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lenten journal: cooking to connect

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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6

Today was not your average Monday, or at least not the Monday I have gotten used to living.

Last week, the Owner decided the Inn would only be open for lunch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We have been open everyday. Monday has been my day to run the kitchen, which meant getting to work early to do as much preparation as I can because we’ve usually used up most of everything over the weekend. Once the lunch service starts, I have to be line cook and prep guy. But today I was given the gift of time to get ready.

Chef called me late last night to tell me to come in at my regular time. As I expected, they had used everything up. “There’s no point in leaving a prep list,” he said. “Just make everything.” I left the house when Ginger did and got to the Inn around ten-thirty. I started pulling things out of the reach in refrigerators under the counters and then realized I had time to do something I never have time to do: clean. I pulled everything out of the reach in and put it all on the stainless steel counter top, and then got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the units to a shine. I wiped them down and then organized things as I put them back, taking note of what was missing and what needed to be replaced. By the time noon rolled around, I had done two things: changed the oil in the fryer and cleaned out all the reach ins. I had already had a productive day.

At the place I worked before the Inn, the restaurant was closed on Monday and two of the dishwashers had the job of breaking the kitchen down and cleaning everything. In a place that is all day everyday, we don’t have that option. (I don’t mean to imply we are cooking in squalor; the stuff just stacks up.) As I was wiping out one of the reach ins, I thought to myself, “This is what we need at home: a day when we are closed to clean and organize.” We do our best to get stuff done on the way to something else, but things stack up at home as well.

The other thing I thought about was the last page of The Soul of a Chef, which I finished this morning before I went to work:

This is the kind of satisfaction that people who truly love to cook are after. We seek, in our collective struggle, to learn more and to cook better, but we are in fact reaching for that connection to humanity that we’ve lost or maybe never had or simply want more of.

This connection will forever elude us until we learn to move deliberately, to take a long time, to make sure our counter is clean every night. And it will elude us if we ever lose sight of cooking’s fundamental importance to others.

The book ends with this sentence:

They were all great chefs; they never forgot for a moment what the work was all about: to cook for people and to make them happy.

One of those reasons those words kept rolling around in my head as I polished and prepped was I had gone to work this morning wanting to try something new I read in the book and knowing it was Monday night and I got to make up the special. We had pork chops that were begging to be used and I kept thinking about what kind of dish to create. We also had a bunch of zucchini, summer squash, and eggplant, which made me determined to try my hand at making a grilled vegetable terrine for the first time in my life. (It has to rest for at least a day. When I see if it worked or not, I’ll post the recipe.)

The Monday Night Special gives me the chance to inhabit Ruhlman’s words: I’m cooking to make people happy. My primary targets are the three servers who work with me on Mondays. Two of them are sisters and they hit the door every week asking what the special is. And every week at the beginning of the dinner service, I make one of the specials for them to share.

Tonight, I floured the pork chop and pan seared it and then put it in a sauté pan full of the sauce to finish. The sauce was a combination of the wild mushroom demi-glace with teriyaki red onion jam we use on the chicken in the function kitchen and the lemon sage cream sauce we use on the salmon. It struck me that all those tastes – the mushrooms, the demi, the onions, the lemon, the sage – would compliment the pork. Combining the brown sauce and the cream sauce would turn it into a gravy. I was on to some serious comfort food. I served it with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus.

I kept the tradition and put up one of the specials for the servers. One of the sisters came in , took one bite, said, “Oh, my God!” and promptly ate every last bit of it. The non-sister server got a bite of potatoes and gravy and asked for one of her own. When the second sister came in and got the reviews, she called her brother to come eat with her. He got there about eight and I made two more dinners, which they ate in the pub. Two people sitting with them at the bar heard their “yummy noises” and ordered pork chops as well. It really is what this work is all about: cooking for people and making them happy.

Tomorrow night I get to cook for my favorite customer: Ginger. Though her palate is plain, she is quite enthusiastic about what she likes. And, I’m happy to say, of the dishes she does like, she likes my versions best. This is a good way to spend a life.

Oh — and there’s a new recipe.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: darfur

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

We had our service on Darfur this morning at church and tonight we met to watch Darfur Diaries: Message from Home. After the film, a group of us shared some soup and talked about what we had seen and tried to figure out how to respond to a situation that is half a world away, more horrific than we can imagine – even after seeing the video, and so large and complicated that it leaves us feeling helpless and overwhelmed.

We talked for a long time about things we can do. One of the things we kept coming back to was writing letters and making phone calls to our government officials to urge, shame, and embarrass them into action. The late Senator Paul Simon said, “If every member of (the U.S.) the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.” With that in mind, here are some links to places that will help us get our voices heard and hopefully the voices of those in Darfur as well.

