else think those are super depressing? More for another day.)

I keep rolling around in my head how *I* was the one who felt awkward, and wrong, and needed to leave ASAP. Do others feel that way? Does everyone feel that way? It's a muffin, not a blood transfusion. Who really cares?

We should care. I care. Those stupid hand polished tiles should care. We're living in Romanesque times here yet we've lost all semblance of basic communication, history, and lest I say it, hospitality.

Lately I've been feeling like I get better customer service at abject shithole dives. Just the cruddiest, crappiest, most Sysco-fueled enterprises of them all. But you know what, I never feel awkward. I never feel like I'm not Instagram famous so I can't hang. Never feel like I have to apologize for their lack of a greeting, a smile, or god forbid a conversation. Never have to climb over a 4" gap between impossibly small tables cubby-holed together. Apologizing. Does the girl working the pastry counter understand what a massive impact someone in her role can have on her community? I KNOW the answer here is no, but when did that happen? Restaurant family, isn't that why we're here? The ONLY reason we're here?

I passed a billboard the other day advertising...well honestly I'm not sure what it was advertising, but it showed a sullen looking food service employee with the caption "would you like fries with that?" Totally damning, totally elitist, totally unnecessary. I'm by no means anti-education or raising yourself up but why shame? Why are we shaming ANYONE for working!? Isn't it bad enough that we work ourselves to death at the hands of emotional and mental beatdowns from men wearing $1000 fur-lined Gucci loafers? But no, that's not enough. But let's hammer that shame home by reinforcing the notion that we are subservient. Our jobs aren't good enough. Our lives aren't good enough. Not in this era of "Self Care" as a privilege, not a right.

We've lost it.

I've gotten off track.

My husband and I recently stopped into a tourist-y place that's only open seasonally, for a couple of drinks and a snack. Just a change of pace. Frozen seafood, frozen margaritas, great sunsets. Party deck. Nautical decor. Wet naps. You know the place. I recognized a server who'd helped us last season, a young kid of maybe 25 called Josh. Not only did he remember us, but he remembered our drink order, and came running over to shake our hands when he saw us in another section. Based solely on that encounter and a passable Caesar salad, we went back a few weeks later. Same thing - joyful greeting, lovely conversation. Impeccable service. Was the food good? Jesus lord no. We joke the food was better when their kitchen burnt down and they resorted to a cobbled together outdoor grill to get the job done. But you know what, we'll continue to go back. Until Josh figures out he can do better. Then we'll go where he is.

But maybe that's the point. Maybe there isn't a better. Or the perceived better isn't, but we tolerate it for the sake of inclusion. Getting the reservation, getting the likes, the pictures, the attention. The goddamn attention.

The most popular restaurant here (here is wherever you are), has a wine list that that names "Ashley Olsen", "tennis courts" and "gel pens" as tasting notes.

I probably apologized to them, too.

See you at the gas station, y'all. Might not be good but it sure ain't bad.

The Last Supper

Dear Tony,

I don’t know what to call you. You’ve never been “Tony” to me, and you’ve certainly never been “Uncle Tony”, as some have taken to referring to you. Frankly you’ve only ever been “Anthony Bourdain”, but addressing a letter as such also seems wrong, somehow.

I still don’t quite know if I’m ready to write. I don’t quite know yet what it is I need to say. They’ve stopped writing about you. Last I saw was an article detailing your toxicology report, that no narcotics were found in your system at time of death. That and you’d skipped dinner the night before your body was found. What else was there to measure?

You stared down the ultimate Undertoad with no Last Supper. That thought and the image of dear Eric Ripert finding you have brought me down, at times. Was he surprised? Did he somehow know what awaited when he knocked quietly on your door and, gentle, called your name?

People who were close to you said you had a darkness in the “last months”, but wasn’t that darkness omnipresent? Hasn’t it always been a little bit of what has driven you so hard to seek further and farther afield the satisfaction “normal” people find in daily life? Taking a shower, reading the news, bad coffee, worse food. What about your wiring drove your incessant drum beat, and is that ultimately what stopped your march through the universe?

