Su Casa Es Mi Casa

The big window at The Goose.

It may surprise some people to know how often I frequent The Blue Goose Cafe. It is my home town diner in Fennville, Michigan, and it is a small town diner in every way. There is nothing grown locally or organically on the premises unless by accident, and no real worries about what their food "means" on behalf of the owner or chef. As you can tell by reading earlier posts I think a lot about how I source my food and what kind of story it tells, and the more jaded among you may find my patronage of a small town diner in some way disingenuous. But the fact of the matter is I don't like looking at what I do as a cause. The fact is I want to cook and I want to tell a story, which, I suppose, is my story. At the Blue Goose, the story is still there. It just isn't the same as mine. I t took me a long time to realize that my story wasn't the only story, and even longer to be comfortable with the idea that this doesn't at all diminish my story's value.

I am very humbled by restaurants like the Goose, restaurants that don't over think things, that just go out there everyday and do good work. They work with great pride and dignity. Pretentiousness is not even possible here. There is no chance anyone will be made to feel out of place. They know me by name, know how I take my coffee, know that I like honey with my biscuits, and they really and truly care that I am happy when I leave. They don't give a shit about James Beard semi finalist lists and write ups in magazines, and these things surely do not intimidate them or inspire them to treat me differently or lay my table out with extravagances. I sit down, they receive me warmly, I order and eat, and I pay my bill. They smile genuinely and attend to me properly and with real affection.

The same is true at Su Casa, though the lens is different.

At Su Casa, they answer the phone in Spanish. This is because the restaurant was opened by a Mexican family who intended to feed the local migrant population, which has for years given the restaurant an unimpeachable authenticity. Fennville was a very serious fruit town for a great deal of its recent history. Many migrant workers came here to pick tree fruits and blueberries and grapes and many settled here. Those days are all but gone now but to this day these travelers from Mexico have a pronounced presence in the city of Fennville and to this day they answer the phone at Su Casa in Spanish.

When I first moved here, the restaurant was in the back of a super mercado in a broken down building that made you really think you had been transported to Mexico. The parking lot was a collection of large shards of concrete jutting in to the air in all directions. There were seriously times when I felt so joyfully, completely immersed I wondered if I should be drinking the water. There were layers upon layers of posters and old tape on the doors and walls, VHS rentals of movies I'd of course never heard of, a long meat case filled with fried pig skin, liver and intestines, and huge cuts of bleeding red meat behind a pane of insulated glass with one long, arcing crack that ran the length of it. Bins of tamarind candy and dried chilis, a soda merchandiser filled with Jarritos & glass bottles of Mexican Coke (still made with cane sugar, not corn syrup), a cafeteria style dispenser churning horchata. And in the restaurant, hand painted Oaxacan murals on the walls and old posters for bull fights. On the menu, (in Fennville Michigan!) tripe, tongue, baby octopus, beef cheek: the drooled over currency exchanged for cachet by every big city chef hoping to prove the honesty of his connection to the world of real food, the food of poor grandmothers with deeply weathered faces and sunken, curled spines.

A part of the mural at the new Su Casa.

But Su Casa is in the very same spirit as the Goose. It is a place where people come to get fed and find comfort, find something they know, and put themselves in the care of someone who knows they like their barbacoa with onions and cilantro, and a slice of lime in their Coca Cola, and extra pico de gallo with their flautas. Su Casa has since moved in to new, fancier digs, and yes I'm one of those sad sacks who misses the old place, though I am very happy for their success. I recently had a mild panic attack when the Blue Goose was remodeling and the large paintings Sue Park and her students had done of the town were taken down. I was assured they'd be back, and smiled widely when I saw for myself that they were.

These are the rooms where, by some small standard, anyway, I became a local. Though really in Fennville "local" is not defined by how many years you've been there, but by how many generations are behind you. But at the Blue Goose and Su Casa, slowly I was recognized, called by name, and it was assumed I did not need to see a menu. I was not born here, but I perhaps somewhat presumptuously call it my home (it's only been a little north of a decade, after all). And when pressed, I always name it as my favorite place to eat.

Because I Wished To Brine Deliberately

The woods are a remarkable influence on the lives of West Michiganders, especially in the fall and early winter. The trees are dozens of colors. Ducks, deer, and geese draw hunters out and game starts hitting the dinner table in their homes and the homes of their friends. Many of them are much better shots than cooks, and often wild game ends up in chewy teriyaki jerky, or abominable chili and gumbo. If you are lucky enough to know a hunter who is also a good cook, cherish that relationship like gold.