Save Darfur has petitions to President Bush, and the United Nations.
Human Rights First is asking 200,000 people to “stand in” for a victim in Darfur.
The Genocide Intervention Network has great talking points on how to call your member of Congress.
Africa Action has another petition to President Bush as well as a Legislative Action Center.
Be A Witness is petitioning the media for better coverage of the crisis in Sudan. They also have this wonderful commercial that all of the networks have refused to run.


Evangelicals for Darfur have a petition and some wonderful worship resources — on the same page.
Save Darfur also has some ways to involve your congregation.
Africa Action also has a Religious Action Network.
Though not specifically about Darfur, here is information about the U2charist.

If you want to know how your representatives are voting on Darfur, check out Darfur Scores.
The Sudan Divestment Task Force is looking to apply economic pressure.
Other resources I’ve found are Darfur Peace & Development, The Enough Project, IRIN Africa, and a great blog called The Coalition for Darfur.

One of the ideas Ginger mentioned in her sermon this morning was committing to “tithe” ten minutes a day to raise awareness about what is happening in Sudan. Ten thousand people a month are being mudered, not to mention those who are being raped and tortured. The situation is about to reach a tipping point such that the death toll could increase ten fold. We need to be talking, writing, calling — anything we can think of to let our leaders know we want them to take decisive action to stop the killing. In ten minutes, we can sign email petitions, call one or two of our elected officials, or tell a friend about what is going on. In The Soul of a Chef, Ruhlman tells of one guy who wanted to work at The French Laundry so badly that he made about forty copies of his resume and a cover letter, put them in envelopes that were addressed and stamped, and put on in the mail everyday until all of them had been mailed. His sheer persistence got him an interview and, ultimately, the job he wanted.

Ten minutes a day.

We are planning to host a Dinner for Darfur in a few weeks in our parish hall and ask our members to bring someone who doesn’t know what is going on. We will serve them a meal, give them the information we have collected, and invite them to take action as well.

The other thing we talked about was how to come to terms with the extreme pain and suffering in Darfur alongside of all of the pain and suffering we know about: the folks still homeless on the Gulf Coast, the tsunami victims in Asia who are still sleeping on the ground, our friends and family who have struggles of their own. One of the key paradoxes of faith is when we voluntarily enter into the pain of another the load lessens for us all. The only way anything will change in Darfur is if we look beyond our helplessness, our feelings of being overwhelmed, our hopelessness and voluntarily choose to figure out how to enter into their pain. “They” are not dying in Darfur; WE are.

Please take some time (ten minutes?) to check out the links. Please take time to comment and add more links, ideas for involvement, and anything else you want to say. Jesus said when we do anything (or don’t do anything) to “the least of these” we are doing it to him. How will we live with ourselves if the Darfurians are exterminated while we are too busy to choose to help?

Sorry, I don’t mean to preach. I do mean to offer an invitation. Please, join in and help our brothers and sisters in Darfur.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: saving time

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
3

First, an update: the shrimp was served (along with the lobster ravioli) and no one died.

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I left the Inn at 10:30, reminding myself all the way home that it was really 11:30. We may be saving daylight, but it’s going to kick my butt in the morning. When I got home, I looked up DST and learned something I didn’t know from Wikipedia: the name is actually Daylight Saving Time, as in we’re saving daylight by screwing with our clocks, not Daylight Savings Time, as if we have some sort of passbook account in the solar system. (Both are acceptable names because so many people add the S that it’s become standard.) The omission of the S lets the name make sense for me.

I also learned that our friends across the Pond call it “summer time,” which is humorous to me because on our side of the water we’re now trying to save daylight for eight out of twelve months. I wonder if it’s working.

I wonder if there’s a way to save the night?

______________________________

Running (or working in) a function kitchen is different from cooking on the line in a restaurant. On the line, we prepare all the things we think we’re going to need and then wait for folks to come in and ask for them. Though our guesses are fairly informed by historical patterns (you kind of know what to expect on a Tuesday night), they’re still guesses. One night I served twelve Iceberg wedge salads in the course of the evening and then didn’t sell even one for the next three nights. We offer what we call a Bistro Burger on our menu – caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms, Boursin cheese – and we had gone almost two weeks without selling any at lunch. Then one Friday, I sold sixteen of them in an hour and a half. My theory is the customers all get together at the convenience store across the street and plot how they’re going to try and mess with us before they come into the restaurant.

The other thing about the line is it’s streaky. During dinner service, there are at least a couple of hours when none of us leaves the line. The tickets are six or seven deep, we all have jobs to do, and we all depend on one another to get them done. Once the rush is over, it’s time to start cleaning.

