This past week, "the economy" "took the life" of one of San Francisco's most venerable restaurants, Rubicon. The SF Chronicle reported on its closing party yesterday.
You might wonder why I don't report on the world's goings on as often as my blogging cohorts. And you might not believe the reason. Media affects me so powerfully that I have to travel inward to digest what I've read. It can take me months to allow how I feel to come through. Call me too sensitive. You wouldn't, and you won't, be the first. Or last.
The industry I work for is a luxury product. When people argue about how grapes are grown in Napa, all I can think about is the fact that wine is not sustenance. And the people who make your swirling, sniffing, tasting, arguing, musing, price-comparing, decadent auctioning, possible might never have the rights (many of) your pets have in this wealthy country.
People often ask me, "What do you do?"
"I'm in the pleasure business." I reply. Yes, mostly because I'm an upstart, but also because it's true.
I make sweet things.
I craft pleasure. I spin tales with sugar. I sear with caramel and sooth with iced cream. I taste of salt and season with sweet. I conjure, coax, and evoke. Come with me and I'll take you somewhere
else.
But is it art? Or craft? And is it important? Necessary?
We get all up in arms in the Bay Area protecting what we feel are our rights. We have a wealth of choices here, in all things food and liquid, soil and sun, weather and geography. We? Well a loud voiced we at any rate.
And then there's the "Purity Factor." We in Northern California like to challenge anything, look at it closely, and tear it apart; constructively or otherwise (ahh the delightful taste of passive aggression), to prove that it's not as pure as it says it is. You say you're a Locavore? Do you know where you're black peppercorns come from? Salt? Dish soap? Have you recently chose to become vegan? Do you eat honey? How about naturally occurring yeasted/fermented things? When you say you're a vegan because you want to preserve the life of animals, do you think of humans as animals too?
Think you care more than most people about Organic food? Do you know who owns the company that owns the people who plant and harvest your precious, perfect produce? Do you know who owns the water? Have you seen the list of acceptable pesticides and fungicides for Organic fruits & vegetables lately? Would you feed them to your children, straight?
No one is pure enough. Not even Slow Food Nation. You'd think Monsanto was setting up camp from the way a lot of "food people" are reacting. So what if they're a little disorganized? Or a lot. You try organizing 50,000 people with 2000 volunteers. No. Corporate. Sponsorship.* Gay Pride can't even say that.
*This in from Jen Maiser: "From [SFN's] site FAQ's:
"Slow Food Nation is funded by ticket sales (20% of revenue), corporate sponsors (50% of revenue), foundations (25% of revenue) and philanthropists (5% of revenue)." For More Information, check out the FAQ portion of the SFN website.
My point? Yes, I have one.
I met with a friend yesterday. She's been in the business longer than me, totaling 20+ years. We talked about our options. Made vague references to who was courting us and what we hoped would be different about our next jobs. We talked about how many pastry chefs are out of work. We spoke of failed restaurants, recent Bauer reviews, the cost of delicious fruit as brought to us by wholesalers, working with the new breed of staff who expect to work less for more pay than we ever dreamed possible at "their age," the insanely high cost of living in the Bay Area, how 'having a life' outside of the kitchen was nearly impossible with a pastry chef job, and so much more.
All Doom & Gloom? No, but close.
We each have reached 40. Neither of us are married nor own the places we inhabit. Neither of us have a 401K. Both of us pay for our own health insurance. We've taught, owned, managed, struggled, learned, given, opened, closed and now we're thinking. A lot. Our minds could be a dangerous place.
But instead we supported. Heard each other out. Dished. Nodded heads. Shared industry secrets. Laughed because we knew. And then we did something else.
We thought of what the other person could do, besides. Instead of. I wrote some notes. We gave each other feedback, and received. We expanded our minds beyond the jail bars of this industry. We fought 'the voice.'
I'm going to say it. Move to a screen with a kitties now if you can't handle it.
My industry is not sustainable. Restaurants are not sustainable. Not for the employees. Or most employers.
Yes, we can buy seafood that's not as bad as some other seafood. We can know the name of the pig we eat and kill it our self. We can buy direct from the farmer and put her name on our menu. We can build our restaurants with re-claimed wood. We can burn only beeswax candles. We can sell our fryer oil to the biodiesel people.