Fisherman too. Sometimes the great freshwater fish around us gets treated with ham fisted brines and cures before they hit the smokehouse. Too much soy or teriyaki again, granulated garlic and onion, too much sugar.  To me these things don't really speak to the place trout come from. Lately I've been testing a brine for smoked rainbow trout that draws on the flavors you might find in the forest. Dried chanterelle and lobster mushrooms, juniper berry, rosemary, and laurel. I haven't really gotten precisely what I 'm looking for,  but I'm closing in on it. This brine worries me in a restaurant setting. Dried mushrooms are expensive and their impact is subtle. This is one of those moments where the "value for money" question might get raised by a diner who doesn't notice the details. More on perception of values in a later post. Believe me, I have lots to say on the subject.

I went for a walk in the fields of my neighbors' farm with my dogs today. It was raining slightly and the  bright trees were starting to lose their leaves. I thought about how much time I've spent in the woods in Michigan and how much I love to cook the foods that live there. The mushrooms, the ramps, the black walnuts and chestnuts, deer, trout. To be truthful, the wild food around us is not always good. Sometimes deer eat garbage and fish swim in polluted waters. I hope I'm not the last generation of Michigander to see hundreds of thousands of crayfish scuttling on the shore of the beach on a moonlit night when the waters were clean enough to support them in massive numbers. I wonder how many people who have lived in Michigan their whole lives even know that crayfish used to be abundant here. Or that our rivers and streams teemed with rainbow and brown trout but now most of the trout we eat, including the ones pictured above, are farmed. These are the very real and immediate consequences of poor stewardship of the earth. It changes what we eat which changes who we are. I hope it is not overly romantic to think we are going in back in the right direction in some important ways.

There is a philosophy amongst heritage breed farmers that says you have to eat it to save it. And it's true. Raising Red Wattles can't be a novelty, an experiment, if we expect them to be around in a hundred years. If we don't use it, we lose it. The same goes for wild food. We will take better care of our waterways, fields, and forests if we appreciate what's in them, both for their beauty and their usefulness in the kitchen. We have to be responsible and moderate about it, of course. But when the opportunity comes, I can't think of a more delicious way to commune with nature and become inspired to take good care of it.

Eat some venison with chanterelle mushrooms and be a part of Michigan before there was agriculture. And don't leave your goddamn beer cans in the woods.

The Light In The Morning

There is no way my oafish phone photography could possibly do justice to the impact early morning light has on Reserve's dining room. There are enormous windows to the south and east -- original to the 100+ year old building which, despite some high dollar remodeling, remain the room's most impressive architectural feature -- that let the day's first sun slip into otherwise unnoticed corners or rest warmly on the stone bar tops and near bare walls. This is the best time of day to be at Reserve. It is also something the overwhelming majority of people who step through Reserve's door will never experience for themselves.

Opening day at Reserve began for me at about four in the morning as I drove from my home near the lakeshore to Grand Rapids in cold, oppressive darkness. A local television station was running a live spot on their morning show so an already long day became incredibly long, nearly twenty hours by the end. When the TV spot was over, the GM and our "Wine Girl" went home to go back to bed for a spell, but I live an hour away from Reserve so that wasn't an option. I decided to use that time productively and go the the farmer's market. While I was there, the sun started to rise (the irreplaceable experience of spending time at a farmer's market in the very early morning is another worthy post, especially for a second shifter like myself who is not used to being up at such uncivilized hours). I took my time gathering what we needed for our first service, loaded the car, and drove back. By the time I got back to the vacant, pristine restaurant, the morning sun had taken over. It does this everyday. Whatever effort was put in to making that space remarkable is marginalized each and every day when daylight asserts itself.

Over two years later, this light still stops me when I'm there in the morning. The room is still and quiet, but emotional, graceful, and expressive in ways it will never be at other times of the day. When I can I sit at the charcuterie bar for a minute, where the light comes in with least resistance. Today, I thought about how many moments like this will go largely unexperienced by most people who interact with the restaurant.

The truth is, most of the marrow of a restaurant stays in the bone, where even the most engaged fan will never experience it. Restaurants only get the chance to express who they are on the plate or in the glass. That occasionally can be expanded by a talented and knowledgeable server or a visit from the chef, sommelier or manager for guests who are interested in lending an ear. Most customers make value judgements about a restaurant before their first visit is even over. They don't eavesdrop on the conversation that takes place between chef and farmer or chef and cook to learn why the menu is as it is. They don't watch a cook as he moves from pot to pot and see the whole of his experience with food inform each move he makes. At the end of a busy service when the fans are turned off, they don't hear the hood vents drop and the clean kitchen fall peacefully silent. They don't see the light in the morning, hours before the first customer comes in. These are the things that make a kitchen home to a cook, and they are supremely unimportant to the diner.