In the function kitchen, we know way ahead of time how many are coming and what they want to eat. The preparation is much more specific and how the meal rolls out is more controlled. Tonight the meal had four courses:

  • Hors d’oeuvres: (stationary cheese display, coconut shrimp, veggie egg rolls, smoked salmon with dilled cream, baby endive spears with Roquefort mousse and spiced walnuts)
  • Lobster ravioli with red pepper sauce and shrimp or caramelized onion and roasted Portabella mushroom tart (vegetarian)
  • Boston Bibb salad with Parmesan crisp, roasted grape tomatoes, carrot curls, and peppercorn vinaigrette
  • Entrée: (Statler chicken breast with wild mushroom demi-glace and red onion-teriyaki jam; roasted salmon with lemon sage cream sauce; eggplant parmigiana over penne – all served with haricot verts and toasted almonds and truffled scallion mashed potatoes)

The bride was Hindu, so we had many more vegetarian meals than usual, for us. But I knew that going in: sixty-eight chicken, sixty-four salmon, twenty-eight eggplant. I had my list, on which I put things in the order I want to get them done, on the bulletin board next to the walk in. Every time I finished a task, I marked through it with my Sharpie. While I was cooking, the event staff was setting up tables, stocking the bars, and doing all the stuff they do upstairs that I never see. Along with helping me do some of the cooking, Alfonso and Pedro counted the plates for each course and plugged in the plate warmers. Cooking for a function is different because it is so much more of a team effort.

When it came time to pass the appetizers, four of the servers took turns going upstairs with the different things. Meanwhile, others put the dinner rolls in bread baskets. While I plated hors d’oeuvres, Alfonso and Pedro plated the salads and stacked them on these really cool plate racks that hold eighty-eight plates each and take up hardly any space at all. When the cocktail hour ended, the dressed the salads so they would be ready to go up at 8:45. Then we started getting ready to plate the lobster ravioli.

The part of the evening that still amazes me is how quickly four or five of us can prepare a couple of hundred plates to be served. We plated one hundred and thirty five servings of ravioli and twenty-eight mushroom tarts in about eight minutes. When it came time for the entrees, we did all three in less than fifteen. But the speed is not what makes it most different from the line. It’s the sense of camaraderie and the conversation. By the time we are to the place that it’s time to plate, the hard part is over. We make sure everything looks and tastes great, and we’re having fun.

There’s also less distinction – maybe distance is a better word – between the servers and the cooks because we share the same space. In the restaurant, there’s the front of the house and the back of the house. In the function hall, the servers are hanging around in the kitchen between courses and there is time for us to talk together. I think we also have the sense that we are all pulling together. It’s not so much “your job” and “my job” as ours.

One other thing to remember: always make a few extra dishes as you go because the staff gets to eat them. And they like the chef better when there are leftovers. I’ll even admit to having a slice of the eggplant myself.

Maybe we saved the night after all.

Peace,
MIlton

lenten journal: and the kitchen sink

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
7

I’ve spent the day with food and have a couple of random comments to make, none of which is necessarily apropos of the other.

__________________________

One of the things I’ve learned about from Chef is the Peruvian potato. It’s purple. If you don’t believe me, look at this picture I found at culiblog.


They make really cool mashed potatoes (if you boil them without peeling them) and add a lot of color the meal, as well as good nutrition. Last spring, I made potato chips to go with some of the lunch sandwiches and used a combination of sliced Yukon Golds, sweet potatoes, and the Peruvians to make a pretty cool multicolored snack.

Chef says the secret of the purple tuber is not so much the spud itself but the company it keeps. The Peruvian farmers plant the potatoes in the beet fields. As they grow and mature, they pick up both nutrients and color from sharing the field with their deep red friends.

We are having a sort of unscheduled potato festival at the Inn this weekend because of the requests of the wedding and the tastings that are scheduled. I’m cooking with Yukon Golds, Peruvians, Fingerlings, and Red Bliss. I will be roasting and mashing for the most part. Before I got into restaurant work, I thought a potato was pretty much a potato. I mean, I knew there were different kinds, but I never imagined they tasted or acted differently from one another. The Russets are the best bakers. Yukons make the best mashed potatoes by far because of their thin skins and sugar content. The Fingerlings roast well. The Red Bliss aren’t particularly my favorite, but people like the color on the plate, I think. If you’re going to use them, roast them. They are too starchy to mash well in my opinion.

Each of the varieties I mentioned distinguishes themselves because of something innate. The Peruvian is most noticeable because of how it is changed by who it grows alongside of. Something in that is kind of cool.

