How to open a restaurant: Orson

DATELINE: San Francisco, Monday, February 25

The masterminds behind Citizen Cake and Citizen Cupcake have struck gold again. A marble bar with a Japanese light fixture hanging aloft dominates the main room in Orson, drawing in the crowds for the necessary swill that tastes oh-so nice at anything E. Falkner-related, in this case a Celery Gimlet Martini and an Elder Flower Martini- nothing wimpy about these cocktails. Kudos to John on the champagne. Champagne on a Monday makes everything better… even a chest cold. Favorite nibbles passed by attentive servers included a spoon of brown butter ice cream, house-cured salumi, and pork bun with pulled pork inside. The crowd packed into the space, testing the limits of capacity. With music bumping and even an homage by E. Falkner’s bro. Jason to Def Leppard’s “Photograph” attendees nodded their heads in agreement: this is going to be the “it” place of SOMA. So watch out Coco 500, there’s a new sheriff on 4th.

One funny story involved an Audrey Hepburnesque (in her Givenchy days) socialite with whom I became rather chummy, through whom I met my new Cartier jeweler. How did we become fast friends you may ask? After she asked S. how her cocktail tasted, she proceeded to pull it to her lips and have a try. I even snagged a chocolate truffle filled with foie gras for her and she actually opened her mouth, ready for the train to enter the station. Upon trying to give her my card so we could keep in touch or at least lunch, she saw the gimlet cocktail in my hand and tilted up another delicate bottoms-up. She has the San Francisco je ne sais quoi in spades.

When opening a restaurant you need:

A question or two or more: A blog of questions

When the SPCA rounds up 143 million pounds of beef because the cows were “inhumanely treated” (read: couldn’t walk and had to be prodded with a forklift toward the slaughterhouse), what happens to all that meat? And more importantly, did those cows live and die in vain? When does accountability make its way into the kitchen of mainstream America?

Lying among leaves of grass with the Rabbi

As one who believes in equality for all men and women (but knowing that opportunity does not present itself equally for all), I embrace Walt Whitman’s imperative of equality in “Song of Myself”. Any disparaging mumbles or mind mutters I’ve ever made in his direction I rescind.

He speaks about a prostitute: “The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her / tipsy and pimpled neck, / The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and / wink at each other, / Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you,)”

Imagine another scene: fishermen stand in their boat, nets empty and faces despondent. Along comes the Rabbi telling them to throw the nets back into the water, to trust that they will produce a good return this time. They yank them up onto the deck with a great tug. Fish flop and fill the nets in such a multitude that their faces appear sunlit in the dusk of day. But instead of the fishermen taking the fish to market and reaping the great financial reward of their catch, the Rabbi tells them to leave their nets and follow him.

Two words: “Follow me.”

I have encountered these two words many times in my life and they always require an answer. With the answer always comes a cost. In high school, they turned my life in another direction of wanting to embrace the disenfranchised and not overlook the oppressed. They took me to a slum in Honduras and then many years later to a slum in India. In both places, I learned so much about the love and joy made possible in the simplicity of poverty. They brought me out to California almost 10 years ago to pursue a greater knowledge of understanding God and really teaching me how to ask better questions rather than receiving pat answers I anticipated. They have shown me what it is to have more than you could have ever hoped for and turn around, giving it away with a joyful spirit and heart. They took me to France last year unleashing my voice in song. Little did I know that “Follow me” would lead to the unlikely place of an intense pursuit of poetry.

Another way to categorize last year is that I became a dry branch. Feeding on the waters of poetry has furthered the depths of my own work. I can see it and am overcome with gratefulness for the growth that is happening. But in a conversation of faith and art, my art started taking pre-eminence over faith. I have become engrossed lately in some great dialogues on faith and art with Olga. As an opera singer, she and I have discussed and agree strongly on the need for the artist to be open. Openness allows a great influx of ideas to collide and create something new. For her, as she interprets characters she has to consider their mannerisms, their quirks. In my poetry, I want to speak to and embrace humanity. Walt and I share that in common. I want my poems to be like a grand dining table filled with platters of delectable food, where there is something palatable for everyone. And not compromise vision or voice in favor of the pleasing.

Instead of allowing faith and art to coalesce, I began abandoning the one over the other. And I firmly believe that they can be in conversation with one another in a way that is thoughtful, unsentimental and provocative.

What I appreciate about following God through Jesus is that it requires thought and action mingled together. The depths to be plumbed are vast indeed and this mystery of following a God who is so other and so unknowable in the midst of knowing compels me onward. My good friend L. says I am the most Hindu Latin American she has ever met and this is such a complete compliment. I follow a Person / God who I want to transform me more into a fuller human being. The words given in the Bible are dynamic and always hold something new for my eyes if they will be open to see and my ears if they will be open to hear. The Rabbi / teacher / guru informs my innermost being. He teaches me to be contrary to myself and love my enemy. He teaches me I am not God (nor would I want to be). I learn love through reading of His example and generosity through the multiplied food He endows upon the masses. Most importantly, I want to be like Him. That’s really what I guess this faith comes down to for me. And being like Him means also being excellent in the gifts I possess.

“Follow me” right now looks like weaving through a myriad of images and scenes painted by Walt’s generous strokes, where he admonishes,

“Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore, / Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, / To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and nod / to me and shout”.