In the book “The Last Supper”, you told Melanie Dunea that eating was about submission. That if you were to die tomorrow, your last meal on earth would consist of “Roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad, with a few toasted slices of baguette and some good sea salt”. You also told her that “Given that I’m ostensibly facing imminent death, I’d probably prefer being alone”. This was published in 2007. Did it somehow cross your mind the day you showed yourself out? In any of the preceding days? I know it is a game, but is it really? You left us in France, bone marrow aplenty. You said you wanted to leave the world naked, screaming, and covered with blood. Instead you went silently, dangling from the rafters that held up the night.

I have so many questions for which there will never be answers.

There is a very large part of me that feels like I don’t deserve to be feeling this way (especially after all this time). It's almost been a year. There are those in your life that loved you in real time - that LOVE you in real time, still. You are, to me, a fantasy; you have only ever been my imaginary friend. And frankly I think I would have probably bored you - frankly I feel like most of your fans probably bored you. But every day I hoped that I wouldn’t. Every day I hoped that you’d find the same light in me.

You took me with you. You brought all of us with you. You showed me family, and where I need to be, where I belong. You brought me to Montreal and Southeast Asia, for which I will be eternally grateful. Showed me that the ideas I’ve always been drawn to have a foundation in the history of food culture, and that the beauty surrounding it all is legitimate, fleeting, and incredibly important. You showed me that it’s all we have. I hang on to that beauty and that hope but in my quieter days, am saturated with the understanding that ultimately, it wasn’t enough for you. That despite the incredible community elevating you and your words, it let you down. We all let you down. There are many, I’m certain, who would argue that YOU let US down. I don’t know what to say to that. Did you let your daughter down? I don’t know the answer. Probably. Does she understand? Not right now, no. Will she ever understand? I’m not sure. That understanding comes from a very dark, very cold place. All I can do is send her, and her mother, and your mother, peace and light and comfort that you are no longer burning. To burn bright is to burn hot, and Icarus shows us, it cannot last. Like stars. The brighter they are, the hotter they are, and unless they’ve got the mass of the sun on their side, they will burn through their supply and explode, supernova style.

Where’s your supernova? Has it been you, all along?

I miss you. I'm grateful for you. I never knew you, and I never will.

Thank you.

Del Posto; aka looking for the heart of Monday night

Among all of the insane shit that’s been going down in this world, the fall of Mario Batali broke my heart. He’s always resonated with me; I always felt that he truly GOT it. His sheer devotion to rock and roll, to food, to creating the experience, all of it. A kindred spirit. I particularly love this description in Bill Buford’s Heat:

“and one of my last images is of Batali at three in the morning — a stoutly round man with his back dangerously arched, his eyes closed, a long red ponytail swinging rhythmically behind him, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor — playing air guitar to Neil Young's "Southern Man.’”

Turns out he’s being seriously investigated for raping and harassing women. Obviously this was long whispered about, but I always chalked it up to his reputation as a partier; I couldn’t believe the truth. I still can’t.

I took myself to Del Posto today for the first time and was abjectly fearful. Would it, too, have fallen? How must the staff feel? Where is the true soul of the restaurant? Was it always with Bastianich? Is Bastianich any better? Is it betrayal to give any support to the group at all?

In lieu of shame and hushed tones, what I found instead was the inspiration I’ve been searching for all year. The boost to the next level. That Del Posto has nothing to do with Batali. It never has. I’ve been in hospitality for so long that I occasionally lose my way. Why do I do this to myself? The hours, the treatment, the occasional abject lack of respect. My body, which at 34 I’m starting to duct tape together.

Why? Because it’s always been about the staff behind the facade. Because despite all of this, there’s a much bigger picture. I’m so proud to be part of a world of hospitality that immediately pulls up a chair at every meal and asks how they can make it better; prouder than anything I’ve ever done. A community bigger than I will ever be. And we’re all in it together, working daily to remediate the effects of this world in which we’re all trying so desperately to survive. But we won’t. None of us will.

In the meantime, there’s cut crystal, 2010 Barolo, tableside service, stirred gin martinis, hand formed pasta, and our #foreverfamily of fellow hospitality diehards.