This is as it should be. The diner should concern himself with his food and drink, the service, the comfort of the room. But it seems prudent to remember that what one experiences in an hour or two is no more than a fraction of what any good restaurant is really about. As a diner, you might be surprised to see how far showing a little interest in the back story can bring you into the fold. When I'm in a good restaurant, I put my menus down and let them take care of me.  A real professional, someone who works hard everyday to understand his work inside and out loves the opportunity to just do his best. Even the most ardent oenophile, jaded food critic, or well travelled foodie cannot hope to understand the inner workings of a good restaurant as well as a conscientious insider. Leave your preconceptions and expectations at home. Let yourself be surprised, enlightened, and challenged. Be happy to let your experience be something you didn't expect when you walked through the front door.

Let the sun shine in.

Roll Credits

For those of you who haven't seen it, here is the video we produced as an introduction to St. Anthony. We're hoping to do a few more in the coming months.


St Anthony: An Introduction from St. Anthony on Vimeo.

It occurred to me that we had not yet thanked and credited the friends who helped put this together, principally Tommy Valdez, who made it. He photographed, filmed, edited, story boarded, and whatever else it takes to make something like this on very short notice with, well, no resources. We are not only very grateful for his efforts, but honored to work with someone so talented. We are also thankful to Ian Anderson who helped photograph as well.

The music is Annabelle's Waltz by The Corn Fed Girls, one of my very favorite bands, local or otherwise, who generously allowed us to use their music in exchange for "vittles". Special thanks to Darcy Wilkin for facilitating.

The video was filmed at my home, Fenn Valley Vineyards, Red Horse Ranch, Evergreen Lane Farm, Kismet Organics, and the home of Mike and Michelle Shaw on the beautiful Kalamazoo River watershed.

Those kind enough to give up a piece of a beautiful Sunday summer afternoon to appear in the video are Fred Bueltmann of Red Horse Ranch, Mari Reijmerink of Kismet Organics, Cathy & Tom Halinski of Evergreen Lane Farm, Roberta Casasanto, Mike and Michelle Shaw, and of course, my lovely wife Amy Lee Cook.

Welcome

Wendell Berry once wrote that eating is an agricultural act. I suppose that means cooking is as well. When he wrote it he was trying to remind us all that even if we haven't set one foot on a farm in our entire lives, when we eat we are at the end of a process that begins when seeds are sown, and that it is important to know the origin and character of our food.

When I decided to make food and cooking my livelihood I took a good look around me. I looked at the industry, it's professional & educational institutions, it's stewards and leaders and it's bad actors and clowns. I wanted to find the place where bullshit stopped and real work began. I very much wanted to be genuine to the things and people that inspired me and this repeatedly and inevitably led me back to the farms and farmers who raised the food I worked with. Every time I opened a box and started working with vegetables I didn't buy from a farmer I knew I was less moved to give it my full attention. It didn't inspire or excite me. Gradually those foods started disappearing from my kitchen. A natural consequence of this was a desire to be very seasonal in my cooking, of course, but I also felt the urge to take a deeper look around me. I wanted to know why we grew the foods we do here and what they say about us as a culture. I wanted to start cooking in a way that honestly reflected this place, to find a way to communicate West Michigan on a plate so clearly that to cook in this fashion elsewhere would seem disingenuous. In short, I wanted what I did in the kitchen to have context.

This last little bit is a work in progress. But it's the idea inspiring St. Anthony, the new restaurant in Douglas I'll be running with my friend and colleague Brandon Joldersma (soon, hopefully). If you get the chance to eat at St. Anthony, I hope it will feel like Michigan to you, like it is something you could only have found here, in this place. I am not a locavore and I can assure you that foods from far away that have that same context, that great story, will be welcome in our kitchen any time. I am bothered by the idea that buying locally is sometimes considered a "movement". To me it should just be our daily habit; observed and quietly celebrated. I don't think it's necessary that buying wholesome food from a farmer you trust makes a statement. It should just be another thing we do in our daily routine that makes our world full and well rounded.

I don't really know what I hope to accomplish with these posts. I'm not going to fret over how many followers I have nor do I have any desire to "monetize" or become often read. I want to have a place to start writing down our story in detail. Each time we roast and bake, peel, pickle, ferment, smoke or in any way take action on an agricultural product there is a reason for it that I will share here. Hopefully a few people may find it interesting. Also, keep your eyes here if you are interested in knowing how the restaurant is coming. Hopefully we'll be cooking food instead of talking about it in very short order.

I have great respect for what farmers do and in the end I felt a little presumptuous calling what I do agricultural, even with Mr. Berry's permission. I don't know where agriculture stops and cooking begins. But I do know that the closer you come to that line, the better your cooking will be.

See you soon.
Matthew