__________________________

Part of modern culinary fashion is the use of “baby” things: baby carrots, baby spinach. What we call “haricot verts” (which is French for green beans) are a “baby” variety. You can get baby eggplant, baby Brie cheeses. Tonight we even served grilled baby bok choi as our vegetable du jour in the restaurant. Tomorrow, one of the appetizers for the wedding is baby endive with Roquefort and walnut mousse.

Part of the reason for the trend, I think, is one fairly practical. Baby vegetables are easier to serve. I can plate a half of a baby eggplant more easily and more attractively than putting a couple of slices of Papa Eggplant next to the steak. Part of the reason is the way they look. The baby endive are purple and white and quickly catch your eye. And a part of the reason is, I think, they offer more room for creativity.

One of my favorite times in the kitchen with Chef was the night he opened the small container of micro greens and asked if I knew what they were. They are a mixture of small colorful leaves we use as a garnish on many dishes. We’re past baby; we’re micro. What I learned that night is the greens are a micro version of the mesclun, or spring mix, we use for a couple of our salads. He pulled out the micro arugula, radicchio, and the rest. I loved listening to him teach me about the greens because he was so captivated by what he was telling.

__________________________

Here’s a sentence I rarely think of writing: George Bush and I had something in common today. We both hung out with Brazilians.

__________________________

One of the appetizers for the wedding tomorrow is Coconut Shrimp, which was chosen by the bride and groom. A little farther down the banquet order it says in all capital letters: “FATHER OF THE BRIDE IS ALLERGIC TO SHELLFISH. DEATHLY ALLERGIC. DEATH. DEATH.”

Here’s my question: if your dad is deathly allergic to shellfish and you’re picking the appetizers, why do you pick the shrimp on your wedding day?

__________________________

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: benchmarks

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
5

I spent my day in restaurants.

I drove into Boston this morning for breakfast because my friend Patty was passing through on her way back to Michigan. We ate at Mul’s Diner, which is a South Boston landmark and the real thing, as far as diners go. I went for the basics: eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast, home fries, and coffee. We ate in about ten minutes and then sat and talked and drank more coffee for another hour and a half before it was time to take her to the airport. We even stayed long enough for our server to warm up to us, which, in any Boston restaurant, is no small achievement.

I drove back down Route 3 and stopped at Panera, our usual Thursday hangout, to use their free wifi to send a copy of the bulletin for our Darfur service to the church. I was going to get a cup of coffee, but the lunch line was already happening and I didn’t have any time to lose. From there I went to the gym (hooray for me) to spend some time on the ellipsis machine, distracting myself by watching NCAA basketball.

The next event on my calendar was lunch with my friend Doug for yet another gathering of the Pastoral Spouses’ Support Group. I had some time before he was out of his meeting, so I went to Kiskadee, another coffee shop with free wifi, to get a cup of coffee and wait for his call. While I was there, I took time to listen to some clips of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s new album and chase down a few other music links. (Did any of you know Delbert McClinton has a son who makes records?)

Doug and I met about two at Asian C, a Japanese/Chinese restaurant, where we tried six different kinds of sushi and a couple of Chinese beers. Lunch took up most of the afternoon. We ordered our maki rolls two at a time and each plate was delivered by a different server. A meal with Doug is always both fun and educational. Today’s lesson had to do with benchmarks, which grew out of a discussion of my use of surveying as a metaphor in an earlier post. I knew a benchmark was a standard by which something could be measured; what I didn’t know is it is a surveying term. According to Dictionary.com, it is “a surveyor’s mark on a permanent object of predetermined position and elevation used as a reference point.” The other thing I learned from Doug is any benchmark is arbitrary. He said, for example, when surveyors measure elevation they do so using “mean sea level” (I think that’s the term he used) as the benchmark. But what sea level actually is cannot be definitively determined. The tides were measured and averaged and then mean sea level was set – in 1929, sort of the surveyors’ version of “you must be as tall as my hand to get on this ride.” One could just as easily draw a line in the sand and measure from there. We opened our fortune cookies (mine said, “Soon you will be sitting on top of the world”), but we didn’t have coffee.

I went back to Panera to meet Ginger and another friend we haven’t seen for a while. I got another cup of coffee (and a couple of free refills) and read until Ginger arrived. Our friend came soon after and we caught up on each other’s lives. Her son is in high school and is a really good athlete. Last fall, he intercepted a pass on the last play of the game and ran it back for a touchdown and the win for Marshfield. He is also a bright kid who is not particularly enamored of academics, even though he makes good grades. He asked if he could move out of Honors English next year into the regular class. His folks are cool with it, but the English department at the high school is having a hard time. Their benchmark for excellence is Honors and they can’t imagine why anyone would not want to measure up.

