The End

I don't really believe in happy endings. But generally, if you go to a good school, you worked decently hard, kept organized, it is believed you would eventually find your way to a stable happiness. Life has its ups and downs, the Dalai Lama says it oscillates; no one lives in harmonious satisfaction or miserable depression for long, eventually you come back to a homeostatic point. You get a job, you get married, you have kids, and the story goes on... you reach peace, things work themselves out.

But I don't think that it all necessarily ends up okay. We like to hope so, like to tell ourselves that, but I don't believe it. You have to make your own happy ending, you have to make your own peace with the world.

And as cliche as it is you must always remember, the only thing you can expect is the unexpected.

I had all sorts of things to write about. Lots of exciting things that happened in the kitchen. I was growing quite happy with my job, looking forward to everyday with a contained excitement. There were things to be practiced, new things to learn and improve at, people to chat with, jokes to be made, good food to eat (especially cookies). I felt I had finally transitioned to being a cook on the outside and in my heart. Waiting tables seemed bothersome, now it was all about doing the honest work of cooking.

And I no longer struggled everyday like I had when I first started. That first month, December, was such a busy month. I had so much personal shit going on and having the Chef yell at me for being slow and constantly being behind was killing me. So many times I wanted to break down and quit. I wanted to walk out of the kitchen. I doubted myself thinking I had made a huge mistake, this was not the career for me, I can't handle it. And then an even more depressing thought rose; if I thought I had loved to cook and I can't handle it, now what do I do?

But I tend to be a bit dramatic when acclimating to new environments. By the end of February it had worked itself out. I was enjoying the kitchen, I was starting to get close and enjoy hanging out with the guys. My Spanish was getting better, there were jokes to be had, food to talk about. I breezed through prep, I made great family meals (they discovered I'm really in to curries, and the poor gringos suffered from the spice .. or so I'm told), the weather was starting to be beautiful. That old kitchen with its outdated equipment, warped pots and pans was just fantastic on a nice spring day. The windows were opened, the breeze rolled in to refresh you as you sweated over a hot burner, the radio was going. During employee meal we'd go outside and eat on the terrace. I was starting to get very comfortable. My original exit date of early July seemed not so necessary anymore. Maybe I'll stay a bit longer, learn a bit more. Why not? This is a good job, I'm learning a lot, maybe this is a valuable education to be had.

And then life shuts the door on you.

Easter Sunday 2010 was the last dinner Va Pensiero will have served. After 13 years being owned by Chef Jeffrey Muldrow the doors have been closed. The restaurant was owned and run by Peggy Ryan, now an instructor at Kendall College, for years and years before that. But unfortunately it is no more. The "hidden North Shore jewel" is gone for the foreseeable future.

I don't think it has really hit me yet. When NUT lost at Regionals last year rather abruptly on Saturday I was quite cheerful and optimistic. What a great season I thought, an unfortunate end, but such is life, right? And I kind of feel that way now. I knew the time was going to end, perhaps it came sooner than I thought, no big deal I'll just start my summer plan a few months early. Maybe this is a sign that I was getting too comfortable, a divine nudge to get me going to culinary school and on to the next phase of the plan.

But when it came to do the End of the Year banquet and I got up to give a short speech about what the team meant to me, what the season had meant to me, I found myself choking up and fighting back tears. My briefly prepared speech fell apart, I rambled off something about proper squat form and I sat back down, torn up inside.

It was over. College ultimate, something that meant more to me than almost anything was done. I only got a little more than 2 years out of it, I felt robbed of the time I deserved.

Perhaps I'm still not coming to grips with not being a college ultimate player anymore. The point is it took me a few weeks to realize the gravity of the situation.

It's ... over.

At least with the ultimate team I knew I'd see most of them again at some point. The cooks, the waiters, the chef ... that isn't necessarily the case. No more conversations about getting fat, no more talking about opening a taco stand, no more almost cutting yourself because you were too busy checking out the hostess for the 15 seconds she steps in the kitchen. No more having the cooks laugh their asses off at me because I was actually the only one who cut myself. No more buying band-aids for the first-aid kit.

I've said it before in this blog, but I really don't do goodbyes very well. It hasn't hit me yet, but I imagine it will soon. All the inane conversations I miss so much from doing road trips to ultimate tournaments are what I miss the most. I get the feeling all the silly chatter that goes on in the kitchen, and horsing around on slow nights and joking knife-fights are what I will miss the most also.

But such is the nature of the business. It is cruel and ruthless and perhaps one of the worst sufferers in a down economy. I've seen restaurants close, my mother's own restaurants in fact, and frankly there's nothing you can do. You see the snowball in the distance and you hope it doesn't start accumulating mass, but sometimes it just becomes too big of a mess. You cut your losses and run.

I don't want to divulge too many details, but basically shit got bad. I feel bad for all the employees. I knew my days there were numbered, but the other guys were pretty set on that restaurant for life. My chef devoted 13 years of his life to that restaurant, my sous chef about 10 years, some of the other cooks and waiters came with the building when my chef took it over. This restaurant is ages old and has been a hidden Evanston gem for decades. And it all comes crashing down in an instant. A life's work erased, a kitchen full of one person's vision and hopes and dreams vanishes.

Excuse my penchant for the dramatic but I can't help but feel awful. For all the employees I've come to consider a family, for my chef, and for myself. What an ominous turn of events. What if this happened to me? On the phone it sounds like my chef is taking it like a man. He's gunning up and looking for a job after he's been his own boss for over a decade. But to see something you poured so much of your soul in to disappear? I'm not even taking this very well, I couldn't picture myself being so composed after a life-shattering event like that...

But alas I have a plan and it was a plan I had in motion from a while ago. I knew I would leave Va Pensiero at the end of June, I knew I would take the summer to try new things and get as much diverse experience as possible. It's back to being an intern or a "stage" (pronounced stAHge) in some 4-star restaurants. It's time to take myself up on the challenge of working at a fishmonger, or a butcher shop or a bakery and learning something that I may not be able to learn the same way in culinary school. It's time to go back to Futami and start taking waiting tables pretty seriously because that's my main job as of now.

So there is hope for me yet. And I hope for the best for my once coworkers. But as April brings cold rains and gloomy skies I can't help but notice the downcast nature of this event. It's sad and ironic that just after I write a post about getting it back in gear that suddenly I no longer have a place to practice my craft.

I'll take a week. Do my stupid taxes, get my bank account together, and start formulating a plot. But for now it's time for me to pack my knives and go.

Wish us all luck,

EP6

Edit: http://linecook415.blogspot.com/2010/03/stage-guide.html

One of my favorite blogs, some perfectly timed advice for being a good stage. If you were ever interested in doing that sort of thing. Here's to hoping I have learned enough.