People often wonder and ask: "How did you end up in the Gers from New York City?" It's a bit of an existential question, and I sometimes wonder this myself. But in a nutshell, I have always had a "thing for France." Growing up, I recall seeing a painting of Napoleon at the Philadelphia Art Museum on a white horse bucking up on its hind legs at the battle of Waterloo. I bought the poster, stared at it everyday and he became a personal hero who inspired courage and strength in difficult times. Additionally, I had strong influencers within my inner circle and I can recall countless wonderful dinners with the parents of my best friend, Diana on the Upper East Side in Manhattan who were devoted Francophiles. Norman was a magnificent French cook and Joan his wife was a wonderful host. They had a small wine fridge in their apt that was packed with Burgundies at the precise temperature with the whites on the bottom and the reds on top. The meals were memorable (I was a hungry kid) and they would serve perfectly cooked roast beef or prime rib with potatoes, and always a cheesecake for dessert from the local German bakery. The conversations were highly intellectual and passionate and inevitably lead to discussing the far superior way that the social and political problems of New York and by extension the greater US were solved by the French political system, quality of education and way of life. And this is something I still find to be true.
I have also always been attracted to food, and curious about where it comes from and how it is made. In college I discovered my love for sourcing and preparing fine, multi-course meals. I took a year off and lived with my father and step-mother who were both very busy labor law attorneys. She would leave me about $100 which was a lot of money during those years and say "Make something great for dinner." I had the original Martha Stewart cookbook, Bon Appétit and Saveur Magazine and read everything including "How to Cook a Wolf" and "The Art of Eating" by M. F. K. Fisher. She was a fictional best friend, and I kept her closely by my side. I was the little French chef, and enjoyed every moment of it. As a sign of appreciation, they would take me to a special dinner spot, and I would become inspired and educated by fine service and style. Then life happened.
After college, I migrated to San Francisco with a pack of other over-educated kids who had few practical skill-sets except how to question everything and how to argue with anyone and spent the past 5-6 years of their formative years learning a whole lot of nothing with a liberal arts education. But I knew I loved food, wine and enjoyed service and hospitality. One day, looking at the Help Wanted ads in the back of the SF Weekly I saw a post for an onsite caterer needed for retreats at Harbin Hot Springs. I responded to the ad, and based upon a resume with high school summer sous chef and bus girl gigs at the Jersey shore, I was hired for the job. This meant, 3x per year over a weekend, I was given a lot of cash to procure food, rent a van, hire an assistant and cook meals for groups studying the "Book of Miracles" at a nudist hot springs resort in Sonoma County. I was responsible for the Welcome Meal on Friday night, breakfast, lunch dinner the following day, and a larger brunch on Sunday. It was fun, and they loved my food! This was in 1987-1989, the predawn of anything internet. I made enough to pay rent and enjoy a great life in SF just by working those few weekends.
Additionally, I started to teach English as a Second Language to refugees and new immigrants at a Refugee Relocation Center. It was a full time steady job, with a salary ($13,000 yearly) and health benefits, again in the late 80s this was very comfortable living in SF. I designed the curriculum and taught both a beginning and an advanced level class. My students were directly out of refugee camps from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos. There were also two Russians, and one Cuban. Many had advanced college degrees and professional training. My class was a combination of language and cultural adaptation. It was a motley crew, that had different levels of English but the one thing we all had in common was our shared love of good food! Every possible occasion was celebrated: birthdays, holidays, you name it we had an excuse for a party which became wonderful "potlucks" with delicious home cooking from each country. I will never forget this fantastic, brave and capable group of people, who became close friends and I am sure that they think about me too from time to time.
One weekend Diana my best friend from NYC visited and she suggested that I apply for graduate school in New York. It had never occurred to me to go to graduate school - that was for smart academics - not me, but I applied in April, was accepted in June with a scholarship and started at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU in the fall of 1993. The program was well ahead of it's time, and we were the first to understand anything about digital media design. There were only about 60 of us on a single floor, and we were fortunate to be under the guidance and direction of the department founder, Red Burns, a true visionary in her time. She was tough, but good tough, smart and well respected by both her students as well as leading executives in the industry, which at that time were basically telecom and companies supplying the internet backbone. She was also a realist and somewhat of a pessimist, and was convinced the internet would never be a commercial thing, she was almost right.
I continued to teach ESL for SEIU 32BJ, the service employees union in New York. My thesis from ITP was a BBS (bulletin board service) called WorldTalk, where students studying English all over the world could log in and connect with one another. One day to prototype the site, I invited my class to the NYU labs to log in, and this was their first experience using an online service. It was also a huge thrill to see posts from people around the globe asking questions, engaging in conversations and practicing their English skills!
(brb.. more to come)
