Into the Ordinary

[Daily Gullet Staff]

<img src="http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1177053870/gallery_29805_1195_12287.jpg" hspace="8" align="left">by Joseph Carey

Fourth in a series.

Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse the same year I opened The Ordinary. She named her restaurant after a character in a film by a French director she admired. I named mine after -- well, nothing. About that name -- The Ordinary -- I liked the definition: a public house that served a fixed meal, at a fixed time at a common board. Of course, that was absolutely nothing like what I ended up doing with the joint. I also liked the irony since I had nothing ordinary planned.

The two restaurants were just a couple of miles apart, but worlds apart in terms of clientele and cuisine. That gulf grew as time went by. At the time the only interaction I had with that group was going to a spaghetti party held by the Chez Panisse crew; it turned out they had someone they wanted me to hire. We were both interested in organic gardening and sustainable agriculture. Her focus -- and her location -- was a lot better than mine. And of course, Chez Panisse is still there. The Ordinary has followed Gertrude's famous pronouncement: there is no . . . Ordinary there.

The first thing you should know about The Ordinary is its location: on a side street off a side street in North Oakland, smack dab against Berkeley. It had all three of the components for success in a restaurant, with the slight addition of a modifying adjective after each, location (bad), location (worse), location (worst). With a catchy name like Ordinary and a rotten location, hey, how could it fail?

The building was solid and tall. Thick concrete walls. A smaller, newer building stood in front of that one, and the two were connected by a roofed stoop. We made the front building into the kitchen and office, with a loft above the office. It had originally been a power station or a water pumping station (I heard both), but I don't know about all its various historical incarnations, just the two immediately preceding my occupancy. In better days it had been a day care center. Immediately before I took it over it was a mess -- trashed -- a crash pad for hippies attending the California College of Arts and Crafts, which was just a few blocks away. The inside of the building was broken up into a dozen or so small rooms painted with a series of psychedelic murals. The first thing Campbell and I decided to do was dismantle all these rooms and open the place up. We filled about four large dumpsters. A loft that covered approximately half the square footage of the larger building became the upstairs dining room. Campbell was very handy with his hands; it would be an exaggeration to say I was a "rough" carpenter.

The second thing you should know is that I didn't have enough money to open a restaurant. I had never opened a restaurant before. (I have since opened a dozen; some are actually successful.) I had no clue what I was doing. The Ordinary was my graduate degree. But, I could cook good. I had cooked professionally. Hell, I'd been to France! The trip to Paris had made up my mind to be a cook. I had devoured the Larousse and Escoffier's Guide Culinaire. I read the Picayune Creole Cookbook and The New Orleans Restaurant Cookbook, and literally dozens of others, both professional and amateur. (If you've read any of my other maunderings you know I have this misplaced belief I can figure out things by reading about them.) I even subscribed to many of the USDA's agricultural bulletins -- crop reports, commodities bulletins etc. -- they used to be free, folks. I was a pretty good pre-Internet researcher. I was energetic. And I have always been a fan of the impossible. I like to plunge into things before too many people tell me all the ways it can't be done. In the years since, I have had many students smitten with what I call "The Restaurant Fantasy." I certainly was. Stripped of all its decoration "The Fantasy" is basically the belief that if one is passionate about cooking and has a strong work ethic, one can be a restaurateur.

So. I had no equipment and a very limited budget. I decided auctions might be one solution. At the first one I attended, I bought a large antique brass cash register that had been electrified: 350 bucks gone. So. I was underway!

Because of the heft of the building, I decided I needed a very large bar for scale, but had no clue where to get one. Browsing the San Francisco Chronicle one day, I noticed an ad mentioning that there would be many things for sale through The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, as they were demolishing a number of old downtown buildings. I called and was told to come on down. The director was a lovely middle-aged woman who handed me a set of keys to vacated bars and restaurants. I set off wandering around and peering into boarded-up buildings.

One of them was really dark inside, but I wiped away some of the city-by-the-bay grime on the window and saw what appeared to be a bar. I went in and was blown away: a huge bar ran nearly the length of the building. It was obviously very old, and still had the full tile trough along the bottom front bar. I had brought a flashlight. I peered up under the front of the top rail and saw there a kind of decal: "Brunswick Balke Collender Company." This meant nothing to me at the time. Man, this was it: the bar I needed. The back bar was 15 feet tall and the whole thing was about 35' long. It had four square columns supporting a three-foot tall full-length pediment. My brass cash register would look great in the middle of this thing. The only question was money.