If it weren't for unions rioting for years and years, and many a person dying, our employers might not have to give us days off or a minimum wage. The eight hour day would never exist without there having been years and years of bloody fighting.
And everyone knows the 8 hour day/40 hour week is for bankers, not cooks.
Not sustainable.
I can hear you gearing up for an argument. Good. Roll up your sleeves and get in line.
Then why have certain restaurants lasted for years and years? How come thousands of people sign checks every year over to schools that are going to give them an unflattering polyester outfit and a tall paper hat in exchange for what could pass as a mortgage payment in most American States? How come Top Chef is such a big hit? And everyone keeps opening restaurants? Even when the world's food crises is starving people in every nation and the cost of petroleum is doubling on every other breath?
Rubicon closed a few days ago. I remember when it opened. It's backers are major players, and savvy business people. The restaurant sat in the Financial District. It was elegant and quiet, private and charming. Rubicon's kitchen was dedicated to promoting great chefs to greater greatness, and no one who's cheffed in SF longer than a minute hasn't cooked with someone who worked there. Rubicon closed. No one is safe.
The economy sucks, you say? I'm just bitter because I was laid off at the beginning of the year?
Hey, it doesn't mean I'm gonna stop cooking. Or cease making sweet things. Or hang up my coat forever. It doesn't mean there's no reason for living.
I'm not saying anything other cooks and chefs and restaurant owners don't know. And there are chefs who make serious money. In America everyone is given the same opportunity to exploit or treat fairly. Work hard and you can make something of yourself. Step or jump out of your class. Your choice.
As employees we can fight for our rights if we want to know them. Whether you work for American Express or Burger King, if you are an American citizen, and you do not have the ability to hire and fire, you are covered by all of the same Federal Labor Laws, many of which were decided by or before 1920.
Cooking professionally is not sustainable. Selling food that people cook in real time is not sustainable. Not sustainable based on 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, year round. Not based on paying all food producers a market value living wage. Not based on treating soil and mountains and air and the water table the way we would if we really wanted to keep it viable for future peoples, not just "first world" peoples, in the future.
Radical? Me? Nah.
Just trying to face facts. And move on. And get my head out of the sand.
Not that my compost pile isn't worth something. Or my belief that fruit desserts should be made with seasonal, ripe fruit is going to go out the window. I'm not going to eat factory pork if I can help it. I'm not going to go work for Phillip Morris or order swordfish or stop eating out or start drinking or take up cutting or start telling all y'all how to be more pure.
Remember who made 'being pure' infamous?
What would we feel like if we lived in a country who displayed their unfair, corrupt, despotism with more transparency? Would we still be mad at Whole Foods for eliminating their bulk section?
What would we be grateful for if every time we got something, we weren't expecting more?
Who would we be if we gave up a part of our paycheck every week not at the bar, but gave it directly to the dishwasher at our favorite restaurant?
When will we be satisfied?
I'm not saying there's nothing left to fight for. I'm not saying 'Give up.' I'm not laying down with this knowledge. I hope to see what I look like at 50. I'm interested in seeing how I can Zelig as the economy continues to dip and I am definitely interested in getting a new president elected who says he wants change.
And, o yes, I want to make desserts in a restaurant again. I want to teach and learn. Crazy? Yes. I love doughnuts. I think the perfect croissant eaten in the most romantic city will change my life. My hopeless romanticism will not be evicted.
I think one day all of us speed induced (we want everything yesterday), technologically drugged, "choice" motivated whores (you know, the people who tell you it's their right and choice to smoke cigarettes and ___________ fill in the blank of whatever you judge "them" for), will stop. And see that if we continue on the way we have been, things we can never replace are really disappearing. Forever.
Please challenge me. Bring it on. Lift me up and carry me high so I can see the horizon. Tell me how to make it work.Tell me you think it can work. Even in small towns. In little corners of your world. I'm writing down what I know. What I see. What I've seen. But I'm not everyone everywhere doing everything.
That's what y'all are for.
Sorry, can't argue with anything you said. But in support of what you and other artists do, I believe that we need music, paintings, and desserts to sustain our spirits.
Posted by: Anna Banana | 14 August 2008 at 10:50 AM
A brilliant and insightful piece of writing Shuna. =)
Posted by: Garrett | 14 August 2008 at 11:07 AM
I'm heading out to work in Saudi for a year.
