The Call

in Silver Bloggers9 months ago

I had just moved to Boston, armed with a Master of Arts degree in Mathematics. I was temporarily living with my then boyfriend, eagerly awaiting his return home from work, because I'd spent all day making him what was for me, as a 22 year old, a very lavish dinner. I remember chicken and broccoli with hollandaise sauce.

A few days prior to this, I was out wandering the streets of downtown Boston, in the neighborhood of the Ritz Hotel and the Boston Public Garden, the first botanical gardens in the US. According to the people who still operate the swan boats in the pond there:

Surrounded by Victorian-era cast iron fencing, the garden sits in the heart of downtown, surrounded by the historic neighborhoods of Beacon Hill and Back Bay.

I wandered into a very busy macrobiotic restaurant on Newbury Street, Sanae, and had me a big bowl of brown rice with gomasio, which was probably the only thing on the menu I could afford.

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There was a little help wanted for a dishwasher sign. I applied. I was in Boston looking for a job as a computer programmer. Even though I'd had a really good interview just prior to this meal, I was in need of some immediate cash. I'd enjoyed working in a restaurant as a teenager, and restaurant jobs come with meals, so a shift or two until I got my "real job" (as my father would implore me to get for several years after this event) would be very helpful.

So the emergency call for me to come in and wash dishes came, on a landline at my boyfriend's house, about an hour before he was to arrive home. I told the caller, Huey, that once I got that dinner on the table, I would be there. I watched my boyfriend take a couple bites, and off I went.

When I arrived, the dishes were piled very high, and boy was Huey ever glad to see me! Undeterred, I got right to work. I got those dishes washed in short order, and saved the day.

It turned out that Sanae was a satellite restaurant for The Seventh Inn, a large and bustling, largely macrobiotic, restaurant that was right across the street from the Boston Public Garden. The Seventh Inn, originally opened by Michio Kushi, father of macrobiotics, was then the home base for a cooking apprenticeship program, run by master chef Hiroshi Hayashi.

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I'd washed those dishes so well, I was offered a position as apprentice.

The programming job, which I had wanted very much, didn't pan out, so I gave myself over to 90 hour work weeks in downtown Boston, and habitation with the other twenty or so apprentices in a big house in Longwood. Under Hiroshi's not-always-politically-correct hand, I developed a great passion for cooking, baking and all things restaurant.

Hiroshi was nuts. We all were.

I've told more about the apprenticeship in a post I wrote for one of @galenkp's weekend experiences concepts.

I went on to a career in restaurants. I owned and operated, with my husband of 27 years, four food establishments in all. Where did he and I meet, you ask?

He was an apprentice at the Seventh Inn, too. Talk about decisions that change your life!

Now retired and in no need of gainful employment, I still look at empty store fronts and envision what kind of restaurant would work well. Wherever I go, I seek the best restaurants in the area. I managed to move to a hillbilly town that has no good restaurants whatsoever, so I cook a lot. Fortunately, there are amazing farmers in these hills, who provide almost all of the food that I can't manage to grow for myself.

I love good food!

And I have that phone call to thank for all this.

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This is my entry to @ericvancewalton's Memoir Monday initiative. Every Monday Eric posts a question about our lives for us to answer, in hopes that, after a year, the participants will have produced a valuable collection of memories.

In Eric's words:

Someday all that will be left of our existence are memories of us, our deeds, and words. It's up to you to leave as rich of a heritage as possible for future generations to learn from. So, go ahead, tell your stories!

I apologize for the lack of pictures of myself! I am out of town, finally found some time to put this together, and have no shots of me in one of my restaurants with me! I searched online, my mug had appeared regularly in New York City publications, but apparently, finding those from thirty years back is a task I am not capable of.

The menu images are from this article

Here's a review of the last of my food businesses, a really good restaurant, which closed in 2010 seven months before my husband's death. I retired on the day this restaurant closed.