I returned the lady's keys, and asked what the procedure was if I found something I liked. I gave her the address. She allowed as how she had to put an ad in the paper and solicit bids. She gave me the bid forms, and said I had to bring a cashier's check for 1/4 of my bid amount. The ad ran a week later. I think she liked me -- it was a very small, nondescript ad, saying something like "old bar for sale."

I was in her office on bid day. I had a cashier's check for $500.00, pretty sure I would lose my bar. I waited in her office until the last minute to see how many competitors would show up. Nobody. At the last second I filled in the amount of my bid on the form: $500.00. I don't think she was happy with me, but I got it! Now, I just had to figure out how to move it without destroying it. I called Campbell.

This find turned out to be a greater decor boon than I ever could have hoped for. Campbell had an old Dodge pickup, and we were going to section the bar to transport it. We made a plan and set about carefully dismantling the bar. On breaks I wandered about the building. Bonanza! It had a basement, where apparently they had held furtive card games. Eighteen massive round wooden tables hunkered in the dark -- we saw all this with flashlights, as the power was off -- cloaked in padded felt. The tables became the tables in my bar and downstairs dining room. When we removed the felt, we discovered the padding was newspapers from the 30' and 40's. We saved them, and with a coat of shellac, they became the wallpaper in Sangria and Pickled Eggs. There was also an ancient refrigerator with the compressor sitting on top. Turned out, it worked. This became the first reach-in in my kitchen.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to take anything out of that building but the bar.

We were almost finished with plundering and pillaging the place -- in fact, we were on our last day -- when an old gentleman with a cane doddered up and introduced himself as the joint's former owner. We asked him about the bar, and he told us that the owner before him had bought it from the Palace Hotel, which had decided to remodel after the rocking and rolling in '06. It had been brought around the horn.

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After a day of demolition , I often cleaned up and went back to San Francisco with Campbell -- North Beach, mostly. My favorite joint was Vesuvio. I sipped Pernod at the bar and occasionally stumbled across the alley to browse at City Lights bookstore. I bought Howl there and read it while perching at Vesuvio -- I'm sure I wasn't the first. Yeah, I admired the beatniks. Another bar I enjoyed in North Beach was just up the street from a neat little Basque restaurant, and was frequented by a bunch of lesbians. I used to idle away the hours in there playing pool with the ladies. They kicked my ass.

I also loved Vanessi's on Broadway, part of a neighborhood that's rife with good Italian restaurants. Vanessi's is peculiarly San Francisco Italian. Anybody who knows the Bay Area will recognize the "Joe's"-type joints: combination lunch counter with stools and a cooking area behind the counter and white tablecloth restaurants. I always sat at the counter; I liked to watch the cooks work. Veal piccata and scampi were two of my favorites here. Vanessi's is just up the street from what was called America's first topless bar, The Condor, at Columbus and Broadway. Carol Doda was very big there. I think you might trace the proliferation of plastic tits on display everywhere in the good old USA to this time and place. But the Beats beat the tits there, and before them came the Italians.

On San Pablo, The Pot Luck was a really nifty little joint with a great wine list. They had a several-course "gourmet dinner" on Monday evenings. Brace yourself -- it was six bucks. I ate there every Monday I possibly could. Ed Brown, the founder, closed the Pot Luck shortly after I opened The Ordinary. I went to the subsequent wine auction and bought several wines for The Ordinary, including a sparkling wine from Beaulieu that everyone assumed to be over the hill. I bought 3 cases of half bottles for $1.00 per bottle. It was the best sparkling wine from California I had ever had.

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I was learning all I could about health and fire codes – what I really needed to know was the bare minimums for everything. My budget was already feeling the crunch. I only had about $9,000 to do this with. (Yet another way Ms Waters outdid me -- she had ten.)