A Professor working for the Law Society of England and Wales has announced there are twice as many lawyers as the industry can sustain.
I've spent two years going to nightschool taking exams in Chemistry and Biology so I can apply to University and become a pharmacist. The money I will, fingers crossed, earn should help me towards funding this life change.
The Law Schools know there are not enough jobs for graduates.
They don't tell you that at open days though.
Much of education seems to be a money making scam for the Universities. When you're preying on 17-18 year old kids it seems a little distasteful.
I have been close to the edge.
Clinging for life.
Scared.
Nobody is safe.
Posted by: G. | 14 August 2008 at 12:12 PM
Hi Shuna -
I'm surprised to see you say that SFN has no corporate sponsorship. Or maybe I'm misreading what you're saying?
From their site FAQ's:
"Slow Food Nation is funded by ticket sales (20% of revenue), corporate sponsors (50% of revenue), foundations (25% of revenue) and philanthropists (5% of revenue)."
Posted by: jen maiser | 14 August 2008 at 01:36 PM
amazing, truly amazing post. lots to digest, thank you. needed to get out of my head at work and restart. thanks for this, just incredible.
Posted by: banditsf | 14 August 2008 at 01:49 PM
Shoot, if your writing skills is any indication of your cooking then Sister, YOU ARE A BADD ASS!
Go on with your Badd self!
Fab haircut...you look very very very young. Careful you will be carted in bars! (smile)
Posted by: Lovebabz | 14 August 2008 at 02:01 PM
Shuna- Your post is tough, beautiful and heart wrenching. If I changed a few specifics? I could have written these words- switch out pastry chef for artist. Our stories co-mingle.
And now I'm past 50 and weighed down with everything. I lay in the dark and struggle for some sense of direction amidst all this mishegas. People mock the motto Yes We Can. But I get scared when I hear it. Because it stirs me to hope.
And hope is dangerous.
Posted by: Karina | 14 August 2008 at 03:12 PM
I know from talking to people here and even contemplating myself what Would I do if this happened. (AKA a family.)
I know hotels generally are 8hrs and pay really well, but working in a a hotel... Just something about it, I don't know. I've been inside helping people with their competitions and its a weird feeling in hotel kitchens.
Teaching is another good option, but you need connections to get into that.
Other then that, I have no idea. I know I love cooking and sometimes the way you get treated from the financial side of things sucks.
I know people who complain when they have to work OT, and they get paid the OT! Hah. I think to myself, work in a kitchen.
Posted by: Weston | 14 August 2008 at 04:07 PM
I just spent 12 hours working on some documents for my job and can't address these interesting and important issues now. But I do always find what you say interesting and substantive so I will ponder this and leave some thoughts later.
And I want to throw myself out of the window because I keep reading about all the people in California who are making wonderful things with stone fruit, and what I can get here in New York is horrible. I can't get anything good that's local. I went out of my way to buy some NY State apricots so I could make the Zuni apricot tart, and they were mealy and inedible. The white nectarines from California I got at Fairway last week were maybe okay. Any advice, Shuna? You've been here. Can I score at Union Square? I'm not so sure. Is the only thing I will ever get to eat her Italian prune plums in September? Do I have to move? Yikes.
Victoria, I feel your pain. I feel like I remember there being good stone fruit being grown in NJ and on LI, but it is extremely hit or miss because the fruit travels so far. You might need to pay top dollar at Dean & Deluca or Balducci's to mimic anything close. If you can move, yes, you should... ~ Shuna
Posted by: Victoria | 14 August 2008 at 07:01 PM
I'm going to try and keep myself hopeful. I'm trying to think that maybe a door closes and another opens. Although the economy is seeming to falter at the moment and there are some casualties, it seems that many people's attitudes towards food are changing, and the labor intense practices are becoming more widespread again.
The food program on radio 4 on the bbc gives me hope as they always have uplifting and true stories, albeit mostly british ones.
Many professions are feeling the pinch, not least mine. Our industry is slowly trying to move to china and india.