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I'm sure your life wouldn't have been half as interesting had you got the programming job, but then again perhaps you were a Bill Gtes in the making;)

Right?! I would have been a completely different person! One of my sisters got the actual job I wanted (same company!), eight years later. She is highly anxious at all times. Has all the trappings, yearnings, and understandings that someone who went into that world would have. Thanks for thinking of me in that way.

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So when are you opening a restaurant again? I can hear that itch

I do feel it! More and more. But no way am I digging in that deep again. It sucks up your life.

Oh yes!

It is impressive how our plans change. You thought you were going to work in the IT field and your future really lay in the restaurant business. I loved your story. Thanks for sharing dear @owasco . A big hug from Maracay.

Thanks for the warm and fuzzy comment!

Isn't it amazing how unpredictable life can be? I feel for those people who never know that kind of adventure, people who have their entire lives planned out, step-by-step, and never stray from that path. I wish I could've read more about your restaurant but the NYT article was behind a paywall. It must've been very good to get a glowing review in that publication.

When I was growing up my family and I used to vacation in and around Boston. I can close my eyes and still see the Commons, with the swan boats. We pulled a little pop-up camper behind our van all the way from central Ohio and would camp up and down the coast of New England. Great memories!

Ah! The Commons! I couldn't remember the name.

That does sound like a great trip! My family rented cottages in woods with lakefront on small mountain lakes for vacations. I remember those times fondly, playing cards with my four siblings while my parents got sloshed next door. Everyone's windows open to the screens in the evenings, sounds of human merriment rang through the woods. Now kids are glued to their electronics on vacay. I'll probably use something from those vacations for my post about my father.

Are you using prompts from the book, or making up some of them? I thought "what would you like your heirs to find in your pockets?" might be a fun prompt. Not exactly a memory, but a cool vehicle for memories to be told through.

Allow me to brag a bit, and take myself back, way back, in the process, Here are some snippets from the review I left out the bit that said our shrimp tempura was "flaccid":

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Man, would I ever like to eat there!

 9 months ago (edited) 

We had similar vacations! Some of the campgrounds we stayed in around that area were wonderful. The lobstermen would bring their catch in once or twice a week. My Mom would get a huge lobster dinner with boiled potatoes and corn for $10.

"What would you like your heirs to find in your pockets?"

That would be an awesome prompt! We bought my Mom and Storyworth subscription a year ago and I just recently got a subscription for myself. Their algorithm picks your prompt for you each week but you can override that and choose from a list or make up your own.

The descriptions of those dishes made my mouth water! I'd like to eat there too! I just tried lamb ribs for the first time this past Easter. We ordered BBQ/smoked ones from Jack Stack's BBQ in Kansas City and they were delivered on ice.

This is a really good story. 😊

You never know when one small decision will change your direction forever.

Hey thanks for stopping by! And you sure don't know. This is the biggest I could think of, but every moment shapes those to come.

Following instinctively obviously outweighed what you had studied towards, knowledge is never lost, more gained as you move along. A wonderful direct route to an excellent memoir.

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Boston, ha! My daughter graduated from college last year and is currently working in a very busy sandwich shop. If she doesn’t get out soon, she might follow a similar path as you:)

haha things could be worse. Working in restaurants teaches you everything you need to know. Rush hours are exciting, and the sense of triumph when it's over is exhilarating! For me, I never looked back.

Oh me too. If it wasn’t for all I learned in the kitchen/restaurant, I would never made a success of this life. It taught me a work ethic that influenced me and those around me in so many ways.

Ah! A fellow kitchen person! Maybe that's part of why I can so relate to your view of the world, and like your art so much.

My first job at 16 was washing dishes for a chef/owner who 25 years prior was the chef in my grandfather’s restaurant on Seneca Turnpike. He kept a loaded gun in the knife drawer, and sent me home every night with bruises up and down my arms and legs. Besides breaking for college, I remained in the business for 25 years until painting took over.