I feel insanely lucky to have found my place in this world. It’s a pleasure and an honor to stand beside you all. Here’s to the next 19 years. I’d do it all again.

Home Is Where The Ice Cream Is

If I am a Macy's Day balloon, James is the hundreds of rope-carrying volunteers preventing it from spinning off and impaling itself on the Empire State Building. I am grateful for him in a way that I have never known, which becomes increasingly apparent the longer we are here. I don't think I have ever struggled to find stability like I am now. Turns out, there's a price to pay for living in such a beautiful (remote) place - everyone with vision is working for themselves, and a community built on the shoulders of owner operators does not have much to offer someone who has always been an operator. And I have no idea how to darn a sock. So that leaves me in a very scary place, one that I am trying daily to rectify, but I've been working so much I come home deflated and discouraged. James has been keeping me afloat, but I do not feel good about putting so much pressure on him, and feel like it's time to turn the tides.

Which is what brought me back here - an outlet to catalog this tumultuous time. I think the only thing to do is the thing that I've ALWAYS thought I would do - to become one of those visionary owner operators. It's just a matter of crawling out from under five months (years?) of dust and remembering that I have the power to do it, and to do it well. I said to James the other day that I think one of the things that has been stopping me is that I always imagined it would be in Delaware, and the thought of opening something here makes me feel like that will never happen. But I have to remember, daily, that this moment is not forever, and things change. And that I have to start trying to make my life, OUR life. Which also, is why we moved here to begin with. So this is the start of trying. The start of business plans, of more red tape than I can imagine, and of backbreaking work. But ultimately I will have something that can support us both, that we can do together, and that will be our next step. Of many.

A million miles, and many years

As uncomfortable as I am with the thought of keeping a blog, I am even more uncomfortable confronting the basic truth of having letting it go by the wayside while life happened. But, here I am, a million miles, several years, and very far from home.

Technically it's only about 237 miles, but that is farther than I've been from my family for longer than a month. And it's been five. I feel like I have lost all of my limbs, and my heart, and everything I have, all at once. Like undressing before a shower in the winter. I always knew how lucky I am to have such a bond with them, and it's more clear to me now than ever that I stayed because I was afraid of this separation, this vulnerability. I keep trying to convince myself that it's a good thing, a natural thing, a necessary thing, but it hasn't caught up to me just yet.

People we meet keep asking what brought us here, how we got here. All I can muster most of the time is...we aren't sure ourselves. We followed a feeling. We needed to unstick. We rented a truck, packed our tiny studio, and wound up in Woodstock, New York. The cat, the dog, the boy, and a lot of books. What ultimately brought us here was our never ending search for Home. That feeling that this is your place, these are your people. I have always felt that about Delaware but I felt that if I spent eight years in Philadelphia then I couldn't turn tail and go home. Not right away. I felt (still feel), as though I had never really Tried. Never seen the world, taken risks, been brave. Brief respites into the beyond but never worked up the courage to move away from home. To find...a new home? That was the question, and here we are living the answer.

The Hudson Valley is a wild amalgamation of extremes - abject poverty, breathtaking beauty, simplicity, and heart. The people who live here seem to cobble together lives based purely on whatever they can make of themselves. They darn socks, they paint pictures, they paint houses, become garbage men, farm, cook, and create their realities so that THIS is their reality. The mountains and the rivers infuse every aspect of life here in a way that I have never known nature to be so present. In Philadelphia we lived alongside one another, the city and I. It was a waking reminder that I had very little control, and so I created a space filled with warmth, food, and as much love as I could. Here, I feel very much as though we are guests in these hills. That at any moment the rain or the snow or the bears could bring a not so gentle reminder that they were here first. And it's true. And it should be true. But it has taught me humility, and only a handful of snowflakes have fallen. I wonder what winter will bring?