I taught high school English for a decade in both urban and suburban high schools and there was a significant disparity in the benchmarks of the two institutions. They did share one thing in common: high school is hard on most everyone. One day, after talking with a colleague about a student who was fighting to survive his sophomore year, I wrote this poem:

high school

say you start with
a thousand candles
tiny little beacons
beaming together
in brilliance

say you blow out
one no one will
notice this one
here on the edge
in the back

say you blow out
one no one will
notice one each
night just one
how could it matter

come back in a thousand nights

only the light over
the kitchen sink
goes out with the flick
of a switch the light
inside dies incrementally

I loved the way our friend talked about her son. For her, the benchmark that mattered was that he was content with the choice he was making. “So he won’t make A’s like his sister,” she said. “He’ll make B’s.” And she laughed. She’s a good benchmark for a mom.

The last section of The Soul of a Chef is centered on The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley. Ruhlman begins by summarizing his quest for what it means to be a chef. After an amazing meal, he says:

Everything had been perfect, and perfect in a way I had learned about and talked about and written about but had never experienced. Here it was. Providence had intervened and carried me aloft clear across the continent. This was it. I was here. I’d penetrated to the very core of the profession. (223)

The meal he described at the Laundry feels like it’s in another league from what we do at the Inn, and yet, when I looked at the recipes on the web site, one was for Parmigiano Reggiano Crisps with Goat Cheese Mousse. We make the same kind of parmesan crisps to garnish our Caesar salads and have a variation on the mousse as one of our function appetizers. Tonight, as I finish one more cup of coffee before bedtime, I realize how easy it is to beat ourselves up with benchmarks, even if high school is a distant memory. Whatever is for dinner, I want to keep lighting candles.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: borrowed words

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
8

I am wordless tonight, my friends. There are a lot of things running through my head and my heart, but I can’t seem to get them to shoot out my fingers and onto the keyboard. So I will lean a little on the words of others.

I Feel Sorry for Jesus

People won’t leave him alone.
I know He said, wherever two or more
are gathered in my name . . .
but I’ll bet some days He regrets it.

Cozily they tell you what He wants
and doesn’t want
as if they just got an e-mail.
Remember “Telephone,” that pass-it-on game

where the message changed dramatically
by the time it rounded the circle?
Well.
People blame terrible pieties on Jesus.

They want to be his special pet.
Jesus deserves better.
I think He’s been exhausted
for a very long time.

He went into the desert, friends.
He didn’t go into the pomp.
He didn’t go into
the golden chandeliers

and say, the truth tastes better here.
See? I’m talking like I know.
It’s dangerous talking for Jesus.
You get carried away almost immediately.

I stood in the spot where He was born.
I closed my eyes where He died and didn’t die.
Every twist of the Via Dolorosa
was written on my skin.

And that makes me feel like being silent
for Him, you know? A secret pouch
of listening. You won’t hear me
mention this again.

— Naomi Shihab Nye

“The truth tastes better here” and “a secret pouch of listening” are two phrases that remind me why I think poetry matters to the heart.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

My idea of camping involves at least a Holiday Inn, so I can’t honestly say I have lied down where the wood drake rests, but I do resonate with the image of the day-blind stars and searching for rest.

The News of the World

Like weather, the news
is always changing and always
the same. On a map
of intractable borders
armies ebb and flow.
In Iowa a roof is lifted
from its house like a top hat

caught in a swirl of wind.
Quadruplets born in Akron.
In Vilnius a radish
weighing 50 pounds.
And somewhere
another city falls
to its knees.

See how the newsprint
comes off on our hands
as we wrap the orange peel
in the sports page
or fold into the comics
a dead bird

the children found
and will bury
as if it were the single
sparrow whose fall
God once promised
to note, if only
on the last page.

— Linda Pastan

The more I read of Pastan, the more I love her stuff. I found this link to a free e-book of nineteen poems. I also found this harbinger of better weather at The Writer’s Almanac this week:

While We Wait for Spring

The last three days snow has fallen.
No thaw this year, no day even above
twenty since the end of December.
Climbing the hill, my two boys slip, fall,
stand again. They complain, but there’s nothing
to be done except to make it to the top
where above the trees we will look down
upon the river. Near the peak a barred owl
releases from the limb of a burr oak, sweeps
over our heads and out above the tree line.
Our eyes follow its flight to the river ice,
current moving beneath its blue surface.
Like the owl, our breath rises, drifts
toward something warmer, something better.

— Todd Davis

I will return with a sackful of words I have collected and sorted tomorrow.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: awakenings

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
4

Several weeks ago, Ginger asked me if I would put together a worship service focusing on the genocide in Darfur as a way to inform our congregation and help people know what they can do. When I started doing my research, I wrote this post and found out rather quickly that the primary response people had was one of feeling overwhelmed and helpless. Since them, I’ve been thinking about how to get beyond those feelings to see what else we can find in ourselves.

