Sometimes it Hurts

Im not going to try & catch you up on all events that have happened in the past six months other than the fact that myself & a group of friends physically built & opened a "localvore" restaurant without any financial backing on the east side of austin texas.

Mickie Spencer is the designer, owner & builder/ floor manager. Trudy Spencer is the mother/ owner/ dishwasher/ HR. Mindy Spencer is server. Chauncy James is bartender. And myself the Cook. Mickie rented the place & entirely gutted it. Funded by Trudy's retirement fund. Then rebuilt it with the labor mainly from Mindy, Trudy & Chauncy. Well, and many other friends.

I don't think that the general public understands what it takes to cook good food. My kitchen staff (5 total) have literally been working 12 hour days since before we were open (with zero pay!!) in my tiny (SO tiny) kitchen to source & cook simple REAL local food for your bellies. For example, we will have 6 different farms come in to deliver their weekly meats & produce in a single afternoon (my favorite times!!) & we are the only restaurant that Rain Lily Farms will sell to because of the demand, RL is located literally 5 minutes from us. The veggies we get from them are picked & delivered to me the same day & it becomes the special for service that night. You just can't get any fresher than that unless you eat it from the dirt while it's still alive! This high demand will hopefully encourage other farmers to start raising more organic foods to sell.

It is so important that we change the way we eat & purchase food. If only to improve our quality of life. I truly believe that the food revolution will help our communities & therefor the economy. Mass production of animals & single crops are directly destroying the environment & our families. We are so still at the beginning of making changes & it also feels trendy. Folks come in & explain to me that they are so excited that we feature texas grown product. Then their next sentence is about how they are so disappointed that we are sold out of certain entrees for the day. There is not an endless supply of product from these small farms. If we are truly going to support the "localvore" movement then we will commit to understanding that the demand that to have "everything-we-want, all-the-time" is harmful to the integrity of our food. This is hard for most to grasp. On the other side, we will have TONS of one item, because of our weather mostly. Then you hear folks say that they would gladly receive the "local food basket" from our farmers but it always has the same items in it everyday. Like greens right now or cabbage or cauliflower. The thing to do is to invent new ways of using these ingredients... or just roast em, puree em , stack em, steampunk em, blend em or eat them raw!

It has been rough on us at the East Side Showroom after the Chronicle Review proclaiming that we are a victim of our own success, oh and my noodles were limp. It's frustrating that one single person's opinion can do so much to the place a layer of fog over the kitchen staff that has given up any resemblance of a "life" to cook for you. We are such masochists, us cooks.

Thanks for letting me rant! oh blog in the sky! Now come & eat some local food!!