Eating Words

My restaurant...Fork, Dine, Home, Sup, whatever I'll call it...took firmer shape this morning as I sat with my cousin, parsing out the details:
"What sort of food would you serve?"
"Can you describe the niche you would fill?"
"Who would cook?"
"Would it be best to open it in a big place like Chicago or elsewhere?"
"How much money would it take?"
"What is the benefit of working with a partner?"
"Are you sure want to work that much?"

I had answers to all of these questions...good answers, thorough answers. Yet my vision felt bulbous and squishy, trying desperately to find it's feet. I felt the legs struggling beneath the weight of the ideas, but they were there. My vision has legs and the sense of when to use them, but I'm not sure if it has feet just yet.

At the end of our discussion, my cousin asked me pointedly, "Why aren't you doing this?" For the first time that hour, I didn't have an answer. Her query has been knocking around in my head all day, replete with headache and a severe lack of motivation. The clamour, slightly softened with Swiss and a pear, still pushes, muffled, against my eardrums.

Pinot Noir, Sebastiani Style

I talked to a girl named Meredith tonight, and it was the first truly social interaction I've had with a new person since I've moved to Michigan. Granted, I was kind of paying her to talk to me (she was my bartender), but it awoke the churning voice inside me, my growling, empty social stomach.

When I got home, after heavily tipping her for 2 mediocre glasses of wine, I filled the churning hole with smoked turkey and a little white chocolate pudding. While these delectable treats certainly helped abate my longing, I think chewing on the conversation with Meredith is what's really satiated me this evening.

Meredith is a hopeful high school history teacher...hopeful, that is, for a job. She's dying to get out of Michigan-- or, rather, she'll die if she stays. The economy in Michigan is so ruptured and declining so rapidly that I haven't met a single person, student or otherwise, who isn't looking to move away. An NPR program last summer said that you can tell the state of your economy by observing the 20-something crowd. What are they doing? Where are they going with their fresh ideas and skills?

In Michigan's case, they're seeking greener pastures, somewhere they can go that won't drag them back to adolescence, a place that won't stop them before they start. Meredith's teaching degree in History from U of M is useless here...there isn't a school in the state that will hire her, primarily because they can't afford the teachers they already have. While I enjoy having a bartender in my professional field (every bartender should teach in her spare time), Meredith stands as a symbol of the connection I've felt with Detroit for the last couple months.

Detroit is the city that has been sleeping for years. Beneath her leaden lids and comatose visage lie the sprouts of youth and makings of a smaller Chicago. The river, the expanse, the small but vital community of artists, the musical history and vitality, the ants crawling beneath that rusted skin...so much potential. With the right decisions and the right support, Detroit will awaken from the roots and transform into the city that it is meant to be. Soon Detroit will be a destination for people like Meredith, keeping the whole grains and moving the still lifes to new vibrance.

I hope, for myself, the same fate. My soul feels asleep, resting, a bit battered, a bit worn, and in desperate need of waking. With the right decisions, a good measure of patience and perseverance, I feel like I might, could blossom...like a wee bulb in spring, perchance. No promises, shallow hope and thin glimmers of a plan...but last week all I could see is dark and gray. Today, the air up here, be it dark and murky, carries the scent of spring.

Seeing Red!

Vino de nuit: Malbec, Argentina
Atop my shelf: Daily Show
Beneath my feet: Nothing, finally
In my bed: Mary Pipher, Clive Lewis...
To my right: 1.5 glasses of water, 4 tealights, 2 alarm clocks, 1 bar shea butter
Under my head: 500 count goodness times 2
In my head: visions of sugar...just sugar

coffee & chicory

coffee & chicory
Originally uploaded by eforrest.

As I dove into my piece of peanut butter pie, something I do not often "dive" into at all, I realized that I was going to need some coffee to cut the rich, creaminess. I dutifully stepped into the kitchen, fetched a filter and pryed open my can of Cafe Du Monde coffee with Chicory. The scent, dry, woody, nutty...eeked into my sensory memory and jilted thoughts shelved long ago. While it was just a can of coffee in an ordinary Chicago kitchen, I was suddenly very far away.

In New Orleans...it was December...just a few short days before Christmas with my new Louisiana family. We jaunted through the quarter and watched voodoo mamas selling their goods, downtrodden bayou hippies stoned, relaxing in the shade of the square, tie-dyed goods hanging from blackened trellis balconies, crystal pendants tinkering in every window, magic-slash-sex shops...and there was the canal, the edge of the quarter that we walked along, leading to the French Market, full of smelly annoying people...and enchantment. There was fresh fish, and some very interesting cuisine that I believe I was going to try...was it alligator? I'm not sure I did ever try that...

There was a low-light dinner in the Courtyard with twinkly lights and Orvieto vino, my first ettoufe and my last truly romantic dinner...my first time walking in the middle of the street with a daquiri, my last time in the Quarter as such.

In this fantasy land, I was introduced to Coffee with Chicory...Cafe au Lait. And while now it's all a rather blurry and whimsical memory, everytime I open my cupboard and see my steady yellow and brown coffee can, I remember softly in my heart the ardent love and rapture that I felt in those months. So many things then made my heart expand and grow, stretch to new dimensions. And the pain that followed, the difficulty and confusion...well, perhaps they're the chicory in that otherwise smoothly roasted coffee.

A succession of coffee beverages has made my heart expand and retract...and this year's Mardi Gras allowed me to revisit the finest blend- mellow on the palate, with a brief woody bite. Steady, but smooth all the way down. A perfect blend of the southern gentility and European brusqueness...perfect with cigarettes and peanut butter, whichever suits your fancy.