I got an email from my friend Burt who was responding to my post on The Secret and he said:

Been reading the Lenten journal … It’s great as always. One thought about the “name it claim it piece,” I think in it’s right form, it’s mature expression, the idea in the spiritual tradition is that consciousness proceeds reality… creates it… or influences and shapes it. So, as conscious (or at least semi-conscious) beings, our thoughtful and awakened presence in the world is a part of the mix and has the possibility of changing things for better (and I guess for the worse too). I think it’s in this sense, that I can believe in intercessory prayer… our consciousness and connections are more significant than we think… so are our minds. So… you have this spiritual principle that’s been around a few thousand years and pops up in all sorts of places but what happens is, that in the hands of immaturity it turns into the shit that we hear and that you wrote about. Most “shit” out there has some connection to reality… even “name it, claim it.”

I chewed on his paragraph for a good while today as I looked over worship resources and articles on Darfur and found myself pulled by his phrases:

  • in it’s mature expression the idea in the spiritual tradition is that consciousness precedes reality
  • our thoughtful and awakened presence in the world is a part of the mix and has the possibility of changing things
  • our consciousness and connections are more significant than we think
  • in this sense I can believe in intercessory prayer

Intercessory prayer is an enigma to me. I’m not saying it doesn’t work; I am saying sometimes I’m not sure. When I pray for someone I can take a meal to, I can feel it. Praying here in Massachusetts for my father-in-law as he recuperates in Alabama leaves me a bit puzzled. Would the healing happen differently if I had not prayed? Would they have found more cancer? If enough of us had been praying over the last four years, could the genocide in Darfur have been averted? Are those fair questions?

The beginnings of the trouble in Darfur started at about the same time George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003. We have people keeping count of how many soldiers have died. We hear about car bombs and IEDs most everyday on the news. Yet ten thousand people a month are being killed in the Sudan (my father pointed out to me that’s about fifteen people an hour) and we have not been awake to those numbers for the most part.

How then should we pray? How then should we live?

Since I grew up in Africa, I have a pretty sensitive antenna when it comes to news from the continent and I get a little snippy when what the American media feed us are photographs of Britney Spears’ shaved head and Anna Nicole’s funeral. Two weeks ago the Zambezi River flooded in Mozambique leaving almost 300,000 people homeless. I’ve not heard it mentioned in any American newscast. The news makes my heart hurt; the lack of coverage makes me angry. Yet, I still don’t know how to pray.

Trying to awaken a congregation to the needs of the refugees and victims of the civil war in Sudan is risky because offering the information and challenge as an invitation rather than a polemic is a difficult high wire to walk – at least for me. My passion too quickly comes across as indignation. I want people to hear for the first time things I’ve been conscious of for a long time and rise up and do something.

That’s the next issue: do what?

There are petitions to sign and speakers to hear. We are going to watch a DVD Sunday night as part of our emphasis. There are organizations to support and contributions to make. I realize, though, when I say we can pray I’m almost apologetic, or at least a little dismissive, as though it is an action of last resort: there’s nothing we can really do, so let’s pray.

I’m not satisfied with either side of that equation.

I know part of what I have to get past within myself is the feeling (which I’m not proud of) that if people just knew as much as I do about Darfur or cared as much things would be different. It’s not my primary feeling, but it’s there and it can get the best of me. I may know a lot, but I’m still sitting here in Marshfield ranting into my keyboard. I don’t need to start wearing my “activist” button just yet. I’m not someone other than the folks in our congregation who are frustrated and perplexed by what is going on in the world. I’m one of them. Neither Marshfield nor Darfur has given any indication I might be their Messiah.

Burt talked about our “thoughtful and awakened presence.” It just struck me that he didn’t say awake, but awakened, as in someone else woke us up, opened our eyes. Once again, I’m back to prayer:

open my eyes that I may see
glimpses of truth thou has for me
open my eyes illumine me
Spirit divine

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: special and ordinary

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
7

When I arrive to open the kitchen on the days I work, there’s always a piece of paper hanging where the tickets hang during meal service listing the things that need to be prepared for the day. On Mondays, it’s always a long list because we’ve usually managed to deplete most of our supplies over the weekend. Today was no exception. The list said:

chowda
onion soup
cut romaine for salads
parmesan cups
honey mustard dressing
cole slaw
lobster salad
slice tomatoes
slice red onion
caramelized onions
demi-glace
cut salmon
cut filets
sauerbraten
rouladen
risotto
mashed potatoes
veg du jour
beurre blancs

I put on my chef jacket and got to work doing the ordinary things that keep the kitchen going. Telma, who bakes all our wedding cakes, works with me on Mondays. She came in a little after noon and we kept crossing things off the list. By the time the dinner service started, we were in pretty good shape and I was putting the finishing touches on the special.

