fire burns

This industry is the balance between hot and cold, fear and beauty. On one hand we revel in extreme temperatures, our hair and skin regularly singed by open flame, and we all  share an affinity and respect for sharp blades. We wear our cuts and burns as badges of honor. We compare notes on the pain a particularly long grueling shift can take on our bodies. On the other, we exalt the beauty and preciousness of the delicate flesh of a perfect tomato. Hardened hands that barely flinch at the splatter of hot grease, can so lovingly plate with such pristine and perfection. A fragile leaf of herb, or dainty garish placed with care. We are the balance between the uncontrollable and the desire for perfection. We ride the line, we hold both sides together, and from my rare perspective, it’s the food people that work as the seam that holds the fabrics of our volatile civilization together. We are the beast, and we are the artist.

Like any industry that begins with entry level work, there are people that wander into this field unexpectedly and unenthusiastically. If you start out cleaning restrooms at a tech company, it’s not likely you’ll end your career as the CEO. But, you start out washing dishes at a restaurant, and you have a pretty good chance of making your way to chef before the movie ends. This career always manages to funnel in those that aren’t welcomed elsewhere. Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The kitchen, that’s the real refuge! We welcome you, flaws and all.

For some it will remain a job, but for others, this hot room of loud noises and salty attitudes becomes a calling. Life outside of work just serves as time to fuel up for the next shift. Everything these called upon people do revolves around the kitchen. And maybe we’re the ones who really have it all figured out. We respect our position in the world. While we often aren’t looked highly upon with such esteem as other professions, we know the importance of what we do. We recognize the magnitude of our duty. Life revolves around the kitchen. Food is the thing that binds us all. No matter how big the fight, how wide the differences, eventually we all take our seat at the table. Every society, every culture, every place. We all eat. You make time for the meal, but we set the table. We are the ones that not only face the fire, we keep it burning. And as long as that happens, then there will always be something we can all relate to. The world is wide, but we all sit together at dinner time.

Unless you are one of the lucky few that make it to celebrity status, the average restaurant cook isn’t a highly celebrated position. Perhaps due the gritty attitudes most chefs showcase which is probably thanks to the level of difficulty of the job and the not so appealing route that a poor sap must take to get to the level of chef. Think 8 hours standing on soaked feet from old mop water and hands deep in a cesspool of juices from strangers’ plates. Think plunging toilets full of deposit you didn’t deposit. Ya, working your way to the top of this profession is not easy. But the good news is that when you do reach the top, you’ll probably barely make enough money to pay your bills. The even better news is that you’ll spend so much time at work you won’t really have time to accrue too many bills or spend too much money. See, it’s a win win really.

So, after that particularly glamorous job description, you can see why kitchen folk really do need role models. We need our celebrity-status chefs to look up to. We need decorated winners to best represent our industry, and to give us outstanding albeit mostly out of reach goals to reach towards. We need kitchen heroes. We need to be reminded that what we’re doing matters, and that society accepts us. It is especially important for those that do represent us to represent all of us, the pith and the pits. Anyone can like Rachael Ray, but not everyone could love Anthony Bourdain. And yet, he chose to show the good and the bad, and still people respected him. He made room for a person like me at the table.

Today, I lost one of my table legs. I’m stunned. I was actually physically shaken by the news of his suicide. His loss…. Our loss. The darkness won.

I could always easily describe myself as half Vivian Howard and half Anthony Bourdain. That description is actually so accurate that it eventually defined me. 50% grits and 50% grit, the intro to my elevator pitch. I find acceptance in their flaws because I share those flaws. It actually energizes and comforts me to see them as real people, not just celebrities, because I can see my own potential succeed beyond that with which hopes to hold me back. I get to see people that started in similar common and unsophisticated beginnings soar, while still carrying with them a determination to not be ashamed of their start. You can do both. I see the same insecurities, anxiety and crippling expectations that plague me move forward in the same direction I set a course for. In the same industry that takes joy in cutting. If they can do it, and find contentment at the end of the work, then I can too.

But one of them couldn’t.
One of them succumbed to the darkness that eventually this particular combo of personality and career can bring.

One of my legs broke.

That is why I feel the way I do today. Everyone will speak of his work to connect us to other parts of the world, his ability to find the common ground that connects all people. They will highlight his many accomplishments and accolades. They will discuss his loss on a global scale. And they should, he deserves it. But I wanted to tell you about our loss. The kitchen kids that are working our way through the smoke. His loss has served such a gargantuan blow to my people. We didn’t lose a favorite tv star. We didn’t lose a famous face. We lost the person that made us feel safe to be us.

I wonder what his last meal was. I hope it was created with the passion he deserves. I hope it was simple but memorable. I hope he was comforted by it. I hope it was perfect. And I hope somehow, someway, our consuming need to create one more such meal and experience will be enough to keep our fires lit.

Footnote: HUGE THANK YOU to Creative Colloquy of the South Sound for inviting me to read this piece at one of their gatherings. It was a new and terrifying and awesome experience. I had never read any of my own writing in person before, other than those nightmare inducing speeches in school and work related presentations. This was exhilarating, and I left with so much love and gratitude to any and all artists that choose to share their art with the world in that way, and also to organizations like Creative Colloquy for bringing us together and encouraging us all to continue our creative path.

Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. It is my true belief that we make the world a better place and our experience in it richer if we share our experience together. I do that through food at my restaurant Smoking Mo’s in Shelton, Washington, and through my story telling here. I deeply thank you for joining me on this adventure, and for giving me the love and encouragement to keep moving forward.