My Dinner with Malcolm Gladwell (Epilogue)

Bounty hunter #1: You're wanted, Wales.
Josey Wales: Reckon I'm right popular. You a bounty hunter?
Bounty hunter #1: A man's got to do something for a living these days.
Josey Wales: Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy.

- The Outlaw Josey Wales

TUESDAY: I had to come up with a plan. It had to be fate that Malcolm “Blink”ing Gladwell rolled up next to me at the Catalina having what appeared to be a cappuccino while looking nervously at his computer screen. I could leave him alone, or I could see what he was all about. This is Texas, and we are nosy, chatty, and very much want to tell people about ourselves; therefore, if I just start a chat it will either become a legitimate chat, or possibly one of the suicide scenes from Airplane. I took a shot of Rwanda to instill some bravery and -----I quickly decided that if it was fate I would indeed see him here again and we might even have a meaningful chat.

I then quickly imagined an entire scenario where I would ask him to dinner and he would refuse, and I would insist, and he would agree. I imagined that if he came I would cook a risotto and offer him something from the cellar, but not the Piemonte wine I had promised, and he would have a girlfriend and typical nerdy insecurities. I imagined he would be polite but not overly excited and I think I would have been right. At the same time, I imagined he would actually enjoy me way more than the story I would write, but since he would not come to dinner (although I did send him an email and request the honor of his presence) I thought letting my imagination flow and engage my roots in play-writing would be fun for this story.

Much of the initial meeting with MG was fact including the rude interruption, and the exchange with the barista. However, as it was, Gladwell grabbed his things and made a point to tell me it was nice to have met me as he rolled out of Catalina on last Tuesday. The fiction ensued from there including Leora, the Krug, and the Krav Maga. I did cook the exact meal I described in the stories for my wife and I, but Malcolm, as he has yet to respond, missed out on the risotto.

I have recently become friends with a super cool writer from New York that is in the middle of a play development process where I am hopeful to direct again for the first time in quite a few years. I have never lost my passion for the stage or the written word and while all of this seems new to those who have known me for only a short time, this path and the pitfalls are not new to me. According to Gladwell, in What the Dog Saw there are some artists whose talent is immediately recognized and who from a young age are displaying their crafts for a world audience (Picasso) and there are others (Cezanne) for whom success came at a much later age (46+), yet the common drive to create and to live a life from their own guiding spirits was unwavering.

I have no idea whether I will be monetarily or even socially successful in my endeavors as a writer and storyteller, but as long as I have fingers, stories, and the feeling that I am inhabited by the characters I have met on this planet, I will create. Some stories will be inane and some hopefully insightful, but just as I told my theater professors in college, I am cut from the cloth of PT Barnum rather than Aeschylus; and I just want to keep audience attention, even if it takes train wrecks, the scatological, or occasionally the sublime.

Stay with me if you want to see what is next or roll back to your comfy pillow and count your money :-)

Michel' Sì probrê du iun!

I cook well because I can’t afford Le Bernardin

This essay is my submission to Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw Challenge. Anthony asked, "Foodies: What does it mean to cook food well?" And this is my answer... If you like what you read, please vote to support my entry as I would love to get published in the paperback edition of his bestselling book, Medium Raw!

As the food porn industry grows via Twitter, Facebook, and the Confederacy of Food Bloggers, I am constantly bombarded by images of places I would love to eat if only I lived rent free and could sell my not so great car in order to pay the tariff.  Seriously, I look at the photos from places like Le Bernardin in New York and I simply drool all over myself thinking of the freshness, the execution, and the final feeling of decadent satiation and then suddenly being crushed by the freight train full of cash leaving my bank account as the server snickers under his breath at the very lack of metal in my very pedestrian bank card.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="311"] Read about Le Bernadin on the Keeper Collection blog[/caption]

It is this feeling of panic that I have had on numerous occasions coupled with lingering restaurant guilt that I always seem to have when the wine buzz is gone that leads to the theory that if one can cook well, one can avoid the pain of knowing they cannot afford such guilty pleasures as a great New York eatery.  Let's face it, I am not suggesting you cheap out and cook some half ass ingredients and drink plonk just to save cash.  I am saying if you can prepare foods like the great chefs in the comfort of your own home and you have a wine shop case discount to take the sting out of your Morey St Denis price, you can create some pretty darn good meals at a fraction of the cost of dining in a great restaurant.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="230"] Classic starters at a Michael dinner[/caption]

My very close friend LJR and I have cooked some seriously sick (and by sick I mean amazing) meals for some very discerning food and wine folks that wine included would have tipped the scales at over $500 a person at a great restaurant, and we were able to do it at a quarter of this price or less.  Before you get all antsy and accuse me of not seeing the value in the service and attention to detail of a great restaurant; please know that I do indeed realize this and believe very strongly in the whole dog and pony show on occasion.  However, remember the title of my article.  I simply cannot afford to eat like a celebrity, but with the right ingredients, right guests, and the best non restaurant owning chef I know as a best friend, I can have the great gastronomic pleasures of life with relative frequency and still afford the unreal school loans I racked up from over 7 arduous years of college.

I cook well, because I am driven to eat.  Eating is the first thought of my day each day and quite often the final thought in my mind before I shut my eyes.  As my mom always said; I was born with Cadillac tastes and a Huffy bank account.  I have never let that stop me.