My friend said hello in a dream

I spent last night learning to roller skate. Well, learning to roller skate while also learning how to race on roller skates. Tony was always competitive, and usually racing. Bikes, skates, drugs - always rolling. Going, pushing, moving. It had been so long that the sheer shock of him - his hands, his breath, the way he opened and closed his eyes - it was all so novel that I found myself just staring, stopped, watching, breathless. As the skates controlled my destination, I drifted slowly across the floor as he flew over the cement. 

I'm not sure he ever roller skated. 

We loved each other right away. In a way that was never sustainable, because it filled your lungs and your heart and made you feel like it was all about to come exploding out of you, a million miles a minute. Like him. Like attracting repelling magnets. We'd never be ready, and we could never contain it. 

We were always touching, so when he grabbed my hands and pulled me after him, it felt effortlessly out of control, like stepping into a self that long ago expired, and feeling immediately at home. You never wanted to confess that you were afraid, not in front of Tony. If he was doing it (which he always was, whatever it was), then you were doing it. There's no fear here, fear has no home here. Get on the stage and sing, loud - scream! Dance dirty and accept tips. Use the money for whiskey and fall in love with the bouncer who helps you down from the stage. Race home, unwilling to let the night leave you behind. Use the last $5 for a six pack, make out. Trade stories of recent conquests, always in past tense. 

When I woke up this morning I could still feel his fingerprints on my wrists. Was still flushed, because it's always summer there. 

I'll see you again, my friend. Next time teach me how to fly. 

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

 Just like the ones I used to know. 

I always imagined this line was in reference to the snow we saw when we were young, and the planet healthier. Up to our chins, and hopping from one gigantic father footprint to the next, across drifts piled high against garage doors, and driveways. 

Except that can't be right, can it. This song was written in 1942. Global warming was a twinkle in our carcinogenic-laden eyes.

Just like the ones I used to know. 

Two of the arguably most well known Christmas songs (sorry, Mariah) - White Christmas and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, both written and performed in the tall grass of the second world war. This subject matter is not groundbreaking, anyone who listens to the words will be rewarded with a stunner of a heartache. 

Someday soon we all will be together

If the fates allow

Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow 

Just like the ones I used to know. 

That time I tried to get into NYU

I was recently digging through an old gmail account looking for something and stumbled upon this gem; an essay I wrote for entrance to the NYU Masters in Food Studies program. I think about that now and marvel at what a luxury it would be - to get a masters program in something I am still so passionate about, which would simultaneously cost a fortune and prove to be 150% professionally meaningless.

Reading it now feels like listening to someone else talk about my life, in a really interesting way. This was written in 2010. I'm leaving it as is, unedited. How close, how far away. So many unnecessary words.

"A few years ago, I watched in awe as a friend of mine sought out, applied and was accepted to the school of his dreams. It was the fourth undergraduate institution he had attended, and was twenty-eight years old when admitted. When I asked him how he had found the college of his dreams, he said that he did an Internet search for everything he’d ever wanted, and when his school popped up, did everything he could to attend because he knew it was where he was supposed to have been all along. 

Which is how I find myself writing to you now. 

When I was in high school, I started working for a coffee shop in the local shopping mall. It was something I picked up after school and on weekends because I wanted to pay for gas so I could own the freedom of being a sixteen-year old licensed driver. Soon, though, I found myself skipping school dances on Friday and Saturday nights in favor of picking up shifts; coming home late not because I was out with friends, but had stopped by the store and was pitching in because they were unexpectedly busy. When I was faced with the prospect of applying to college, I did so because it was simply what you did after high school. I had no particular ambitions, and in retrospect it would have been wise to take a few years off before going to school. My college career was littered with changes to my majors and minors, with an overall sense of scatterbrained wanderlust. I was not what you would call a successful student.

I began working at the coffee bar on campus and was often found there in between shifts and classes reading (not necessarily for class). My Modern Poetry professor once walked by my table, noted that I was reading V., and from then on referred to me as “the girl who read Pynchon for fun”. I think I got a C in his class. Coffee, writing and books were my life. I wanted to drop out so that I could open my own café and travel, but as I grew up in a family comprised of nurses and lawyers, this, they proclaimed, was simply not an option. Food service wasn’t a valid career path, but something I did as a layover to a “real job”.  I accepted this, but floundered. My undergraduate career was unimpressive with the exception of my writing classes, in which I excelled. 

Once I graduated I started traveling. Ireland was my first foray into the world outside of the United States, followed by Thailand, which changed my life forever. For the first time I felt like I was living. Fueled by fear, pure exhausted adrenaline, and outright curiosity, we ate our way through Bangkok and I fell in love with the culture of food markets. I ate green curry with prawns on plastic folding chairs in the middle of the street at six o’clock in the morning, followed by a plastic baggie filled with gelatinous, brilliantly colored…well, frankly I still don’t know what was in that bag, but it was sweet, strange, and I wanted more.  For the first time I felt like I was home. I never could have predicted I’d find it (and myself), linguistically isolated in the middle of Southeast Asia. 

Upon my return, plowed through Philadelphia with new zeal – sought out any hole in the wall that that served Shanghai soup dumplings (turns out there’s only one) and vermicelli. Restaurants and eating became my hobby, my meal ticket and my passion. I dragged any willing friend or family member around the tri-state area (and beyond) seeking out new markets and restaurants while the diploma in my closet became a distant memory. 

When I started working for Capogiro Gelato Artisans, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Quickly though, it became clear I had fallen into a crowd that would push me to the next level in my career, and in life. It’s a pace I’ve not encountered before, and one I can barely go without – working throughout the day and night to provide the city with newfangled ways to support local farmers and agriculture, all the while maintaining an aesthetic to impress all levels of media. I cultivated an eagle eye for burnt out light bulbs and past their prime Meyer lemons. “No, we don’t have strawberries right now” became part of my daily rhetoric. When they created the position of District Manager for me, I was floored and honored in a way previously unknown.  I am constantly surprised by the support of the owners, and the camaraderie created when a bunch of crazy food lovers keep close quarters and extreme hours. 

Eleven years after my first job as a barista, I have finally accepted that my passion for what we put in our bodies is the life I am meant to have; the life I can’t life without. When I realized I was ready to take the next step and did an Internet search for the academic program I’ve always wanted, New York University’s masters program in food studies was the first result.  

I know my undergraduate transcripts are lacking. I’m aware that on the surface, I’m not the student you’d be most likely to admit, but I’m the one that deserves to be there. I want this, I’ve worked hard for it, and it isn’t something I take lightly, as it’s the first time in my life I’ve really known what that means."

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.