Good Fences

As you may or may not know, we operate the CSK out of a shared use kitchen in Mazomanie.  For the first couple months I had the place to myself; but, recently a new renter has moved in.

They make chips.  Tortilla chips.  From flour tortillas.  Which they cut, fry, season with spice mixes and bag.  Premixed spice mixes.  Remember ‘Elephant Ears’ from the fair?  These are just those, but in small squares and in flavors like Cajun, Tomato Basil, and Garlic Cheese.

I was dubious at first.  They don’t really even have a fryer.  Just an institutional sized braising kettle filled with oil installed under an inadequate hood system with no fire protection.  Lucky me.  This makeshift rig is incapable of keeping the oil hot enough for them to really work efficiently.  I guess they are turning out about 10# of product per hour.  A real fryer can do 35# easily.  Moreover, they are complete novices to commercial cooking.  For example, my new neighbor was deep frying in open toed shoes today.  I don’t cook at HOME in open toed shoes.  The impact of this is that they congest traffic lanes in the kitchen, use shared spaces badly, listen to bad music loudly, and make me go home smelling like I did when I worked at KFC in high school.  I have to undress outside.

I tried to be good.  In anticipation of their arrival I removed a large equipment piece from the kitchen, and consolidated my work area to make more overall room.  I got all my baking and other ingredients onto one shelf.  I warned them about storing their paper goods under the leaky spot.  I gave them the kitchen code “Behind you” to warn someone you are moving past with a hot or heavy item.  I made a point of keeping my kids out of the kitchen while we are all working there.  Nonetheless, they make me want to grind my teeth. But, that’s my hang-up.

What really gets me is this: the complete dichotomy of our work there.  As they process premade tortillas into pieces, and season them with premixed flavors, I toil away doing such arcane labors as peeling  carrots or skinning onions.  Though my neighbors are older than I am, I feel as though I am some hunched old cobbler quietly tapping at my shoe bench while my white eyebrows and beard grow into one  obliviating mask.

Anachronism or not, I don’t envy my neighbors.  They are getting their asses kicked.  Long days.  Unfamiliar territory.  Boring work.  Smell like a fast food joint. All week at the kitchen and their weekends at fairs. They think this is their path to wealth.  Perhaps.

What is a food business, or a food for that matter?  Is it simply something comestible?  Or does real food need to nourish?  Perhaps that is why real food takes real work.  It is nourishing to Kate and I to work hard to procure and deliver real food; good, honest, increasingly rare, real food to people who need it.  It is nourishing to me to work dexterously, and to engrain and hone my skill set.  I grow by challenging myself with different meals each week, working within the season, and adjusting our business and recipes to a growing scale.  Our food does nourish.  Literally.  It’s good stuff made from outstanding ingredients - in a word, from food. And above all else that is my culinary ambition.  To send you meals and an experience each week that nourishes you.