not really a newsletter....
more of an update and a sharing of a thought or two.

If any of you actually made the Tortilla soup in the last newsletter and followed my instructions you wound up with a soup with no tortillas in it and a pile of tortilla strips off on the side. Sorry, I forgot to tell you to put the crispy tortillas into the bowl with the avocado and then pour the soup over. Hey, you probably figured that out.

Hell, as long as I have your attention I’m gonna tell you a little about my second favorite type of food—Cajun/Creole.

Any of you who have eaten at my place have undoubtedly noticed the heavy Louisiana influence on my menu. Mexican style Jambalaya and a Mexican style Bouillabaisse that sounds a whole lot like a New Orleans gumbo. This is not an accident -- these two great cuisines have a lot in common and my very first involvement with a restaurant was back in the 60’s with a little Creole place in Berkeley called ‘The Ordinary’.

My friend Billy Kirschen has said, “If you can remember the 60’s---- you weren’t there!”

‘The Ordinary’ was opened on a shoestring by a late-twenty-something Viet Nam vet named Joseph Carey who was rapidly burning out, trying to do it all himself. Do the shopping in the morning – cook all afternoon ’til 10pm, when the restaurant would turn into a live music bar. He would then tend bar until 2AM, go to sleep in the office – wake up and do it all again. Aaaahh, Berkeley in the 60’s….

The Weathermen, People’s Park, Eldridge, Huey and the Black Panthers, Country Joe, Patty Hearst, Owsley, the Cockettes and the Little Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Germaine Greer. The Free Speech Movement, Sproul Plaza, Telegraph Ave, Moe’s, Larry Blake’s, the Med, Commander Cody, the Woman’s Liberation Movement, LSD, MDA, STP, PCP, DMT, Hash oil. Thai sticks, Blonde Lebanese hash, Peruvian flake, Skunk weed, Sinsemilla, Orange Sunshine, Xmas acid, blotter acid, mescaline, bennies, black beauties, magic mushrooms, psylicybin, 'luudes, Ritalin, opium, heroin. Strange times in a stranger place.

The streets of Berkeley even had their own smell--- a funky mix of spent tear gas and patchouli mixed with the sweet smell of Columbian Marijuana and burning bras and draft cards. I would like to tell you that the ‘Ordinary’ was an island of sanity in this boundless sea of madness, but you wouldn’t believe me. Besides, I’m inclined to believe that we were at the very epicenter of it all. In fact the madness of the 60’s may have been spreading from the Ordinary like ripples from a rock tossed into Lake Merritt.

Anyway, I met Joseph through my good friend Helene whom he was dating. We hit it off and I volunteered to lend him a hand at the Ordinary. I was living in a commune at the time with my two sons and wife and assorted crazies (but that’s another story). The staff I joined included Bunkie, an ex-air force officer and cook who never met a substance he wouldn’t abuse, and walked off the job in tears because he swore he could hear the crawfish screaming when he dumped them into the boiling water. The aforementioned Helene, a transplanted Southern Belle, who made the best damned pecan pie I ever tasted and tended bar part time when she wasn’t dancing topless at a club on Telegraph Avenue. There was Steven, our star waiter who was flamboyantly gay and given to sudden fits of crying and could be counted on for at least one mini-temper tantrum per shift. My lifelong best friend George from the commune joined up as a bartender (which was a lot like putting Wimpy in charge of the hamburgers). George later ran for mayor of Oakland. He campaigned only in bars - wearing a Gorilla suit. He didn’t win. Our lunch cook, Nestor, was a scholar and philosopher/artist who could read and write in both ancient Greek and Latin. He lost his post as professor of something or other at a prestigious girls prep academy when he ran off with his star pupil (a beautiful 15 year old – wise beyond her years, he claimed). Last, but hardly least, are O’Paike and Jed. O’Paike was a professor of literature at a local University. Like many of his fellow Irishmen, he had an inordinate fondness for the juice of the barley and after a few jars, with little or no urging he would recite in a dramatic stentorian voice ‘The Face on the Barroom Floor’ or ‘Casey at the Bat’. I never knew exactly what O’Piake’s job was other than drinking and reciting poetry, but I think he may have been a silent partner in the Ordinary. We referred to Jed as our ‘spiritual advisor’ and his duties were to show up every afternoon in his ratty old Porsche roadster with an attaché case full of magical chemical potions and herbs and to instruct us in their use. I was the only one in this crew without a University degree --- among us was also a smattering of master degrees and a PHD or two.

Now that I’ve written this I’m thinking there is probably a real good book in there somewhere. And I never even mentioned the Foster sisters. Unfortunately none of us who were there can remember much of it. Hell, I know I didn’t go to bed sober for over two years

As weird as the Ordinary was, the food was great. Joseph was a dynamite cook and a great teacher. He went It on to found the Memphis Culinary Academy and is widely acknowledged to be the world’s foremost authority on Creole cooking. He has just written a new cookbook “Nouvelle Creole: “Contemporary Creole Cookery” and I highly recommend it to you. It includes at least one of my recipes but not much about the Ordinary. check it out here.

Anyway, will make a great gift or be a worthy addition to anyone’s kitchen

Spencer

PS. O’Paike is still a professor of English literature and a noted author and critic. George is an Electrical contractor in the Bay area and true to tradition his daughter recently ran for governor of California but was beaten by some actor. Joseph is still living in Memphis cooking, writing and running the prestigious Culinary Academy. Nestor passed away a few years ago. I have no idea what‘s become of Steven, Jed, Bunkie or Helene.

I’m in Cabo San Lucas writing this stupid newsletter and still trying to figure out how to make some money in the restaurant business. I don’t know about all the others but I haven’t had a drink of anything stronger than coffee in over 10 years – I don’t smoke anything but Marlboros and nothing goes in my nose (except occasionally my finger)