I was still studying and reading. I had come up with a concept and a menu: dishes from my New Orleans youth. Campbell and I painted and built and cleaned for a few weeks. Suzan and her friends helped me strip and refinish the bar out back of The Ordinary. Campbell and I rebuilt the bar and he built a great wine rack out rough redwood. We built tables for the upstairs dining room and put shutters on all the windows. Later on, George, who was really into gardening, prettied up the outside of the joint a bunch. Lots of flowers. I dug up a big rectangular section of the asphalt, about 10' by 30', out back and we planted a garden around a little pool I built. I bought a couple of koi -- carp to you fisherman -- and stuck them in the pool and called them Heckle and Jeckle. Planted water hyacinths so the fish would have shade. I built a gazebo under an acacia tree. I built an arbor and planted it with bougainvillea. We set up tables under it and served lunch out there.

It seemed like we were making progress, but I was running out of money. My good friend, college teacher and now noted cookbook author, Denis Kelly, made a small investment in the deal. I borrowed $2500.00 from the Co-op Credit Union. I was going to be able to get the doors open.

It didn't take long to figure out that I was going to have to have music to keep the place open. I met a lot of musicians during this period (I think I mentioned my song writing thing in an earlier story). Even before I opened they were asking about live music. My original plan was no, but I did have an old upright piano, which I put in the joint. I had also purchased a Revox reel-to-reel tape recorder for aid in writing songs. One day when Campbell and I were working, we went to get a cheeseburger for lunch (the best food for building restaurants). While we were out, the basics of my sound system and the Revox were stolen. I went out and bought a pistol -- a .38 police special.

What always pissed me off is the place became better known for the music than the food (although New West magazine did say I made the best salad in the Bay Area).

My office -- behind the kitchen, under the loft, with only a curtain separating it from the kitchen -- served as the green room for the musicians. (I usually fed them a bowl of jambalaya or gumbo.) Furnishings were just a mission-style couch, a desk and a couple of chairs. On my desk was The Drinking Gorilla; the laughing box (the only remaining part of some scary laughing doll); a framed antique sepia-toned photo of a naked man and woman in a standing soixante-neuf position, he holding her up; and assorted business-related stacks of paper. The Drinking Gorilla was a battery-operated toy gorilla that was supposed to lift his glass and drink, then recycle the beverage in a loop. The glass would fill up automatically and the procedure would repeat -- except he malfunctioned and missed his mouth with the glass and spilled the liquid all over himself. I had to keep him in a bowl to avoid a mess. I would turn on the laughing box while he was drinking. It was a metaphor for me. If anyone asked about the photo I would say it was the only photo I had of my mother and father together. This usually shut them up.

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I bought the food. I went to the Oakland produce market -- just south of Jack London Square -- a couple of times per week. Since I had to be there early lest the big supermarket buyers gobbled up everything, I usually just stayed up. It was dark when I would arrive and light when I left. My regular purchases were avocados (we could get all kinds there – Fuertes, Bacon, Zutano and, of course, Hass), artichokes, onions, tomatoes, lettuces, celery, whatever fresh herbs were available and citrus fruits. Always on the lookout for okra.

At first, I was lost there, and easily tricked, but I did a whole lot better after I socialized a little with the guys. This meant having an after-work drink or two with them. (Naturally, there was a bar smack in the middle of the market.) "After-work" for them was about 6:00 am, and this made for some long days. The regulars -- mostly Italians, all produce guys -- introduced me to Fernet Branca one early fall morning, claiming it was great for a hangover. They laughed their asses off watching my face as I struggled to keep it down -- and to keep my cruller and black coffee from anointing the top of the bar in chunky taupe hues. It's a bitter beverage, folks.

I would totter away from the market and head to downtown Oakland and a place called The Housewives Market, a great European-style place with a Louisiana slant: dozens of open stalls hawking produce, meats, seafood, sausage, and cheeses. I don't know how it came about, but there was a large contingency of black folks from Louisiana in Oakland. The seafood market had buffalo and a freshwater drum called gasper goo (supposedly from the French, casse burgau -- "mussel breaker"). They also had fresh crawfish, blue crabs and shrimp -- all from Louisiana. Next to this seafood stall was a sausage stall. He made my andouille and boudin blanc, both of which I had on my lunch menu. I bought some of everything.

Joe Pucci & Sons Seafood was also in downtown Oakland, and sometimes I would swing by and see what Steve Pucci had that day -- usually good prices on Mexican shrimp and oysters.

Now it was about 9:00 am and I was ready to begin my day.