Posted by: Jenny | 15 August 2008 at 12:36 AM
8 hr. days as a pastry chef? Ha! When I find that job I'll let you know... I do have the honor of cooking on a 24 sq ft. wood fired oven on a daily bases, which is a challenging 10-12 hr sweat dripping, scorched milk cursing,ashen, smoky, wouldn't change it for the world kind of experience, so the pro's and con's of the industry are always in counterbalance. At my current gig,a local, seasonal, organic bistro, the owners (generous, inspiring folks from the SF Bay area) would never claim "sustainable". Cause no matter how many carrots we buy from the guy down the street, Sysco, UNFI, DPI, OGC etc. (all whole sale, out of area purveyors) still make their weekly rounds.
I think the best we can do as a restaurant is spread the inspiration and knowledge of what we're eating. By putting the farmers name on the menu, we connect a person or family to the food our customers are putting in their mouth, and that spreads the awareness of local possibilities...
That's my positive thought on the matter, it makes me feel better about what I love to do.
P.S... It's blueberry season! ! ! YAY! I experimented with a blueberry apricot frangipane today... the bee's knees I tell you... the bee's knees :
Posted by: Kari | 15 August 2008 at 12:46 AM
shuna, this is the third time i have come over to read this post. i can't seem to be able to find the right words but i couldn't just pass by and not comment. i feel your pain. sustainable? nothing is sustainable forever because everything is everchanging and cyclical. it's easy to get buried and overwhelmed with the problems of this world. trust me, i'm also the hyper sensitive kind. hang in there. there are people in this world that are in need of your talent.
Posted by: aran | 15 August 2008 at 07:14 AM
Eggbeater said (among other things): "Who would we be if we gave up a part of our paycheck every week not at the bar, but gave it directly to the dishwasher at our favorite restaurant?"
I like that. I like it a lot. (It's the little things. Most of us can only do little things. It is overwhelming, that bigger picture, and often it overtakes the smaller, more meaningful stuff. But still, it always comes back to those little things.)
To the NYer who can't find decent fruit: join a CSA!! What are you waiting for??!! I have never tasted anything like the peaches I get from my CSA. I am transported physically and mentally every time a take a bite. And those plums! Oh, my.
Posted by: C. | 15 August 2008 at 11:15 AM
I think this post should be read by more people-- try to submit it to the Chronicle or New York Times-
It's true, if you are over 40 and been in the business for awhile your working harder and longer and making the same pay if you factor in cost of living.
The newer kids on the block want to work a lot less, become a superstar or a celebrity chef instead of really cook the food for the masses. In some ways they are smarter than we were they think business and home instead of just passion for a career in food.
Everyone I know who is serious about being in the food business for career and not just the money works a lot. More than any of our nonfood working friends would.
How to find the balance? Us food people like to do what we do but how do we afford to do it? Especially when everyone thinks the job is manned by unskilled labor who can't get other good jobs. How do we make our job a profession or a trade and not unskilled labor?
Keep spreading the word and making us all think.
Posted by: cheryl | 15 August 2008 at 08:16 PM
me challenge you? right......there was some casual comment you made last year while we were shopping about did I think it was possible to forego using all disposable plastic and paper bags. I'm still TRYING to figure out how I can make that work 100% of the time.
LIfe is messy. People are messy. We just gotta find that balance between creativity, love, grace, healthyness, and compassion. Yea...no problem!
woofs!
Posted by: KungFoozzzz | 15 August 2008 at 11:37 PM
Your post spoke to me. I have often faced the same struggle. My parents worked 5 jobs between them to give my brother and I a better life. My brother went onto become an attorney and one who makes no money working in the public sector for those less fortunate, those like our very roots.
I had a chance to go to medical school with a great financial package, but opted to get my MFA in poetry, which was also on a fellowship. I felt guilty about this for a long, long time. Doctors save lives, after all.
One day I told my father and he said to me that yes we need doctors but what for? If life is not enjoyable, if it does not have its sweet side, then why save lives?
Coming from someone who grew up poor and now lives modestly (though compared to my relatives the face I have my own place all to myself is a sign I've made it!) believe me: you ARE sustaining life. Even when I was a kid and getting a surprise treat to the usual pintos y arroz, that one cookie never tasted sweeter, and it made me appreciate things more.
I'd also like to point out that you are a woman doing this on your own, and as a woman myself, I understand that comes with challenges all its own. But I won't go there for now.
Posted by: Rosebud | 16 August 2008 at 10:29 AM
RE: purity - how tedious it all sounds. My response to any of that? Shut up and grow something and then eat it.. nothing more, nothing less .. thats pure. Dont tell me what you think about what some other person has done.