Oh you were long term! What were the bruises from? My arms were often covered with burns, especially whenever I was working a line. Eventually, I became The Boss, and the job became nearly all paperwork, which I did well, but hated.

I got my food start at 16 too. My father was an inspector for the department of health, and he got me my first job in a chicken broasting restaurant. I loved it. After getting one job in a restaurant, it's easy to get another, and another and ...

Yes it is! I got stuck like Stuckism:)
The bruises were from his punches. Up and down my legs and arms.

Wow - where was I, 26 days ago, that I missed this???
You have so many great stories. KEEP WRITING THEM and SAVING THEM in a safe place.
Your future grandchildren will be grateful, and fans of your poetry anthologies.
For now, you're kinda like Emily D, sharing your poems with a small number of people.
You'll go viral, or onto the best seller list, in this lifetime!
You love to eat in restaurants but have so few nearby.
I can no longer eat at any, unless they offer GF, dairy- and egg-free, chemical free...
Without butter and eggs, it's soo hard to bake anything that's worthy of the calories (and cost).
Rant over.
Off to nurse the "hangover" of the GF Oreos which contain a long list of garbage ingredients, and no, I did not get away with it... but the sugar mania hit, and I caved.

Yes, I could forage for dandelion greens.
Meh.

How about honey on dandelion greens? I do not like dandelion greens, but if I am ever starving, I will eat them.

I might even eat roadkill - I recently watched a video on how to tell if roadkill is fresh enough to eat. It's getting crazy out here!

I've been doing a detox diet (modified so it's not torture) and those sugar hangovers, much more evident to me now, are awful! Have you looked at Simple Mills cookies? Not bad, and sold in a lot of places now. They make a chocolate cake mix that is very good, although I increase the sugars a bit by adding maple syrup. Oh wait, I think those use eggs.

Road Kill.
It's what's for breakfast.
(What old commercial am I trying in vain to remember....)

Our daughter has a banana bread recipe with no added sugar - just a bit of apple juice for sweetening. It is not very sweet. But it's gluten-, dairy, and egg-free. And it's actually edible.

Flax seed meal + water = egg substitute

It's not as awful as the fake milks (soy, almond, oat, coconut, etc).

Stinging nettles - found a colony near my mom, but Tyler the herbalist says NO, DO NOT EAT,
They're too close to the corn and soybean fields, sprayed, toxic, not organic.

Eh. There go a lot of nettle chips....

"Meat, it's what's for dinner" - Arby's tag?

Yes, don't eat anything that is close to any commercial monoculture. I hate that we rent the farm land to a corn farmer, but I don't let them spray anywhere near the house, and they use their own cow manure as fertilizer.

I'm glad you've found one treat that is edible. I try to bake for myself with organic everything, or buy from folks who think like I do about food. I remember using tapioca starch and corn starch as egg substitutes. There are ways to get around all this. I have a great chocolate cookie recipe that hits all your marks, I think. Back when I first started breeding, and cooking with allergies in mind was not yet a commercial thing, my babies had facial rashes, that required I avoid all possible allergens. I developed a whole line of cookies that I was hoping to bring to market and make a fortune on. I would have, too. I would have been one of the first. I conducted packaging tests, but never actually sold any. If I can find those recipes, would you like to have them? I used cane sugar in them, but they weren't terribly sweet. No dairy, gluten, eggs. Oat flour.

We're being heavily sprayed today, over here in the Southern Tier of NY. I expect either that we will have an extreme weather event. or we'll soon be on the list o areas where livestock tests positive for avian flu. It's so bad, and so obvious, that I am staying inside today, even though folks are saying what a beautiful day it is.

Farmers, spraying... fertilizing... that 1970s book The Secret Life of Plants (with the final chapter on the "colony" or commune that rejected your friend) ... a whole chapter in that book warns of the pitfalls of chemicals and the superiority of MANURE to fertilize crops, and, half a century later, farmers continue to spray and fertilize.

