Summer in Minneapolis or Food Trucks and Baseball

 People don't like staying indoors when its summertime in Minnesota.  Lou Holtz once described Minnesotans as the land of "Blonde hair and Blue Ears" when he coached at the University of Minnesota.  Our winters are particularly vicious and our summers can be just a touch humid, mosiquito populated and have that touch of pine in the air.  In the cities, there has been a sort of resurgence in the streets.  You feel this hope that better days are not just here, but there will be more of them.  Fears have been pushed aside, and as I wander around, it's just so carefree feeling.  People get in the habit of business and consuming.  There are so many festivals that happen during the summer, that it can be hard to keep track of what is going on, when.  A few weeks ago, there was a food truck festival, and since the food truck season is rather short here, they were out in full force, trying to be as distinctive as possible in design and public offerings.

 Business was brisk, lines were long and some of the more adventurous eaters were going for every and anything they could get.  Some of them, well, I just couldn't marry up their concept with my sense of taste and my imagination.  I couldn't visualize how a 'Donut Burger' would taste.  I recalled how a burger would taste, how I preferred it and tried to will a donut mashup and it made my stomach churn just thinking about it. I would have rather had some pan fried termites, sautéed in a garlic oil and sea salt.  So I was rather surprised to see anyone ponying up to sacrifice their greenbacks for a taste of the bizarre.

 The other day, I had gone to the Mall of America, en route to some where else, but still kind of look at this mecca of capitalism to see people still chasing a good time.  It's a bit excessive to me, but not so many were walking around with huge shopping bags and still many spots were open for leasing.  In a way, the Mall of America has done much to shut down a lot of the malls that once did spry business in Minnesota.  We had a "-dale" at every corner of the city.  They were the places to go to people watch in the winters when we would get so full of cabin fever that we couldn't stand it anymore.  Malls were the places to check everyone out and to see what was the fashion of the moment.  The last mall I went to was occupied at maybe 50%.  I thought that meant we were buying less, but with the latest numbers, Minnesota is down to about a 4 percent unemployment rate.  Most of the business being created within the state is coming from companies who no longer think it's cheaper to make things in China anymore.

 In Downtown Minneapolis, we were getting ready to show off out city, the All-Star Week was hosted in my humble city. The all new "Target" field really did kind of impress me.  I still held my childhood memories of the old Metropolitan Stadium, watching Rod Carew play at my first baseball game.  It was live, not on television and we beat the Oakland A's.  Now the Mall of America is built over baseball history and our football history as well.  Things change.  The game was moved downtown into a shared dome, which was demolished this year to make way for a new stadium for the Vikings.  I don't recall if some corporate entity has purchased naming rights.

 The inside of the stadium was being spruced up, with everything being washed down.  Our little part of baseball history being sold to the national audience.  Right now the adding machines are rolling, trying to figure out how much of a profit was being made, or if something would come out of this for future events.  I kind of lost my love of the game.  It was a slow death, but maybe the game had changed to such a point that filled my mouth full of bile when I went into the merchandising store.  People will spend with their hearts and not their minds.  The mark-up on the Merchandise was crazy.  All of the product was made abroad, with China being a primary manufacturer.  With all of the hype about our food being locally sourced, we have a long way to go.

Our Downtown is beautiful, with high vacancy rates, but strangely it has grown, changed and evolved since my childhood, when the Foshay tower used to be the tallest building on our skyline.  The IDS tower opened in 1972, as a sort of Monolith that ushered in a new era, a modern era.  Other buildings have come to join in to create a skyline and skyway system so you could traverse the city without ever going outside.  But we love the outdoors and nature and perhaps that's why we don't have that many cities here in Minnesota.  We like that small town feel, where every neighborhood is like a village and our villages all link up to make our urban sprawl look somehow manageable.  It's still home, and though I feel the urge to get out there in the world, to go abroad and walk in dusty streets, sit in nondescript cafes and just feel the pulse of a far away place, I'll stay put for a while.