RE: career and unsustainability - try going to school for, like EVER, get your PhD and then have the president of the US essentially outlaw your field. Try working in an industry that is flooded by PhDs from across the globe and you know there are just more and more coming every day. We each are likely experiencing a serious negative effect on our careers and expectations. The middle class is crumbling from underneath us. Its up to us to decide how we will react. Turning it all inward isnt productive.
What you are experiencing is a paradigm shift.. you have crossed a rubicon and you are VERY fortunate that you do NOT own a house, have debt, have children, etc .. you are free in the grandest sense of the word to choose your next step.
Dont let yourself be tied down to some outmoded expectation.
If sustainability is really a truth for you then apprentice on an organic farm, skill up. Then form an enclave with fellow friends and start your own refuge.
As with much of the US and the world, you are vaguely aware and uneasy with this sense of unsustainability.
Learn about peak oil, peak food, take the next step.
One huge step you can take is to release the inhibiting attachments (we all have them).
If I were in your place I would go volunteer my skills and learn new ones at Green Gulch http://www.sfzc.org/ggf/default.asp .. it may be your first step toward a greater peace with life.
I have a mortgage, a job I loathe, three children and a husband who count on me to bring home the bacon. We all have our own special challenges.
RE: Peak oil and peak food .. I try to lead by showing - http://www.humblegarden.com - its not about me talking or preaching or purity so much as it is about self-sufficiency for me and my loved ones, thats all you can ever really hope for (and its hard)
Posted by: nika | 16 August 2008 at 02:42 PM
Your sensitivity to struggle wtih balancing it all is one I experience everyday, whether it be food, work, love, adult responsibilities and expectations. My grandfather writes everyday in a little agenda, one different each year, in which he records the weather, brief account of the day and at the end of each page he writes "have I done all that I could do today?" He has 80 of them (he started at 18)..now that's a lot of "did I do my best?" but asking himself the question made him pursue the quest day after day. I know he has struggled with the same issues, different jobs and times, but same crap essentially. The trick is to never drop the ball but to keep aware and do the best that you know how.
Your writing skills are beyond phenomenal :)
Posted by: Tartelette | 18 August 2008 at 02:36 AM
Hi Shuna
Wonderful thought provoking post. And you are right - it isn't sustainable and I would argue it SHOULDN'T be. We are still living in the mindset of how we were brought up in the oil-rich economy where transportation is so cheap that it can be discounted.
Go back as little as 60 years. The commenter above wouldn't have thought to try cooking a dish with fresh apricots because htey would have KNOWN that there weren't any. They would have changed to plums or a fruit that is available in a cold Northern climate.
Limiting choices actually stimulates creativity - it doesn't have to be a bad thing.
On a personal note - owning property isn't what it's cracked up to be. I think we'd have been just as well of or nearly if we had just rented.
And what goes around comes around. For years, our neighbours sneered at our garden as it looked scraggly and unkempt and undergrown. Now they are envious as it has grown out and we have apples and cherries and blackberries and strawberries and apricots (yes - we ARE in California) and also roses. No - it still isn't neat but it is lush and always flowering and growing and occasionally we get nice fresh fruit.
But it isn't all perfect - our apples are just about ok for cooking. It is too hot for them here. Further North we would lose the apricots, maybe the cherries but would get much better apples, maybe pears, etc.
Anyway, my point is that you are right - what is happening now is not sustainable. But if we all scaled back to a 1915 level of consumption and lived out of local watersheds, and moved on to a post oil energy economy (solar, wind, even wood) I think it could be sustainable - and better.
Posted by: Owen | 19 August 2008 at 01:36 PM
You have a wonderful vision of a future I would like to be part of. Yes, I know your rant wasn't utopian, but if one reads between the lines you were saying how you believed things could be better. I agree, they could be.
Have you ever thought of moving to Buffalo, NY?
Perhaps, living in SF, where everything is so costly is a way of limiting your options.
Here, you can still get a great house in the city for a fair price--just check the MLS listings.
Buffalo is the country's best kept secret. If you want to know more, feel free to email me. I'll give you my number and we can talk.
Either way, I wish you every goodness.
Nicole
Posted by: Nicole | 20 August 2008 at 09:32 AM