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Once, I bought a couple of goat kids from my meat guy to barbecue for a wine dinner we were having. At first I got just one, nicely dressed and all. But we got a lot more reservations than anticipated, so on the morning of the dinner I called and asked him if had another. He said, "Yeah, but . . . " I told him I'd be right down -- where I met the meaning of "but." My meat guy was on his way out the door -- he had my goat, but he really had to go. The thing was, this kid was looking a lot like a live baby goat. Oh, it was dead, but only very recently expired -- I suspect it had been alive when I called. Its entrails were intact, it had hair, head, all the fixin's.

I had already prepped the first one, and had it lying on a shelf in the walk-in. I hung the newcomer on a meat hook in the walk-in while I thought about what to do with it. I set a bus bucket under it to catch anything it might exude, and reminded myself to replace the burnt-out bulb overhead soon. It was nearly lunchtime. I was sitting in my office right next to the walk-in. My early waiter -- Jimmy, a little teeny gay guy (and a great waiter) -- came in, said hi, and started setting up the waiter's station. He went to get butter, cream and, you know, waiter's station stuff, and disappeared behind the refrigerator door. A loud crash immediately preceded a blood-curdling scream. Hmmm, guess I forgot to mention the dead goat hanging in the middle of the walk-in. He had stepped in the bus pan, slipped, grabbed the beast and pulled it down on top of him. After lunch I took it out, hung it in the gazebo and skinned, decapitated and gutted it. We had a good wine dinner that evening.

As long as we're on evisceration, I'm reminded of a cocaine dealer quite near The Ordinary: Hugo, a swarthy, stocky Hispanic. He called me one day and asked me to come over to his third floor walkup and help him with a little problem. I huffed and puffed up the stairs. He opened the door and welcomed me, ushered me past a couple of scantily clad young ladies -- they were always around dope dealers -- and into the dining room. There on the table, lying on a bed of newspaper, was a dead deer. He had no back yard to take it to and wanted me to do a number on it right there on the table. I told him it was going to be a hell of a mess. It was. I did it. He paid me. Not money.

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Spencer cooked and tended bar and helped with just about everything. Denis did a few stints. The lunch shift was the one that was killing me. Often I had not slept at all. This was the period during which I began my now lifelong habit of the afternoon nap. Spencer and George tended to come in around the time I was completely exhausted. They saved my ass for a few years.

The bar was very busy on weekends and I usually helped out after I closed the kitchen. Spencer and George became bored with checking ID's. We were under constant assault from minors -- the music brought them in. So they started checking fingernails instead. I think it began with just the suspected minors, but grew. When someone ordered a drink they were asked to present their fingernails and were told that if they were clean they could have a drink. It befuddled them.

One Friday night, we were jamming behind the bar. The noise was deafening, but when the phone rang around midnight, I could still hear it. It was Bunkie.

He said, "Joseph, I have it!"

I said, "Well, I hope you feel better soon."

"No, I'm not sick. I have the answer!"

"To what?" I gingerly queried.

"Everything!"

"You have the answer to everything?"

"Yep."

"I'd love to hear it."

"Everything is everything. It's all so clear now."

"That's it? Everything is everything?"

"Yes, that's it."

"What kind of drugs are you taking?" I was trying to listen to this over the sound of the music.

"Just a few hits of acid."

"How few?"

"Oh, maybe a dozen."

I thanked him for the answer to everything and suggested that he go lie down a while. He was missing in action the next day. Later, we got the report from the cops. Bunkie had tried to manually uproot his neighbor-lady's tree shortly after he got off the phone with me -- seems it blocked his light during the day. It was about a foot thick. And oh yeah, he was naked as a jaybird. After he'd been out there grunting and mooning her for a while, she called the cops. By this time he had decided he was, if not the, at least a god. He was handcuffed, upside down naked in the back seat of the cruiser, kicking and warning them all the way to the looney bin that vengeance would be his. They kept asking god not make so much racket.

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All the while we were cranking out good fresh food, and got a couple of good reviews. One evening a producer of a radio talk show came in for dinner. He liked it a lot and asked me if I'd like to come cook one night on KGO radio. I said sure. (I say that a lot, don't I?)

The show was on at 1:00 am, but at the time I think this was the most powerful station in the Bay Area. I packed up all the stuff I needed to make gumbo and shrimp Creole, put in a couple of bus tubs along with pots and pans and a couple of bottles of red wine, and headed off for Baghdad by the Bay. They actually let us in -- I had my girlfriend with me.