Not an "Appetite for Destruction" nor is it "Eat, Love, Pray"

Paul Moeschell's Pope Soap and Candle

It's been a very busy time in my life.  It's kind of like turning soil to get the oxygen back into it.  I decided to update this blog with a visual representation of things I have been involved with or acquiring sans the philosophies I tend to regurgitate here.

My Hippie Self

Also I would like to thank the 40,000 global visitors to my little world.  I tend to think of myself as a global citizen, since I have walked down some of your streets, been in your valleys and have seen some of your mountain tops.  By no means am I done exploring.

Chicken Chausser, Rice Pilaf and Glazed Carrots

 This summer, I decided to return to school, to do something I love, for the benefit of others.  I am in culinary school, doing well, and I thought I would share some of the things I am learning.  As one of the chefs shared with me, "you must learn the rules---then you can break them."  How many things does this proverb apply to?  Countless.  At least for me, I found a number of times in my life where I followed everything to the letter only to scrap all of the 'rules'.

Winter Approaches

It's winter.  It's Christmastime.  It's the end of a year where you shouldn't really ever look back, but look at where you are right now in order to see where you will be in the future, and ahem, not really so damn much about the future IF you are happy doing what you are DOING right now.  The future does take care of itself.  I didn't get that  for a long time.  I was so damn busy planning my life, I don't think I was really living my life.  The consequences, well, I may have slept through about 17 years of my life.  Maybe that's a bit harsh, but when I think about it, I may have been operating on auto-pilot for a bit there.  A living coma where one day bled into the other and I forgot how to live.  There were so many promises I made to myself that I almost forgot about them.  (I know, good for me...yadda, yadda, yadda).

Sausage

Primal pork cuts

Tastings

A nice transition point, just doesn't seem to be found.  There was a lot of taking dead animals, processing them into beautiful meals to nourish others.  I had been a practicing vegetarian, most of my time abroad.  I started thinking about life, death, the way we deal with death as a culture and how we tend to judge others by what we eat.  Everything has life.  Everything dies.  We sometimes have different experiences that take us into  different experiences.

Gnocchi and Pork

Scallops

Dinner at French Meadow

Olives

Scallops

Brussel Sprouts

Indulgences

Lapin with Risotto 

Liver and Onions

There I was, eating meat again.  I made the decision before I went to culinary school.  However, there was a difference in my approach.  I held a deeper respect for what I was consuming, whether it was plant or animal.  Their lives were sustaining mine and made me think of how we all sustain each other.  It's a very intricate system of life/death.  It made me a lot less judgmental, yet, that doesn't lessen the need for us to be more respectful  and balanced in our utilization of our resources, no matter what they are.  Some people eat the way they do for a reason or a season.  They change for a variety of reasons they came into on their own.  We all own our decisions, live with the consequences and go from there.  If we really tried to please everyone, we please no one, not even our fragile little ego is horribly damaged by catering to others.

So I came into this experience, telling myself, "I know  nothing."  I ate everything, even things I would have never dreamt of ever eating again.  

It was a slaughter of indulgences.  However, I was careful to keep track of how much I was eating.  And it was A  LOT OF FOOD.

To be fair, I did give a lot away because I did listen to my body and cut myself off before that critical explosive point.

Veal Blanquette

Salmon 

First Avenue

Complete emptiness 

Mayor R.T. Rybak's Farewell Bash

Chastity Brown

In the midst of all of this creating and replicating I was discovering all of the rules I wanted to break in the future.

I was really learning about was our bodies have for wants and needs.  Like realizing we really do need protein and there are things that animals to give our bodies to help them heal.

I also had the pleasure of meeting a local Minnesota Folk Singer, Chastity Brown.  I actually didn't really know who she was when I met her, which is good.  We had a nice conversation about literature, words and Ernest Hemingway.  I was talking about myself, which more about my excitement about being home and how bizarre it seemed to me.  It's kind of like waking up from a coma, though I was away for 23 years, my friends are older, the places have changed with time and I wasn't here to see it all.

