Posts by Edward Aloise
We haven’t talked in a while, but it is February. In my mind, the month has always been called Melancholia. I inevitably experience a lack of motivation and general emotional ennui. I sense it in others as well.
I have not written you in a while, but It has not been for lack of motivation, I have been distracted. Travel, personal chef commitments, and consulting responsibilities have demanded much of my attention.
I love the term oxymoron. I guess it’s the second part of the word that I find amusing. Here are a few examples: jumbo shrimp, quality assurance, unconditional guarantee, bipartisan legislation, and extra legroom. The last one is high on my list.
When she walks in the door we will embrace like lost lovers,
I will act as if she was just returning from a short errand.
I want to recount how a pre-planned family visit turned into a surreal travel experience. Most of you have seen the videos and read the accounts of the chaos that the NYC vicinity experienced due to an underestimated deluge of which, to our dismay, we became unwilling victims. Claudia and I left Manchester under cloudy skies, and with naive and uninformed intelligence, proceeded to drive into that almost apocalyptic scene.
Distance is the major disruptor of relationships. It can be either a tearing experience or a liberating one. It offers an opportunity to remake yourself. To start from scratch and associate with those whose views and personalities are new and different. The result, however, is that it makes it easier to leave behind what and whom you have, indeed, left behind.
In prior years I dreaded receiving the notice because, as executive chef, time away from my business would be both costly and potentially detrimental. I prepared and stored away, just in case, a heart-wrenching soliloquy to perform for both lawyer and judge as to the hardship it would cause if I was chosen.
There are times, and we all have had them, when our normal routine is interrupted by a surprising interaction with another person. I am not talking about a conversation with someone new at a party or a business meeting. Those situations are to be expected and assumed. I am describing an event that seems to have been planned in advance without our knowledge or consent. One where we have been placed just where needed and at just the correct time. An event that will remain and continue to give us pause.
Philip Guston’s work is not aesthetically pleasing, and I don’t believe it was meant to be. It is politically charged and he makes the viewer uncomfortable. His depictions of fascist and racist violence in reverse and counterintuitive images forced the MFA as well as the National Gallery to sequester some of his work in a separate space with advisories posted that read “some may find these images upsetting.” What I found upsetting were those notices.
Many bemoan, myself included, the demise of the independent booksellers. There have been a few bookstores in the past that hold a special place in me.
Earlier this month was Father’s Day. It was not the intended motivation for me to write this but the connection is unavoidable.
Manchester, our city, is growing in leaps and spurts and a walk down Elm Street, a visit to any number of the new ethnic markets (for which as a chef I am ecstatic) or Market Basket for that matter is all it takes to see that diversity is becoming established in the Queen City. I am sure there is tension – how can there not be? – but it seems that our city (Welcoming Manchester) and our neighborhoods are unassumingly making a statement. We have yet to witness and I fervently hope we never do, the vitriol and at times violence that cultural intermingling can cause.
Manchester is a small city that is getting bigger quickly. We are all witnessing and experiencing the effects of its growth, both the good and the bad. As we all maneuver our way through and around the speed bumps, the personal connections that we make along the way are what will make the experience smooth and maybe fulfilling.
The bonds that we have with our dogs, cats, birds or other mammals (not sure if you can bond with a reptile) is at times as strong as with a dear friend or family member.
For millennia mankind has searched for meaning behind our dreams. Mystics, shamans, theologians and psychiatrists have delved deep into the bizarre scenes and disjointed scenarios that play out as alternative lives all occurring while we appear to be unconscious.
I have always been an observer. My life in restaurants has afforded me uncountable opportunities to witness my fellow humans in all manner of behaviors. It has been an endless form of entertainment, wonder and, occasionally, befuddlement.
Today I read another article written by a chef/operator both bemoaning the state of the industry and forecasting either its doom or its transmutation. I am a serious newspaper addict and I have only great respect for the medium and for those serious journalists who work in it. As in all things, there is the good, the bad and the incompetent.
When we serve an entree to friends that is accompanied by a story about how your mother, grandmother or Uncle Henry prepared this dish, I am sure it will start a wave of nostalgia from your guests about their own remembered recipes. We all have them, even about the ones that were not especially ready for the New York Times cooking section. My grandmother was an amazing cook, my mother, well, not so much. It wasn’t that she did not learn the skills but she had to cook for my father who possessed a rather limited palate. That being said, I cannot walk down the canned vegetable aisle, see Green Giant creamed corn and not think of my mother pouring it into a saucepan while giving my father a cold stare.
Restaurants vie for customers to fill the seats and since almost all reservations are deuces one may see a few more tables added to the dining rooms. Chefs plan enticing menus and bar managers create special cocktails, stock up on sparkling wine and even Rose (pink being the color of the day). Men and women challenge themselves on making the day more memorable than last year. I am going to give you some restaurant tips on not having this day turn into a disaster.