YES - why didn't you make your fortune back then! Too busy raising three kids...?
You are brilliant. Is there nothing you do not do well, or more than well?
Everything you do seems sublime. Masterful.

If I can find those recipes, would you like to have them? I used cane sugar in them, but they weren't terribly sweet. No dairy, gluten, eggs. Oat flour.

You're idealizing me! I have my failures and flaws! I suck at apologizing, for starters. I'd much rather ignore that I did anything wrong. I did make my fortune back then, such as it is. But I didn't get as rich as I would have if my allergen-free product had been the first one on the shelves. Now there are gazillions of them out there. None of them are as good as mine though. I had chocolate crisps, oatmeal raisin, and ginger snaps all ready for production, when I stopped. I still make them, but now I use butter instead of the toxic canoleo I used back in the day, and eggs instead of egg replacer.

Wait, what? You have flaws? LOL. You're so accustomed to being right all the time, about everything, that it's hard for you to say "I was wrong and I am sorry" if you ever do (gasp!) blunder.... well, as flaws go, I'll take it!!! Me, I'm forever apologetic, even if I'm not at fault, but, but, EVERYTHING is my fault, and I don't do much of anything right, or well, it seems.... yeah, I'd trade ya flaws!

Ooh, and some ginger snaps.
Butter is still dairy, but I sometimes get away with it, and with mild cheese (mozzarella, havarti), but not milk chocolate, not aged cheese, not toffee...
Sugar isn't what I miss most. It's my mom's tomato soup made with butter, condensed milk, and tomatoes canned from her own garden. I miss white bread and butter.
If you use butter and eggs, it's unsafe for me, and back I go to flax seed meal + olive oil.
The fake butters, no, no - all are full of garbage ingredients.

Ok, you must have another failing... your standards are so high, others don't live up? And they can sense that you know you could have done better whatever they did so inadequately?

Never mind. I don't think about your alleged failings - just your endless accomplishments and talent!

Isn't it funny how one thing can change your life if you had not been hungry and not gone to the restaurant to eat, you would not have applied for the job, and maybe you would have never met your husband, who would you have married and who would be your children?

I wonder about these things in my life.

What an adventure, and in Boston no less. I was there in 2006 or so, learning some cool new tech, and I enjoyed every minute of it (especially following the red-marked path or Freedom Trail along historic sights). I couldn't imagine having to make a living there, but to me it seemed like a great place with many opportunities. As a 22 year-old, it would've been wild. So I can only imagine what you were experiencing as a post-grad. At that age, I was settling my spaceship in British Columbia on the opposite end of the continent. 😄

I had my head in Food, and did little else in Boston. We ate out regularly, paid for by the restaurant and written off as R and D. I got room and board, plus a mere pittance in pay, but I wanted for little. I didn't have time! My fave restaurant was Durgin Park, closed now. That place was a trip.

Where are you now?

I remember having oysters and some famous sandwiches in Boston. But a brief experience is different from having to live there, so it looks like working at the restaurant had its pluses.

I'm in Vancouver now. Wackiest place in Canada. :)

You're there bringing some sanity to the place then.

The joke around here is that when they tipped Canada, all the nuts rolled to Vancouver. That should tell you everything you need to know about our sanity around here, but I do try to balance some things out :D

The quickest way to get hooked on cooking is washing dishes in a restaurant with good food.

I painted a restaurant that needed part-time dishwashing help and that led to a big detour in my life. I wanted to open my own restaurant, but chickened out and ended up teaching English in Japan.

I didn’t realize the macrobiotic movement had roots in Boston. Very interesting.

Oh yes it was very big in Boston. Michio Kushi owned the restaurant I worked in, did I already say that?

I learned a lot about cooking by washing dishes. Everyone should start there. I would promote good dishwashers (I could tell this on their first shift) to cooks and many of those went on to careers as chefs. I miss the kitchen.