First USA Edition Acquired

Chastity was gracious and patient as she listened to me quote Hemingway's theory of life, as being a "moveable feast".  Perhaps  there is a certain bit of gluttony on my part.  The same kind that Henry Miller had about life, wanting to experience the zealousness of the eternal moment.  In any event, I am glad I discovered the music of Chastity Brown.  I liked what I heard, she uses and choses words well and has a powerful voice.  It's authentic.

So much great food

 So  as I go through the pictures of some of my culinary productions from this year, I pinch myself because I have never worked in a professional kitchen and I realized that not once did I say to myself, "I can't do this."

Scallops

Perhaps I said to myself, "don't know a damn thing."  When I realized I wasn't the expert I was able to do by 'not doing'.  "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."  -- Socrates                  

Gravlax

Writing Again

So, after all, of what I could, or should, or would be doing is right in front of me.  Lessons or no lessons.  The action of inaction was my teacher during these wonderful months of learning how NOT to know it all, and meeting a lot of wonderful people along the way.  It's a break for a season.  In the depths of the cold snows of Minnesota, where life is just waiting under the surface to be reborn.  

Looking forward by looking at my present

That really is why I love being here.  You witness rebirth every year.  A clean slate for the world.  Isn't that beautiful?

Same Place, Different Time

Catching a vision for life was the focus of my day.  In a strange sequence of events (for me, it seems that strange is my new normal),  I found myself being forced to wait and think about my desires.  I won't kill you with my rambling words from my original draft where I hunt down a thought and then beat it to a bloody pulp once I capture it.  I will say though, I thought about what a man named, Brooks, who is near 60 shared with me, "There are two types of people in this world.  Those that sell their bodies and those that use their minds."  Having a job is selling your body, using your mind, is knowing people and building relationships that are in agreement to produce a desired outcome.  Now, this doesn't really seem so profound, but the thoughts that followed led me to go out for a day with just myself.  I felt drawn to see places where I used to go and to reflect on the passage of 23 years to see the changes that have happened here in my hometown and to share glimpses of my home.  I think it was the first time I had felt like and acted like a tourist in my own city.  I took out my camera and became the observer.

In looking at the here and now, I am fortunate to be here.  Minneapolis is a beautiful city, kind, and in different ways, it's thriving.  I shot pictures of places I looked at growing up.  I noticed places that had changed, the cityscape had been altered and retouched.  Once place I was drawn to was the State Theater.  In my youth, it was my church, the former Jesus People's Church, where ironically I had performed with their youth group.  I had been on that very stage for our congregation.  Over 23 years ago, I watched that church fall under its own weight of multiple scandals that included embezzlement, sexual affairs, and statutory rape.  I don't know why I stayed as long as I did, almost to the point of the actual doors finally closing.  It seemed like as I became an adult, I saw my innocence die with my church.  I choose to think that it was my ignorance instead of my innocence, but that may be wishful thinking. I saw the conflict of teaching and the reality of living life. 

Today, as I looked at the State Theater, and see the image of 'La Cage Aux Folles', I remembered a night that changed my life.  It was on Hennepin Avenue, at this very spot I had made my first openly gay friend.  At the time he was suicidal over his orientation and had been openly condemned by a youth pastor.  I found him crying, and instead of walking away, we walked up and down Hennepin Avenue together, holding hands as I listened to his confessions.  It was the first time in my life where I began to realize that the practice of condemning people, or more accurately, hating people, was anything but 'Christian'.  I didn't talk him out of suicide.  I listened. He was the one that chose life. Too often people think they have to save people or change people when we don't possess that kind of power or control over others. All I did was to just accept him as he was.  I chose love over judgement, even though my belief 'system' conflicted. 

It's 23 years later and the State Theater's marquee was a reminder that change is very much a part of life and that sometimes all you really need to do for someone else is just accept them as they are.  Love always wins, though not always in the way that you might think. Maybe that is why I smile so much, after all, it's the best way to take on the world.