all god's children love chicken strips and fries! / who am i to judge?

I like my new job. It's way more engaging than the old job. While I've stepped into this existing structure/menu, I do have the freedom to change things (and I plan to make more changes over time). Right now, though, my main area of freedom is what we call the "Entree of the Day." Even though a set menu was handed to me, I've managed to change that item up, to personalize it, to tweak it here and there to let myself connect more deeply to the food I'm making. I've thought through various ingredients and tried to come up with things that, given the limitations of the time and space I'm working in and the ingredients I (thus far) have to work with, complement each other. So that entree, it has love in it, and it's made from scratch. And given the context of this cafe, it's a nicer meal at a good price (like, $7, average). Yesterday: Wild Mahi Mahi Sammich on an organic roll w/ grilled pineapple, sweet onion, sweet potato fries and ginger sesame coleslaw.

There's another element to our menu. It's called "Fryer." The fryer works it's magic on premade frozen items. These items come in boxes. My work involves opening a box, then a bag, tossing said item into fryer, pushing some buttons, draining the food and tossing it with salt, all the while feeling the eyes of the customer on me as they anxiously await (3 - 5 minutes) their fried food. Yesterday: Chicken Strips and Fries w/ BBQ sauce.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a food snob-- strike that-- I'm not a snob. I'm kind of a food purist. I'm not elitist, but I think about quality and context and health within a framework of affordability and fair pricing. I've struggled long and hard enough with my weight that when I see the same folks ordering the fryer item day after day that I'm concerned for them. I'm not just concerned for the fat folks. I'm concerned for the skinny ones, too.

AND DON'T ASK ME WHY, BUT FOR SOME REASON FRIED FOOD HAS ME THINKING ABOUT THE G.I. HEALTH OF STRANGERS, AND THERE ARE CERTAIN VISUALS THAT COME UP, AND NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO THINK OF STRANGERS LIKE THAT.

So, there's that whole concern element, but that's only one side. The other is this rather snarky and somewhat tremendous judgment that people would choose fried crap over something that clearly has (my! me!me!me!) thought and intention and love and maybe, just maybe, some kind of subtlety of flavor and texture to it. Oy! It's not that I don't sell entrees. Some people get excited about them. And then there's the "I'll have the chicken strips (or fish/shrimp and chips)" people. My suspicion is that I could batter and fry catshit* and they'd buy it.

Enter therapy! I am fortunate enough to have a therapist I connect with, and who seems to understand not only food and my focus thereon, but my quest to know my deeper issues. I'm not gonna dissect my last session with her, but I will tell you that I'm all about noticing my reactions around the food I serve. I'm also blessed to have a profession that allows me a certain meditative space to be present with food, to engage in the process of preparation, to witness my own reactions and feelings. So there's all that, and there's my quest to deepen my creative process, to work for sustainability (and that has to do with not only what I serve, but how much, and how it impacts the health of my patrons). The world will always have its Fryer menu. My work is to find my way through and around it (and in it, in moderation), to notice my judgments and concerns and to work with an open heart. Some of that openness means creating healthy, tasty food that leads people (gently) to new flavors, to new ways of thinking and eating, to foods they might have dismissed as "hippy" or ...whatever.

I work in a small cafe in a big building in a big city. I am not on the cutting edge of cuisine, but I am engaged with food as nourishment for body and soul (and that includes mine as eater and preparer). Most of my dreams and wakings (and I often wake up thinking about food) involve offering something better, something fulfilling to eat/make.

It will be so.

*please note that the catshit would be wildcrafted and I'd likely bread it in a combination of panko and rice cake crumbles to give it an ethereal crunchiness to contrast its rather dense and earthy nature.