In The Soul of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman describes one of the parts of the Certified Master Chef’s Exam called the Mystery Basket where the chefs are given a basket with a number of random items and they have to come up with a four course meal for six using as many of them as they can. Mondays are my mystery basket because I have to come up with a special based on what I can find left in the walk-in refrigerator after the weekend. (I don’t mean left over food; I mean things that have yet to be used. Forgive the second list, but here’s what I found:

statler chicken breasts
a few shrimp
green tomatoes
fresh basil
risotto
asparagus

What I came up with was a roasted Statler chicken breast with roasted corn risotto and green tomato and basil jam served with shrimp fritters and grilled asparagus. The green tomato jam, as I called it, was my favorite thing because I made it up. I diced the green tomatoes and put them on the stove with some aji mirin (a sweet rice wine), some chopped fresh basil, a couple of chopped scallions, and some sugar. I let most of the liquid cook out and then I pureed the whole thing and put it back on the stove to reduce some more. I then cooled it and kept it in my prep area. My plan was to heat it and pour it over the top of the chicken to finish the dish. As is my custom on Mondays, I made the dish for the three servers both to feed them and to allow them to speak firsthand about it to the customers. It turned out really well. I loved the way the tastes and textures went together. I loved getting to make up some recipes. I loved how much they enjoyed the dish.

And no one ordered it all evening.

My unrequited cooking brought two things to mind. The first is a question I have pondered for years. At the end of any sports championship, the winning team quickly dons the official championship hat and shirt as a way to make all of the fans want to get up early the next morning to buy their own. The instantaneous appearance of the attire means there are unopened boxes in the other locker room (or near it) that make the same claim for the other team. Here’s my question: where do those clothes go? I have a fantasy that they are given to aid organizations who send them to other parts of the world. Somewhere in East Timor, a guy is wearing a Colts Superbowl Champion shirt and thinking he’s pretty cool.

The second thing was a distant literary memory (so much I couldn’t chase down the exact quote) from Wallace Stegner’s wonderful novel, Crossing to Safety. The way I remember the passage, the narrator is talking about his love of writing and feeling incredibly grateful he had been born into a family that afforded him the opportunity to get an education and follow his passion. He then wonders out loud about the tragedy of being born a writer into a family and a culture that valued only spoken words and never being able to uncover your gift and your passion, and perhaps never know what you were missing.

Not selling any specials tonight was not quite that traumatic, if at all, but that’s what came to mind. I’m guessing Chef will find the chicken and fritters when he comes in tomorrow and do something with them at lunch. I know the sauce will make a reappearance, or morph into something else.

I created a near miss; all I can do is circle and try again.

I know part of the reason I make one of the specials for the staff is I want it validated. I want to know how it tastes to them. I want a response to my effort. That they try it takes away any stake I have in seeing how many sell over the evening. I’m feeding them and taking care of myself.

The prep list I left for tomorrow night was short: Chef needs to spice the walnuts for the spinach salad. That’s what Mondays are for: to leave a short list. I don’t get to see how he responds either. He’s the one coming in early tomorrow because it’s my day off. Chances are, as he opens up refrigerators and sets up the line, he will find something that needs to be done that I missed. I won’t be there for that, either.

Part of what it means to be human is not being able to see all of the impact of what we say and do. Our actions do not have to affect large groups of people to be significant. I came up with the special and the ordinary today.

What I’m most proud of is leaving the short list.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: be kind

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
12

Somewhere towards the end of her sermon this morning, Ginger quoted Philo of Alexandria (not to be confused with Philo of Pawtucket):

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

The words have hung with me all day. When I sat down to write tonight, they took me back to a conversation I had with Chef on Friday, as we were getting ready for a monster weekend and already feeling the pressure. At this point, it looked as through I was going to be responsible for preparing a meal for 260 people on Saturday with only one of the dishwashers to help me. I was frustrated, not at Chef, but at the Owner, who appears to see labor costs as The Thing You Cut First and Often.

“You’re right,” Chef said, “and I can see things from his si—“

I interrupted him and went on with my lament. He tried again.

“I understand. All I’m saying is I can see where he’s coming from.”

With indignation I said, “I have no need to defend him. I’ll get the job done regardless of his abuse. I’m just tired of it.”

