Originally shared on 11 June 2018 via TinyLetter.
Though I’ve never been a foodie or truly adventurous eater, after many years of international and cross-country exploration, I have a great fondness for unassuming gems and really special memories of meals cooked and shared with others – expired-food potlucks, fusion-culture Shabbats and one very spontaneous mid-week Thanksgiving dinner in Peru, where I bought a turkey at a word-of-mouth store down a dark alley in a neighborhood I barely knew. Thirty non-Americans showed up with dishes from all over the world to celebrate with a very delighted gringa that night. I remember being invited into homes by strangers in India, kindly curious about a foreign woman in a sari exploring their streets. I jumped on their mopeds, map-less and happy. And in Italy, when a few fellow archaeologists and I hitch-hiked to “House of the Hunt” to eat wild boar for my birthday. Of course, too, my aunt, uncle and cousins will remember my first urban food adventures when I traveled with them to Montreal and New York City and asked the waiters about every unknown item on the menu at these strange restaurants that didn’t serve all-you-can-eat soup, salad and white bread. I remember the conversations more than the food. I am grateful for those experiences.
Today, for y’all, I have an unpredict story. On Friday, out of cell range, before hearing the bone-sad news of the frank and curious Anthony Bourdain, I stopped at one such special future food memory place. The chef, named Mel, a Vietnam Vet, said he opened this place so he could connect and talk with people regularly – he said that relating to others made him feel happy, that the food was the excuse to do that.
When I walked in, Mel asked, “Have you ever had strawberry rhubarb pie?” I hadn’t in a long long time. He said, “I made my first one last night!” He cut me a sliver to try, reminding me to eat dessert first on some days. We talked about pies and local produce and other recipes and traditions. It was an unintentional, unpredicted moment that happened because I figured that any sign hand-stenciled with “biscuits n gravy” was made by a good person – and I was hungry, in need of nourishment.
While sitting at the table, chatting with Mel, as he made my food, another man jumped into the room followed by his quiet dog. Mel asked, “Hi there, Russ, want me to make you something?” Russ was a little rough around the edges, his body and brain constantly swaying from topic to topic, in the way that unsettled cats enter new rooms and stalk into corners in search of unseen shadows. His truck had broken down. He had collected many many elk antlers. He showed me gold he had panned from a river in northern Idaho, name unknown. He sat down across from me to eat his chicken while I munched on my avocado wrap.
In the Mountain Man Traveler’s Outpost, a gold panner with a broken truck full of elk antlers ate across the table from a wandering sola Jewish-esque women in the middle of rural Idaho because a kind-hearted vet named Mel intuitively knew that tables and griddles bridge identities and transect race, class and gender and all the other strange nouns and adjectives we use to define our ephemeral tribe. Also, Mel knew that he needed people around him — “people from everywhere”– to keep him connected to himself and grounded in the present world. These people-full moments kept him bright-hearted, with twinkles of possibility in his eyes.
Russ looked up from his sandwich. “I was collecting those elk antlers, and then NPR came on my radio – in the middle of nowhere – can you believe that? In the middle of nowhere. There was a volcano in Guatemala. It killed a bunch of people. Boom. They’re gone. Just like that. We’re sitting on top of a volcano, too, you know. ” With his next bite, he stopped swaying, the food giving him a brief respite from his unsettled soul. “You know, I just can’t believe it. One minute, blue skies and the next, they’re gone. I mean, my truck is broken but I’m alive. I’m lucky. I’m grateful.” Then, Mel said, “We all gotta listen to the earth before it breaks.” And, he added a few pieces of rich, green avocado to both our plates.
Russ turned to me, “Mel has the best food.” I nodded and smiled at him and at Mel, my soul also settling into this moment of peace and rest in a restaurant only marked by a biscuits and gravy sign, a sign that had called me in from the defined path of the highway into the unknown, and there, I found more nourishment than food alone could provide.
Your unpredict: Scroll to the bottom of your text messages on your phone and reach out to the person you sent your very first text to. Tell them you are grateful for them, if you can. If it feels right, keep reaching out to the next person up with another gratitude message. Maybe share some food-nourishment. Do more than check-in. Show up. Go to a restaurant. Have a picnic. Cook together.
Drink air. Breathe sunshine or be grateful for the rain that brings flowers where there were seeds.
And if you can’t reach out, if you are standing on a dormant volcano, I’ve been there, and I’ll be there again, and it’s still hard to say that without feeling the churning pressure of inside-of-me-loneliness. I hope it never explores for you, or for me, or for anyone else, again.
with love and nourishment,
xoMo