The host was toting a large sheaf of papers and reached out to shake hands with me. He dropped the sheaf and the papers went everywhere. As he bent, and I bent to help him pick them up, I whiffed a really strong smell of scotch. Whoa, I thought. This might not be bad after all.

We started talking and I, cooking, and pretty soon the phones were ringing off the hook: calls from Canada to Mexico. In the middle of the night? I answered a lot of questions about New Orleans and cooking Creole food and then popped the wine. I had been told we were supposed to be on for 20-30 minutes.

Two and a half hours and two bottles of wine later -- the host was kind enough to help us with the wine -- we were done with our radio cooking show. There had been dozens and dozens of calls. Most of them were not from the Bay Area, though, and I had no idea if this would have any impact on business. I hadn't eaten all day, and was really drunk. We drove back to Oakland.

The phone started jangling at 7:00 am and didn't stop all day. Apparently, there were a lot more insomniacs than I ever dreamed existed. We did four times the business we had ever done in a single day: the best of times and the worst of times. We were blown out of the water and had people waiting for hours. I think we made an equal number of friends and enemies that day. The air in the kitchen was thick with an irritable string of fucks and shits and goddamn yous. Perspiration flew about the stoves as we fired volley upon volley of Creole cuisine at the waiters. It was war -- war that feels so damn good when you win it. When it's all over: one of my favorite things about cooking in a restaurant. A shiver runs up my jaded old backbone every time I think about it. Everyone who loves it knows exactly what I mean.

Finally, we had a brief fling with becoming an international naval power: The Ordinary Navy. I bought a boat, dry-docked in the Oakland Marina -- close enough to the A's stadium that, if the wind was right, we could actually hear the game. Stoned, we scraped and painted the hull and heard the Oakland A's win the World Series. Spencer and George were shade tree mechanics and were going to work on the engine. Alas, much like the Ordinary, the boat -- a 40-foot captain's gig -- never quite floated.

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Joseph Carey, aka ChefCarey, is the author of Creole Nouvelle: Contemporary Creole Cookery and Chef on Fire: The Five Techniques for Using Heat Like a Pro. He cooks, teaches and writes in Memphis, Tennessee.

[racheld]

Joe---This is your best one yet---bravo and all the usual.

I just noticed you're now in Memphis---take some time soon and go to Leonard's for a slaw-on for me---that's the only bit of the South I still dream of. Wistfully.

[eje]

Holy crap, man, you had the original bar from the Palace Hotel?! For $500! I thought it burned in the fires after the quake!

I hope later we will find out what happened to it!

Another great installment, by the way, thanks!

[Pan]

What a great read!

Will there be other installments?

[ChefCarey]

Thanks, Rachel! Well, I too, am missing the barbecue as I am no longer in Memphis.

I recently moved to Oregon after over 20 years in Memphis. I am now in Yamhill County surrounded by some of the best wineries in the US of A. Go into Portland a couple of days per week to teach.

I actually judged the Memphis in May Championship Barbecue contest for several years.

And I'll be buying a smoker within the month so I won't be missing barbecue much longer.

Joe---This is your best one yet---bravo and all the usual.

I just noticed you're now in Memphis---take some time soon and go to Leonard's for a slaw-on for me---that's the only bit of the South I still dream of.  Wistfully.

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[ChefCarey]

Thanks e! As to the bar it might still be right where Campbell and I put it - on Manila Avenue in Oakland...

Holy crap, man, you had the original bar from the Palace Hotel?!  For $500!  I thought it burned in the fires after the quake!

I hope later we will find out what happened to it!

Another great installment, by the way, thanks!

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[ChefCarey]

Thanks, Pan! Well, I know Maggie and Dave have at least one more in the can. I call it an "Intermezzo" as it came right in the middle of my life - an all expenses paid, year-long excursion to Southeast Asia at the expense of the American taxpayer.

What a great read!

Will there be other installments?

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[srhcb]

One Friday night, we were jamming behind the bar. The noise was deafening, but when the phone rang around midnight, I could still hear it. It was Bunkie.

He said, "Joseph, I have it!"

I said, "Well, I hope you feel better soon."

"No, I'm not sick. I have the answer!"

"To what?" I gingerly queried.

"Everything!"

"You have the answer to everything?"

"Yep."

"I'd love to hear it."

