I'm not sure what exactly I expected to have happen here in the Bay Area, but it wasn't quite this. I took a big risk getting out of the kitchen, to take the job with LBF, and to have lived here and only worked in one actual restaurant is probably a waste of opportunity, but I wanted to (as usual) to expand my experience and to learn new stuff, and that, I did in spades.Loads of challenges and changes both career-wise and personally, and most of the School Of Hard Knocks variety, but you know what? I'll take it.
Not that I have a choice.
Returning to Seattle is a big deal for me, I left the city because I simply was tired of feeling like everyone knew me wherever I went, that I'd be unable to restart my life in the way that I wanted. Fresno seemed like a desperate choice, but ultimately did what I needed. I was surrounded by my closest friends, who allowed me time and space to gather myself, to sort through so many years of emotions and ideas. What seemed like running away from a failure gradually became a discovery. Sometimes when I think about how things went - about pulling myself out of a 3 month nosedive where I refused to let go of the past, which only led to more pain and anguish - until I finally did let it go. Gradually, as I built a new life, met new people who didn't know me as anything other than an old friend of K's, it was a full-on epiphany: I was who I was right then, at that moment. Not "used to be in a band", "works in reprographics" or whatever. It felt shiny and new and exactly what I wanted in that moment.
I decided I wanted to be a chef, enrolled in school, got a job in the kitchen of a children's shelter, and started doing what needed to be done, for myself. What is always amazing to me, is how things fall into place once you make that choice, that choice to do something. I had a really strict schedule in the first months of school, I'd go to school from 7am to noon, then have to be at the shelter by 2:30 and we'd prepare dinners, serve and clean up, and I'd typically get home by 7:30 or 8, in time to sometimes join K2 for dinner, sometimes be a little late, but almost always be able to hang out and chat about the day and compare notes, and then it was homework and to bed. I did that for 6 months, and worked with this amazing older Latina, Nina, who was the most feisty and yet gentle person I'd ever met. At the same time, I was practicing meditation, reading Siddhartha, and even using my work breaks to sit in a quiet corner of the yard outside the dining area to simply sit, quietly. It was so easy to have discipline then. I definitely seem to flourish when I have challenges and goals (I suppose maybe everyone does? though I suppose there are those out there who do just fine treading water, but as I've found in the last year, it doesn't do me much good). When I was offered the job at Upstairs Downtown (names are being used now, because I'm not actively employed by these places anymore, which I think is what yr supposed to do) it was a mindblowing thing. It was the only place in town doing the kind of food I wanted to do (previous journal entries detail that) and it was as close as I would get to the Holy Grails of Chez Panisse and French Laundry, so to be asked to work there was a huge victory. Looking back, what seemed at the time to be great luck, was, actually as CG said: I had "made this happen", by singling myself out to him and Sharon; and by being willing and able thanks, again, to the amazing compassion of K2, who allowed me to live with them rent-free, thus making it possible to take a full time job that only paid $8/hr so that I could get real skills in a kitchen. A kitchen working with amazing product and people who genuinely were passionate about what they did. Never would have been able to accept that job had I actually had to pay rent.
The staff of UD were possibly the most dysfunctional family I have ever....god, what word could I use to describe it? Upstairs was like being Alice in Wonderland (shit, another CG metaphor, which I only realized lately that he has used throughout my career) - an amazing refurbished warehouse in downtown Fresno, with a weekly changing menu, shopping twice a week at the Farmer's markets for produce pretty much exclusively, and getting out proteins and other goods from various specialty outlets. The only thing we got from Sysco were cleaning supplies and paper products. The interpersonal drama though, was epic, and the crazy manic-depressive co-dependent-Fu that went on left me with bruises and burns on my body and my psyche, but in the end, a huge learning curve that paid off in little ol' Fresno.
I had to play a waiting game, among others, in order to get to be the pantry chef, but once I did, the amount of freedom I had was insane, and the menu items I tried to create there allowed me to learn so many things. Not to mention actually being taught to butcher out lamb, ducks, and trim filets from beef. They let me braise whole calamari for a salad, and it was my idea. Even to the point of simply being able to understand the difference between grassfed beef, or freshly picked lettuces (seriously, it's a huge thing, fresh lettuce is so wonderful, to be able to make salads every day with those kinds of ingredients is a gift). The magic of duck cracklings, the zen of brulees, and the adrenalin rush of a la minute souffle service. Sadly, I let my emotions get the better of me, and bailed sooner than I should have.Culinary school at the same time as working at Upstairs gave me even more cache - all my instructors knew where I worked, and they commented on my dishes and my plating all the time.Even my practical, my final dish was late, but scored so high in all other categories that I finished top of my class in spite of the time penalty. School was such a good time, there was not a single day that I ever didn't want to go. That's a rare feeling, one that I won't ever forget.
I moved to a more "normal" restaurant, the brand new "5" a tuscan italian spot that got lots of press in Fresno, where, though I was hired as an assistant, I ended up being the pastry chef in less than 90 days when the barbie doll they initially hired couldn't take the day to day drudgery. I had a lot of fun at 5, and made friends I still have, including Carlos, Taylor, and Brett. Sure, I still keep in touch with Xtian, who was a server at Upstairs, who was the first person I ever texted, and is still a pal today - so many esoteric conversations in such unlikely places with him. From 5 to Lantana, another new build-out in the heavily douche-infested north end of Fresno. Truly a magic time, being there, though like all magic, when you find out it's a trick, you're kinda bummed. Ray was the Exec, I was the Pastry Chef and we had a sommelier who had worked at Chateau Marmot in LA and were even sent to LA to the owners favorite restaurants to find out what they wanted. In fact she took us a second time to do lunch spots in LA as well, which is how I came to actually eat a club sandwich in Barneys in Beverly Hills.
Man, it's been a busy 8 years. Ray and I bonding over the drive to Oakland to buy equipment for "our" restaurant, how often do you get to do that? How often when you are just a year out of school? Such a crazy fun front of house, we ran it like a real resto too, doing lineups and staff meals and....
This is a lot. I am realizing that there were a lot of details I didn't get down, even with the plethora of posts. It's just this whole California chapter is coming to a close, and i'm realizing that it's really more than just a chapter, it is, in fact, a volume on it's own. Like DC, but with so much more personal growth and self-awareness. I suppose that's simply due mostly to being older. Sometimes I feel like nothing's really happened, but when I look at it all on paper (still haven't mentioned the stage at Max's ((though there is an entry for that)) Pangea, or working for Love & Garlic, Cracked Pepper for Vatche or at Campagnia while waiting for Pangea to open, to LBF and Roli, and then finally to Latest Place Organic) so much to think about, to reflect on. So many people so many, varied specific experiences and fun stuff. Aside from work, there was culinary school hijinks, dates that couldn't see, river rafting, wine tasting, actual social party events with actual people who do social things, finding Arsenal, even getting free tickets to a Giants game from a cop on my 3rd day doing the cart at the stadium. Cool stuff. Lots of stuff.
Eight simple weeks, and a new chapter in Seattle begins, and while I'm nervous about all the usual things, I'm also, as I was when I returned from Eugene in '94, stoked. I'm ready to have old friends close again, to have family, to make new friends, to be in a place where people have memories of me (good, or bad) and I of them. There is the whole new world of possibility with smrge, to be explored as well.
I return with a new way of seeing the world, in knowing more about what makes me happy, and as the ever-wise Mr Tweedy says, better able to know what to care about, what's really important.
As stoked as I am to start again, it will tougher and bittersweet not having Scraps with me - this will be the first move I've made in 18 years without her. Still miss you like crazy everyday, Arugula.