Sense Memory

I got to thinking about this concept last night in the shower. Yesterday afternoon I stopped at Acme to buy new bath products, smelling all of the bottles of bodywash to see which I liked best. I picked one claiming to smell of lavender and rosemary (hello! awesome!), and despite the fact that it smelled of neither, I went for it. When I used it in the shower that night I was smacked in the face by a memory of the bubble bath I used as a child, long ago and far away. It didn't hit me in the store, but was transported so immediately and powerfully back to the five year old me, pushing bubbles around a tub, I felt like I'd been there and back in a fraction of a moment. That, twenty years later, a soap could take me to summer evenings spent rolling around in the grass chasing fireflies and playing with chalk on sidewalks almost took my breath. And then it happened again, this afternoon. I was ravenous at work and quickly heated a prosciutto and mozzarella panini til slightly burnt and melted (the best...) I ate it standing up, thinking about what I had to do the rest of the day, running lists in my head and calculating the remainder of my week - generally not thinking at all about what I was eating, or even how it tasted. (Which, incidentally, drives me crazy and I try my best to avoid - it seems to be a distinctly American tendency to eat while on the road, running from one thing to another, and not give more than a momentary consideration to that which we shove into our faces to sustain us. Bad. Habits. All.) Anyway, I generally eat this particular panini cold, yet had heated it today on a whim, and the flavor of the hot prosciutto combined with the doughiness of the bread and the co-mingling grease took me abruptly to a lunch counter in Spain. We had stopped specifically at this lunch counter, deep in the Basque region, to try their selection of bocadillo - sandwiches made on split bread. In general, and especially while you're there, they seem overly greasy, overly fried, and overly laid with HAM. All kinds and varieties. I tried one with fried prawns and had to ask for mayo lest I choke to death, as they're all served dry, save for the GREASE. I don't know if it's because I generally have a hard time living in the moment, because I'm constantly rushing to the next thing, but I've found that when I travel, it's rare I appreciate where I am and what I'm experiencing at that moment. Some things rush at you full force, especially in parts of the world so foreign from your own, that it's almost easier for me to disengage a little...I think it helps me to take things in? I'm honestly not sure, but I work on rectifying it daily. A consequence of such behavior is that at times completely unrelated to a certain place or time, I'm overcome by memories of places and people and foods and drinks that have changed me, that have made me the person I am. And nine times out of ten, these memories are brought on by smells and tastes. And if you'd asked me then, on that bar stool eating lunch in Bilbao, what I thought of the bocadillo I would have told you the truth - they're alright, I like the prosciutto - I never would have anticipated that a year later I would have almost cried from a stupid work sandwich that reminded me so much of the air on the beaches and the smell of fresh octopus served on a wooden plate. And thick chocolate and sugar donuts. And bitter apple cider.
Experiencing two of these moments in such a short time got me to thinking about what I associate with other places I've traveled, and oddly (not so oddly?) it took me all of a few minutes to rattle off a list.
Ireland came to mind first - Ireland I can conjure in a waft of peat smoke. Something I'm blessed with on most mornings if I ride North on 13th Street early enough in the day to catch the smells of some happy persons fireplace. In the general vicinity of 13th and Tasker, someone burns peat every morning. And whenever I smell it I worry I'll crash my bike because I'm so busy thinking of Guinness and pubs and laughing - of stepping on stones over water behind my Dad, the picture of my brother holding his arms out to God in the middle of a field full of sky. Of the tiny bakery with white lace curtains that sold us muffins.
I feel Thailand whenever I smell anyone grilling meat over charcoal. I see Italy in giant stacks of lemons - the lemons I saw at the outdoor food market in Turin. It's comforting to me that it's possible to feel, see and taste these places I've been on a daily basis. Like they're a part of me. I'm fairly certain if I were to ask others about this phenomena they'd agree. I have to wonder if it's as prevalent, though. I genuinely hope that it is. As we grow and change, to be able to become a child again for a moment because of something you picked up at a grocery store for $6.99 seems like a reasonable price. To travel across the globe because of your neighbors barbecue. To relive the happiest, most challenging, fulfilling moments over and over again because of this thing that most of us take so for granted - eating standing in the corner, or at a desk over an assignment of some kind.
I hope tomorrow it happens to you, in the most unexpected circumstances, and it makes you cry, in the happiest of ways.