"Everything is everything. It's all so clear now."

"That's it? Everything is everything?"

"Yes, that's it."

I get it!

SB (was there, did that)

[ChefCarey]

I get it!

SB (was there, did that)

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Unfortunately, I too, had my own experience.

This was included in the piece I originally submitted for publication here, but the piece was *way* too long and large chunks were edited out. Dave, as usual, did an impressive job on the editing.

This piece *does* relate to consumption and involves Campbell who helped me build The Ordinary.

Wolfing it Down

I’ve only taken acid a couple of times in my life. Once in 1971 and then in 1972 through 1974. The first time was an accident. Campbell took me to a party in Marin County. We were still building The Ordinary. A bunch – at least a hundred I would say - of arty types in an affluent area. We went in and there were a couple of punch bowls on the table in the dining room. I immediately helped myself while Campbell looked for the hostess in the mob. Had a couple of cups. Not bad. Since I liked the punch in this bowl I decided I would stick with it. Campbell still hadn’t returned and I had a couple of more cups – the cups were very nice, might have been crystal - and made very small talk with a couple by the bowl. I had just filled my cup a fifth time when he finally returned, hostess in tow, and introduced me to her. The first thing she said was, “Oh, if you want to get high the bowl on the left has LSD in it, the one on the right is pristine.” I shook her hand, said it was very nice to meet her and casually asked, “Let’s just suppose hypothetically I wanted to get high, how much punch do you think I would need?” She kinda looked me up and down (6’ – around 190 pounds) and said. “Oh, a guy of your size, maybe a half cup at most.” Huh. I thanked her. If you can’t guess which bowl I’d been drinking out of, to paraphrase Bugs Bunny, you don’t know me vewy well, do you?

I was fine for a short while. Campbell introduced me to a few artists and pretenders and I just happened to comment to him as we stood chatting, “You know I think it’s neat the way she has used those pulsating green, neon lights to outline the retro 50’s blond sideboard she has here in the dining room. She’s very artistic”

“What lights?” he queried. At least there was a sideboard.

Good and bad ensued. There were tears, lots of laughs. It didn’t just go on all night, either. Lasted a couple of days. . There was only one moment of true horror. Oh, the horror. I had to go outside for a while. I was hot. I met an attractive hippie young lady out there. Before I relate this incident, please bear in mind that I had never had a psychedelic in my life, was pretty sure I never would have one and had had at least eight times the amount recommended for an experienced druggie. If you have no imagination, or have never ingested a psychedelic, go do that before you read the following. I’ll wait.

She said let’s sit in my van and smoke a joint. How could I refuse? I said sure. We sat in the back seat with the sliding side door open a few inches for ventilation. We had chatted a little when I felt hot breath and a wet something in my right ear. Turned out to be a nose. No, this ain’t a sex episode. I turned to look and there was a genuine, dyed-in-the-fur wolf staring me right in the face. Mouth open, salivating and drooling on me. For the first time I noticed the strong musky smell in the van. Before I could react to this, I felt hot breath in my left ear. I turned that way. Another wolf. I never dreamed I would go this way. Either I was about to be torn to shreds or…bitten and turned into…me, a werewolf? Who would have ever thunk it? There was a full moon. Larry Talbot (always loved Lon Chaney Jr.) I’m coming! Wait for me! We’ll make a great team! Tear out throats together! Strike fear into the hearts of women and children!

Hard as this may be to believe, I was speechless, gasping - and lucky I didn’t shit my pants. She said, “Oh, those are my pets, Luna and Wolfram. You’ll be fine, just don’t make any sudden moves or try to touch me.” I figured it would probably be hopeless to try to explain to them I would never dream of touching their mistress. That really had been in my plans, of course. I was praying that mind reading didn’t number among the traits present in the impressive and considerable survival skill set displayed by canis lupus. So I asked her if she thought it would be all right with them if I just slipped out – slowly, very slowly, of course. She said sure. I did. Slowly. Very slowly.

Back inside I was sputtering, trying to explain what had just happened to me to a couple of stoned pretenders. They laughed. “Oh, you met the Wolf Lady. Stay away from her.” No shit.

[ChefCarey]

Damn, this is the fewest replies I've had to any of my pieces here to date. Am I boring you folks?

[Kent D]

Damn, this is the fewest replies I've had to any of my pieces here to date. Am I boring you folks?

