Well I guess this has turned out to be more of a monthly blog than weekly or daily - maybe I'll change that. It's a foggy and mild (38F) saturday up here at my mom's house, and it's my mom's birthday, as it turns out. Our good friend Linda flew in from Chicago yesterday. Linda's the best. She babysat for my sisters and I when I was around five, six - right when my folks were splitting up, back in the New Jersey suburb where I grew up. She was actually the teenage daughter of my mother's freinds Bonny and Roger Terry, who lived down a few blocks. My mother ended up losing touch with Linda's folks (different priorites/ politics etc.) but completley bonded with Linda during that difficult time in both their lives, and has remained super close with Linda ever since, who now has a family and two kids of her own out in the Chicago suburbs. This trip was a chance for her to escape her youngins and hubby and celebrate my mom's birthday, and just let her hair down. We all had a great night of laughing, eating, and drinking, and it was great to be all together again, with no wedding to rush to, or children to attend. We all love Linda so much because we speak the same language. We all have shared the similar family dysfunctions, inappropriate parental behavior of the drug-infused 1970's and 80's, self-hatred, inner growth, the passage of time, and a general dislike of modern, self-centered, material-driven society. Hangin with Linda always feels very therapeutic for everyone present.
I started a new job on Wednesday, and moved into a new apartment, both in Bristol, Vermont, which is a couple hours south of my mom's by car. I was kind of chomping at the bit to do both. I have been blessed to have been able to stay at my mom's house (pictures attached) ,for a month and a bit, and essentially do Nothing! It's fuckin fabulous! I mean, when is the last time that you had Nothing to do?...Nothing you didn't want to do, anyways. I fed the animals, took 'em out for walks, brought wood in for the woodstove, fed the woodstove, fed myself (both amply), played piano and guitar for hours a day, shoveled the walk a couple times, and soaked in all the peace around me. Each week I picked up the phone, answered 9 automated questions, and the dept. of labor would send me a check for $377.00! Amen to getting laid off. Again, I feel blessed. And now I'm happy to be back in the work force, back in the restaurant world (cooking), and back in a place of my own. It's a bit daunting looking at my medium sized two-bedroom apartment, all bare pine and linoleum staring back at me, the refridgerator humming away just a bit too loudly, no furniture or blinds to absorb its drone. After recuperating from the odd and unhealthy lifestyle of truck driving at my mother's home, which is effortlessly rich with comforts, plants, animals, and the best of human literature, art, music and food - trying to recreate some semblance of that richness and comfort for myself is daunting, as I said. I'm determined to not let this new place fall into the category of "hovel used for sleeping and showering" that many of my past abodes have been in. I need to be physically and spiritually sustained by my dwelling, as I have been by my mother's house. And so it shall be.
This restaurant should be pretty cool. Mary's at Baldwin Creek is set up in an old farmstead outside of Bristol village, with the creek flowing right by the five or six large greenhouses they have out back; big barn for weddings and such. They grow a large portion of their own produce, and the rest of the meats and veggies they get from twenty or so local farms. The menu is fine American quisine with some Asian and other influences mixed in, and changes seasonally. A lot more involved and inspired than the other lines I have worked, which is great, if not a bit challenging. When you're cooking and plating a lot of salads, appetizers, and desserts - and they all have various layers, sauces, and garnishes before they get put up in the window - it is harder to keep your flow and not get overwhelmed. I'm confidant I'll get it down, and the chefs, one of them being an owner, are very supportive thus far. The inevitable politics and grievances that infest every restaurant in existence are noticable already, but I'm determined to not get involved and not let the griping bring me down. Chefs are almost as bad as truck drivers with their griping and belly-aching, now that I think about it. They don't have the CB radio to vent their negativity, and they ultimately can't control and direct their work environment to the extent that most truckers can, so they bitch and moan and slam the door to the walk-in as they mop up at the end of the night, when the owners have gone home. I was also prepared for the other inevitability of re-entering the food business: the one insanely hot chick that I want to screw so badly it hurts! Without fail, there is always One! The one that fucks up your flow by just being around. The one who's words you find yourself paying special attention to when she talks, because they might hold clues on how you could enter her world! The one who's boyfriend you wish would get hit by a runaway bus, before you ever meet him. The one who's gaze you find hard to meet because the raucous, pornographic images you harbour about her will shine through like a film-strip when you do. Yep, that one. There's always one.