Damn good quote #2

“We carry so many people and places and experiences inside us I’m always amazed we can keep moving forward. Our minds are so full of so much, and inside there everything is so vivid, so alive, so meaningful. I suppose, in some fashion, this is a question many philosophers have dealt with for many centuries, along with the Surrealists at the beginning of the 20th century. When someone speaks in your mind, it sometimes feels like everyone can hear.”

- Alberto Ríos

The convergence of despair and delight

Today, holed up in a chocolate cafe, in equal parts I watch the people walk by the large panoramic window and reflect on a poem by Borges. Some weeks push the envelope… last week my sweet N. went under the knife for a double mastectomy and D. unexpectedly had a stroke Sunday evening. While both carry major gravitas in themselves, coupled they had the power of a tsunami. N’s prognosis felt tied up in D’s and vice-versa. My first thoughts each morning strove to bring their plights once more to the Father. By the end of the week, N. was doing well and D. is stable but still in a coma.

Enter “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Julian Schnabel brings his painter’s eye to the silver screen in a film whose images and lead character enthrall. I loosely understood the premise of the movie: Elle editor sustains health problems and his life is turned upside down but with a hopeful twinge. In actuality, the protagonist brings a profound weight and humor to a situation no one would ever desire. So many times during this movie, I reveled in how humans can be kind and forgiving and wrong and beautiful in their interactions with each other. Insurmountable odds require creativity. When Jean-Do decides he will stop pitying himself, he is released. What this doesn’t mean is that he is always content and happy with his situation. It would be inhuman to not question or begrudge what life may give, but how the human spirit can triumph even in the worst scenarios- this is the crux of the film. Though tethered in body, he is untethered in mind.

I think of Borges’ Shakespeare, a no one in seach of becoming someone. A no one who wears the mantle of everyone and in so doing crafts stories and characters that transcend time and space. With the gravity not usually associated with the word hope, I plant my feet upon it, knowing its paper wings can alight, believing that all will be made new anew.

New York Revelries: An Installment

In a madcap adventure set in New York, our heroine zips through subways and jaunts on the Upper East Side back down to Midtown. Here, she hails cabs and can elbow along the sidewalk with the best of them, mittens on hand, ear-flapped hat on head.

She meanders to the 92 St. Y for an All-Jewish poetry reading and makes a mental note to check with the parents to make absolutely sure she doesn’t have an inkling of Jewish blood coursing in her veins. Dan Bellm demonstrates how midrash can be tackled into form and Scott Cairns postulates how the “Fall” might have really come from a moment of witholding and resistance in the Garden long before the serpent showed up.

The next day she convinces a couple at favorite nosherie Candle 79 that they should definitely give the Seitan Chimichurri Skewers a-go. But then later realizes after she’s gnawing on the second skewer that seitan is wheat. Dr. M. will not be pleased and surprisingly, neither is her stomach! But now off to another poetry reading- this time as many Latin-American poets as you can cram into a 2 1/2 hour block. She still is imagining the black star creeping out from the woman’s chest in Blas Falconer’s poem. Aloud, she sings “Alabanza!” with Martin Espada. She wants to tell the man in prison along with Aracelis Girmay to go ahead and sing when they tell him not to sing. Self-consciously, she runs a hand through her oh-too-curly hair and sympathizes with Edwin Torres. And deep down she wonders about being an intelligent, over-educated “brown” girl along with Jose Gonzalez. But enough poetry- just for the moment. On to the deli and the pub and the cab and into bed because the morning comes too soon. It will.

So she walks the entire Jacob Javits Center in one pair of shoes and in the span of a few hours, whizzing by tchotchkes, designer gifts and inhaling the candle smoke as she goes. Over dinner at a bar at an Italian restaurant on a side street which gives her the hunch it will be good, she spends her conversation in two languages- English for the Italian wine rep at her side and Spanish for the bartender who somehow can tell she’s loving the Spatlese Riesling so much that once her glass empties, he fills it up halfway and gives her a smile and a wink. Hello fava beans and broccoli rabe and toasted garlic and I can’t forget you artichoke hearts! But again our heroine is off with a bang catapulting into a party with the right mix of friends and the unfamiliar. This seems good until the noise is high and fatigue is setting in. What’s a girl on a Saturday night to do?

Her friend M. has not seen New York since she was 14. New mission in the left hand, she feverishly types in the word “Pinkberry” with her right hand, into her telephone and off they go, walking into the thrall that is Times Square and then 45 blocks for a scoop of sweet and sour fro-yo. The night is now in cahoots with her spirit, even though her feet are loudly protesting another step. But off they go, seeking the dance party and carving out a plot of dance floor space on the too-packed dance floor. In case anyone ever wonders what poets do in their downtime, there is dancing and revelry. But more dancing as the deejay keeps spinning 80s tracks into each other like small planets orbiting and then colliding into such a fantastic symbiosis. Our heroine? she’s in the middle of the dance floor teaching a poet named Akeem how to salsa and feeling every bit of her alive.

Until she sails into bed reservedly, not wanting the weekend to end. Not wanting to bid adieu to New York. So happy *yawn* that the New York Restaurant Show is right *yawn* around the corner… as she sinks into the feather pillow.