A Tribute: Revised

Fascinated. Utterly immersed and totally inspired about my new "cook" book, Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis is something else. It's something completely new to me and the introduction is lovely. As a usual kid whose been raised on hearty foods like chicken, steak, pastas, canned and processed foods, this is a new venture for me. Of course I am not dedicating myself to do a complete 360 in 24 hours from meat eater to vegan, I am certainly being educated on the subject of raw.

As I was reading the first few pages of Living Raw something struck me as familiar. Sarma described the staff at her restaurant Raw Food & Wine and it inspired me to say a little something. Below are excerpts that made me think of the family.

Living Raw Introduction:

  With such low turnover; it makes sense that the dynamic among everyone is like that of a family: usually happy, sometimes a little dysfunctional, but always supportive and incredibly loving. Even those who have moved on for one reason or another come back frequently just to visit and hang out. And when people clock out at the end of their shift, they often don't leave right away - they stay and hang out. So, when you see a late night crowd around the bar; chances are most of that crowd are family.

I used to think it was corny when manufacturers listed love as an ingredient on their product labels, but now I know that it's an intangible ingredient that really does make all the difference. It gets transferred all around, from us to the food, to one another, to the people dining, and to anyone who eats the food or who just walks through the door to see what we're all about. One of our sous chefs, Ben, told me one night that restaurants where he'd worked previously were built on fear, but that "this restaurant is built on love." At which point I got totally choked up, but he's right.

This is my tribute to you all.