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No, it's great. It's just that I've been trying to score some acid for the past week, like you said I should, so I could finish the story. That stuff's not easy to find in Wichita, man.

[ChefCarey]

Damn, this is the fewest replies I've had to any of my pieces here to date. Am I boring you folks?

←

No, it's great. It's just that I've been trying to score some acid for the past week, like you said I should, so I could finish the story. That stuff's not easy to find in Wichita, man.

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I can relate. Can I be arrested if I give you my Wichita connection? Of course he's probably been dead for decades.

[ghostrider]

What a wonderful read. Ah the 1970s.

[ChefCarey]

What a wonderful read.  Ah the 1970s.

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Thanks! Actually, I spent some time in one of those New jersey swamps just before the 70's. I had my basic training at Ft. Dix.

[racheld]

I loved the Seventies. Except for some of the music.

And the clothes. What WERE we thinking? Like I imagine the Forties were lived in the sepia which colors all the family pictures of the time, the Seventies color was Brown Plaid. Double-knit plaid. With BIG legs. (HEY, I tried for ROLLEYES, and mine's asleep, with a simpery smile on its face)

Sorry---we've been gardening for DAYS---too much sun. I'm better now.

Carry on.

[rockandroller]

Great story, and the Wolf Lady anecdote is the perfect epilogue.

[ChefCarey]

Great story, and the Wolf Lady anecdote is the perfect epilogue.

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Thanks, R&R, yeah I thought meeting the Wolf Lady was going to ultimately involve my epitaph.

[ChefCarey]

Great story, and the Wolf Lady anecdote is the perfect epilogue.

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Thanks, R&R, yeah I thought meeting the Wolf Lady was going to ultimately involve my epitaph.

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What a taciturn, if persistent, readership we have here.

[Porthos]

Chef Carey,

Thanks so much for continuing to write about your culinary journey. I continue to enjoy your style, your story and your insights.

I can't imagine doing a "command performance" for a drug dealer. Glad you were on his good side.

I look forward to your next installment. I should be able to read it and respond in a more timely fashion next time out. A combination of OT at my real job and cooking at the So Cal Renaissance Pleasure Faire for seven weekends running barely left me with time to sleep. Probably nothing compared to starting up your first restaurant, though.

[JasonZ]

You're right, you DO deserve better from your audience. I've read all 4 chapters to date and sent e-copies to my friends (I still have a few left ...), who are all now on eGullet as newbies, waiting for the next installment ("The Intermezzo") ... and when the book comes out (note I didn't say "if"), we will be first in line to buy ... and send to you to be autographed ...

I've never opened a restaurant (although I sometimes think about it, for "after I retire"), but your descriptions are so funny, poignant, exciting ... it makes we want to do it while I'm still young enough to enjoy the terror, fatigue, and utter anarchy ...

Keep on writing ... we're desperate to keep on reading ...

JasonZ

[ChefCarey]

Chef Carey,

Thanks so much for continuing to write about your culinary journey.  I continue  to enjoy your style, your story and your insights.

I can't imagine doing a "command performance" for a drug dealer.  Glad you were on his good side.

I look forward to your next installment.  I should be able to read it and respond in a more timely fashion next time out.  A combination of OT at my real job and cooking at the So Cal Renaissance Pleasure Faire for seven weekends running barely left me with time to sleep.  Probably nothing compared to starting up your first restaurant, though.

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Ah, seven grueling weekends cooking joints of meat, staring down wenches bodices, pinching their asses and quaffing ale. (Well, that's how I would have done it anyway.)

Yeah, Hugo took a shine to me for some reason.

Thanks for your kind words - they do keep me going... and writing.

[ChefCarey]

You're right, you DO deserve better from your audience. I've read all 4 chapters to date and sent e-copies to my friends (I still have a few left ...), who are all now on eGullet as newbies, waiting for the next installment ("The Intermezzo") ... and when the book comes out (note I didn't say "if"), we will be first in line to buy ... and send to you to be autographed ...

I've never opened a restaurant (although I sometimes think about it, for "after I retire"), but your descriptions are so funny, poignant, exciting ... it makes we want to do it while I'm still young enough to enjoy the terror, fatigue, and utter anarchy ...

Keep on writing ... we're desperate to keep on reading ...

JasonZ

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Thanks, Jason. Kind words.