In the eighteen months I have worked at the Inn, the Owner has been around maybe four of them. He has homes in two other countries and spends much of his time traveling. He calls in daily to say what he has to say. I’ve never had an extended conversation with him and the brief talks we’ve had have all related to my job. I know a few of the details of his life, but I don’t know him at all, nor him me. I see how he treats his employees and how he relates to people depending on how he views their stations in life, but I have never heard him explain why he makes the relational choices he makes. I have an image of him, but I don’t know what his questions are, what his struggles are, what battles he is fighting. Every time he makes what I consider to be a bonehead move, or an insensitive one, I allow myself to feel justified in writing him off. I don’t want to feel like he matters, or that he has a perspective with even the least bit of credibility. And then Ginger had to go and say:

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Everyone. That means the Owner, too. That means what I perceive as his deliberate insensitivity has roots in a past I know nothing of, the way my determination to make something or somewhere feel like home grows out of my rootlessness, or my passion to do a great job comes, at least partly, from my own crippling yet dogged sense that love is earned and I have to keep proving myself. That means I have to make room in my image of him for moments when he might wish he were not the way he is, or that he might want the same kind of acceptance and approval I’m looking for.

Damn.

Ginger often says of me that I’m pretty longsuffering, but if I think something’s not fair I dig in hard. I don’t want to hear any explanations. I don’t care what the explanations are. There is right and fair and just and there is – well, there is no other option. When I allow myself to be the Aproned Crusader at work, I see the Owner’s actions as unjust and unfair and I can quickly allow myself to not give him any identity other than the one who is responsible for it all. I don’t want to give him a chance to be human in my eyes. If I allow myself to see him as a person, then I’m forced to come to terms with the way in which my attitude towards him is incompatible with the faith and ethic I profess. Hey, wait a minute – how did this become about me?

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

The first therapist I ever saw said, “Remember in any situation there are only two things you can control: what you do and what you say. You can’t change anything else.” I can’t make the Owner treat people differently. I can’t control whom he fires or lays off or pretty much anything else he says or does. I can decide whether or not I spend time at work talking about him. I can control where I draw the line as to how I respond to what I see as injustice. I can choose to be kind to him, to work to humanize him in my eyes so I think of him as more than a caricature. I can decide to stay true to the person I want to be regardless of what he does.

I can be kind.

I don’t foster any rosy fantasy that if I can just befriend him and he realizes I really want to get to know him that he will become a different person. I don’t even think Philo thought that about whoever was driving him nuts when he said those words centuries ago. Changing him is not even the point. It is about me: what I do, what I say, what I feel, how I live.

Ginger also quoted Teresa of Avila this morning:

Christ has no body on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world.
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.

I find it easy to be the hands that carry the soup for dinner at church, or the feet that move to help Pedro. But to be the eyes that see the Owner with compassion or allow him to be humanized in my sight is hard, hard work.

Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: marking time

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
-
3

The time clock at the Inn measures the hours by decimals rather than minutes. When I punched out I had worked 12.12 hours, the same numbers as my birthday, 12/12. Chef shares my birthday as well, along with Frank Sinatra and Dionne Warwick.

3/3, one quarter of 12/12, is also a significant day for me because it is The Day of Gifts for No Reason. Unless you read my writing last year, it may not be a day you are aware of. Actually, it is, shall we say, a niche holiday, being significant only to Ginger and to me. And it’s not much of a holiday. I still had to work twelve hours.

Though Ginger and I had only been dating a short time, by the time March 3, 1989 rolled around, I was completely amazed that she was in my life. That year, like this one, March 3 fell on a Saturday. When I showed up to pick her up for our date, I had some flowers, a CD, and a theology book. The card I gave her said something like, “I’ve never dated anyone I could give flowers, a CD, and a theology book.” (Pretty good, huh?) I’ve given her those three things every year – except the one I forgot. This year, the book was The Faith Club, the CD was Colorblind by Robert Randolph and the Family Band (the man does serious things with a steel guitar), and, since I’ve worked twenty four hours in the last forty eight, the flowers are coming tomorrow.

The first time I did it, I was simply responding to the wonder in my heart. I wasn’t trying to start a tradition or to make a grand gesture. My actions expressed the joy of my astonishment: I was dating an amazing woman and finding resonance in ways I never imagined possible. It was the year I forgot – which was three or four years on — that I think sealed it as a Red Letter Day in our marriage. I remember going to bed that night and realizing something was bothering her. I pressed her to tell me and all she said was, “It’s March Third.”

My heart sank, not out of guilt as much as watching the opportunity to let her know I love her in a way that she really hears and feels it fly out the window. I missed my chance and there was no getting it back. I didn’t try. I didn’t go out and buy something on March 4. I realized that night what mattered was not the gifts as much as reaffirming the resonance we both felt so early on. I’m still as full of wonder and gratitude that I get to be with her this year as I was eighteen years ago. No, more.

Peace,
Milton

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