I love food. I love eating great, tasty, well-prepared food. I watch No Reservations, I’ve read Kitchen Confidential, The Nasty Bits, and Heat (and if that book doesn’t make you appreciate Italian food, nothing will). I love exploring new cuisines, but I also love the classics. One of my favorite dishes is a well-made plate of tagliatelle Bolognese. My stomach is grumbling just thinking about it.
However, one of the unfortunate drawbacks of moving to Indiana, especially rural Indiana, is the decided lack of cuisine. In the town of Warsaw, not counting the Chain restaurants, there aren’t many choices. Most of the 8 or so non-chain restaurants are “classic American.” There is a brew pub, which has halfway decent beer, but over-salts the food. There’s a “New American” restaurant, which is by and large OK, but hasn’t figured out whether it’s Asian Fusion or New American (sushi menu, bento boxes, cous cous, and tapas?). There’s an island themed restaurant that does sushi and island seafood, plus pasta. And then there are four really bad Chinese restaurants (I won’t fault them for being bad, they’re just catering to the Indiana palate for Chinese food).  The one decent cuisine they have here is Mexican. They have a phenomenal little lunch counter in one of the grocery stores that makes great tortas and even has lengua and cabeza de res. However, what blows my mind is there isn’t a single Italian restaurant around.
Given all of this, you’d think I’d start to resemble Cartman. However, the irony is that I’m probably eating healthier than I ever have. Part of it is that I’m on a pretty strict diet right now. But the other part of it is that C and I have made a conscious effort to buy organic, locally produced food. It helps there’s a large Amish community close by that is always willing to provide fresh, chemical-free food. The thing about this food is that it’s actually much more flavorful and easier to make good meals with. I guess Gordon Ramsey is right: Local, fresh ingredients always make a difference.
The other upside of being here in Indiana is that I feel as if my cooking skills are getting better. I am by no means a chef extraordinaire, but I do feel like I’m getting the hang of this cooking thing, to the point where I can start developing my own recipes and dishes. It’s actually a lot of fun to pull together a dish that tastes good when you’re finished with it. I can now understand that cooking has a lot to do with experience – what works, what doesn’t work – it’s all stored in a culinary memory that allows you to pull things together when you need to. I’m sure no one’s ever made the analogy that cooking is like chess, but in some senses, it is. Great chess players have the memory of thousands of games and situations to rely on when they play chess. I imagine that great chefs have thousands of dishes that they remember and pull together to make a wonderful dish. It’s a bit of a stretch, I know, but I’m a geek.
I do still miss going out to dinner, though. As much as I enjoy putting something together myself, I believe that sampling other people’s creations and ideas are necessary to keep things exciting. At the end of the day, I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ll miss about being near a city. I used to think that I’d miss the cultural events the most – shows, art, etc., and I do miss those. But surprisingly, I’ve found myself missing the ability to try a new restaurant more than anything else. Unfortunately, there’s no remedy for that in a small town.
So we are finally having our celebratory dinner to celebrate C’s new job. We originally had planned to go out to dinner in December, but because of the diet that I’m following, we decided it probably was better not to indulge in a decadent meal in the middle of my regimen. Now that we’ve eased off some of the restrictions, we are going to try again this weekend. We’ve been looking forward to for a long time, and have booked our meal at one of Chicago’s best restaurants. This is one of the instances where we realize that we’re going a little overboard, but we don’t expect to be dining at this restaurant more than once, and it really is a unique opportunity.
If it sounds like I’m doing a lot of justification, it’s probably because I am. I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this meal, but probably not quite as much as I would have enjoyed it had we gone in December. The reason?
Haiti.
I’ll be sitting in a restaurant having one of the most incredible meals of my life, while so many people in Haiti are struggling to find food enough to survive another day. Haiti already had a food shortage before all of this happened, and with the earthquake, they’re facing an even greater shortage. I hope and pray that the aid that is arriving will be able to be distributed to those who need it the most.
As much of a splurge this meal is, I can’t help but think what price some of the Haitians would pay for a simple meal to take care of their family. I’m sure it would be priceless to them.
To me, it’s not so much that I’m dining out while Haitians are starving and fighting for food. There are plenty of horrible situations around the world where this situation is played out every day. I’m aware that every time I go out to a restaurant, whether it’s Olive Garden or Ruth’s Chris there are countless others out there that can barely find enough food to eat to get through the day.  It’s really the timing of it all that hits home for me. Just as you think you’re on the top of the world, there are always little reminders that happen in your life that there are others that aren’t as fortunate as you.
So what does this all mean? Here’s one of the instances where I wonder what would have happened if I’d decided to go into medicine. American Airlines was supposedly offering free flights to Haiti for any doctors – I wonder if I had been a doctor if I’d have jumped on the plane. Regardless, I don’t think I’ll be going down there to help in person. Does this mean I’ll assuage my guilt by donating monetarily? Yes, I’ll donate, but not primarily to assuage my guilt. It’s the right thing to do. I’ve been blessed with the life I have and it’s only right that I should find a way to share that with people who are not as blessed as I am.
I think of the outpouring of aid and donations that were given to the victims of the 9-11 tragedies, and reflect on the fact that Haiti is estimating a death toll of somewhere around 50,000 – over 20x that of the death toll from 9-11. Time will tell, but I will bet that the impact of 9-11 on us as a nation is going to be much greater than the tragedy in Haiti. And the Haiti tragedy will have more of an impact on us than the typhoon in Burma did, which had an even greater loss of life. Does this mean that 9-11 is any less tragic? Not at all. Something is tragic or it’s not. I don’t see any grades of tragedy. I just think that 9-11 gives us a more tangible reminder of our humanity and its frailty than Haiti or Burma does.
I’m a little bummed by what that says about me as a person. What’s the price of a meal? I think this weekend’s meal will be a little heavier. And that’s ok with me.
Breathe
And then the doorbell rings
Somebody asks you could
You spare a little time
To feel the weight that’s mine
To lower down your guard
Yeah, that your heart gets snagged
Caught in the wheels and dust dragged
Dangled o’er the edge, breathe
You feel you’re in too deep
So offer up some crumb
And drop it in the tin
Then slither back within
Your crenelated wealth
Your educated self
Your family your rude health
And all the joy it brings
Aren’t we forgetting something?
Feet out on the ledge, feet on the ledge