I really hate like hell to be so damn needy about comments here. I'm gonna level with you.

My agent is convinced that folks are not interested in what was going on in the 60's and 70's - at least what was going on in my life during that era. He wants me to table all that stuff for now and stick to my 20 years teaching culinary arts. True, there's plenty of ammo in those 20 years (and the second half of my idea of what the book should be has all that.) I remain convinced that folks *are* interested in that era and specifically how I got in this business and to the point where I am today.

Nearly all my interactions with the musicians, poets, sculptors, antiwar activists and writers are left out of the pieces here because we are doing food. (Well, a little of it will be in the Intermezzo piece.)

So, even though my pieces here always have several thousand readers, I whorishly solicit comments. I want readers to tell me if I am on track. You ain't a writer if you ain't got readers.

I'm glad to see you're on my team.

[ChefCarey]

I loved the Seventies.    Except for some of the music.

And the clothes.  What WERE we thinking?  Like I imagine the Forties were lived in the sepia which colors all the family pictures of the time, the Seventies color was Brown Plaid.  Double-knit plaid.  With BIG legs.    (HEY, I tried for ROLLEYES, and mine's asleep, with a simpery smile on its face) 

Sorry---we've been gardening for DAYS---too much sun.  I'm better now.

Carry on.

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Well, I loved just about all the music we had at The Ordinary. As the various bands in the Bay Area (some quite well known) would break up and reincarnate they would often play for me. The lead singer with the Joy of Cooking, the first rock group fronted by women, Terry Garthwaite, sang with a traditional New Orleans jazz group that was my house band on Saturday nights for a couple of years. (They were also, incidentally, the "house band" for the Oakland A's.)

We didn't do disco.

And our garb was, for the most part, quasi-hippie, I suppose - jeans and "muscle shirts" or T-shirts.

Oh, I got my smoker just in time for memorial Day and smoked ribs - with a dry rub - and made barbecue sauce and potato salad and baked beans. Was forced to drink some Oregon pinot noirs and syrahs with it.

Her are the sauce and dry rub for those of you who want to give it a shot:

Barbecue Sauce

There are food writers out there who would have us believe

the word "barbecue" comes to us from the French "barbe a queue," which translates as "beard to tail." Far fetched, I think. Several 18th and 19th century New World travelers and writers mentioned "barbacoa" or "borbecus" — raised wooden frameworks used as beds or for smoking meats. This linguistic ancestry seems much more likely, given the "racks" or grids on which we "barbecue.”

Time Investment

Your Time: Five minutes mincing the onions garlic and ginger.

Five minutes assembling the mise en place. Two minutes sautéing

and adding ingredients.

Dish Time: Fifteen minutes simmering.

Ingredient Quantity

Onions, yellow, minced 2 Cups

Garlic, finely minced 12 Cloves

Fresh ginger, finely minced 2 Tablespoons

Peanut oil ½ Cup

Cayenne 1 TBSP

Chile powder 4 Tablespoons

Catsup 6 cups

Dry mustard 3 Tablespoons

Dry red wine 2 Cups

Apple cider vinegar 1 Cup

Apple juice 1 Cup

Brown sugar 1 Cup

Paprika 5 Tablespoons

Soy sauce 1 Cup

Tabasco To taste

Pepper, black 1 Teaspoon

Method:

1) "Sweat" onions, garlic and ginger in the peanut oil in a sauce pan over medium heat until just soft.

.

2) Raise heat, add chile powder and sauté about 60 seconds.

3) Dissolve dry mustard in one cup of the red wine.

4) Add all remaining ingredients to pan and thoroughly incorporate.

5) Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Simmer about 15 minutes.

Note: For a marinade or a "basting" sauce, dilute one cup of

Barbecue Sauce with three cups of water.

Note: For chicken or fish, add ½ cup of lemon juice to

Barbecue Sauce.

Dry Rub

Ingredient Quantity

Cayenne pepper ¼ Cup

Chili powder ¼ Cup

Paprika ½ Cup

Black pepper, finely ground ½ Cup

Garlic powder ¼ Cup

Cumin 2 TBSP

Dry mustard 1 TBSP

Celery salt 3 TBSP

[dockhl]

I love your recollections.......please carry on !

[ChefCarey]

I love your recollections.......please carry on !

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Thanks, Doc!