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Rounding the turn…

June 18, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Increasingly, I’m being asked – when will the Bistro begin serving? I had expected it to be before now, to tell the truth. If it was a horse race, we might be approaching that home stretch. Unlike the feverish final dash of the thoroughbreds, I’d rather make sure the finish line is greatly removed from the starting point.

I remember driving down Main Street here in Broken Arrow, not too long ago, and passing by an elaborate sign that promised a restaurant was going into the attached building. It seemed forever before they finally opened their doors. It was much the same with another Main Street restaurant that had a good deal of publicity leading up to their eventual opening.

It just takes time.

To do it right, the plan has to be laid out, gone over, dissected, re-thought, and laid out again. Otherwise…

The Tulsa World is today reporting the demise of a south Tulsa BBQ restaurant that had opened its doors only six months ago. Of course, there are countless reasons that could be behind their decision to shut down the operation, and they might have drawn up their business plan with laser-sharp precision.

Only they know, for certain.

In the case of our anticipated enterprise, I’ve just enough experience in food service to know expectations, and I’m trying to make sure that what people hope to experience will be close to what will be delivered.

Part of that is creating a smooth operation that won’t keep people waiting. No matter how good the food is, the waiting time quickly figures in – just watch any of the Gordon Ramsay restaurant makeover TV shows. The reality program almost always features a service disaster, where guests are fidgeting in their chairs wondering if the food will EVER arrive.

As the bookstore building is pretty long, the walk alone from the kitchen in the back to the tables and register in the front takes some time. Sure, I could sprint. Back in the day.

The practical alternative is to determine how best to reduce those long hikes and minimize as many delays as possible.

That’s part of what is going on at this stage, while approaching the starting gate.

I’ve learned that the approach is still being delayed by – one more thing. As soon as I believe that every required item is in the building, another item pops to mind. The next time you visit a restaurant, look around at all the things required to get your meal on a plate in front of you – even if you don’t visit the kitchen and its own specialized collection, there are numerous things close to your table: salt and pepper shakers, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins. Plates and bowls. Glasses.

Cleaning and sanitizing materials – that squirt bottle the waitress uses to wet the table or cleaning towel isn’t just filled with water. It’s a special solution to kill off germs.

There are sugar packets, and sweeteners. Look around and someone is carrying a to-go box. Plastic ware for carry-out meals.

Believe me, that isn’t the entire list. But it is a portion of what I have remembered so far. It’s been over a decade since I stocked a restaurant, and even then it wasn’t from the ground up.

I have a running list of items that I am working on scratching off. When it is all in place, I want it to be for the long haul, not a six-month run.

My personal axiom goes something like: Success achieved is directly proportional to the number of problems solved before they occur.

Here’s to solutions!

Meanwhile, books are being offered and sold and all is well in the world.

Oh, say… Can you see?

June 16, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Of course, with the year ending in the number twelve, we all should have realized it was the anniversary of the War of 1812, fought against Great Britain 200 years ago. It didn’t occur to me until I heard it mentioned on the radio. It’s also the Bicentennial of the Kentucky Militia Pig, one of the less famous stories from the 1812 war with England.

In fact, it was 200 years ago this month that all the frustrations, outrages, and humiliations put upon the citizens of our newly established country by the British finally boiled over. President James Madison signed the country’s first declaration of war on June 18, 1812 – not realizing completely what he was putting at risk.

It was just two years later that the White House and US Capitol were in flames, set ablaze during the occupation of Washington DC by British forces. It was during the Battle of Baltimore that Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics that became our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.

Like all armed conflicts, all manner of stories have been handed down. The McHuston ancestry participated through the volunteered service of young Thales Huston, the son of Stevenson Huston, for whom the town of Hustonville, Kentucky was named. Thales and the militia from Lincoln County, Kentucky – walked from their farms to Ontario, Canada to take on the British Regulars under General Henry Proctor.

Kentucky Governor Isaac Shelby led the march, which is the beginning of the Kentucky Militia Pig Story.

After gathering at Harrodsburg, the Kentucky volunteers were just beginning their northward hike when they came upon two pigs engaged in a battle of their own. As men will do, the troops stopped their march in order to watch the pig-fight to its conclusion.

When the men resumed walking and were a couple of miles down the road, someone spotted the victorious animal following the troops at a short distance. When the men made camp for the night, they noted the pig also bedded himself down and arose with the new day to continue the journey.

According to Lewis Collins, in his 1877 book “History of Kentucky,” the volunteer force boarded a ferry to cross the river at Cincinnati, and “the pig, on getting to the water’s edge, promptly plunged in, waiting on the other side until the whole cortege crossed over, and resumed its post as customary at the flank of the moving column.”

In fact, the pig survived the battle and the return march to Kentucky; as a reward for his endurance of the hardships of military life, he was placed in the care of Governor Shelby, who cared for the patriotic porker for the rest of his years.

Thales Huston returned to the farm and his scallywagging ways, the sort of which prompted an elaborate legal document to keep his wife’s inheritance largely out of his hands.

The pig most likely enjoyed a better retirement, regaling his offspring with stories of the old war days, sleeping under the stars – pigs in a blanket, as it were.

The Bradbury Chronicles, fin.

June 6, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Science fiction is a genre of writing I visit only occasionally. I believe it is due to my aversion to strangely-spelled and overly-punctuated names of people and places. It is difficult for me to read through inventions like Q’aaqe and Agre’br without having to stop and sound out those beastly names.

I readily admit to enjoying Ray Bradbury. His Fahrenheit 451 made an impression on me at an early age, although I can’t remember what made me pick it up in the first place. Ironically, in a later interview, the author said he considered that futuristic book to be his only true Science-Fiction work.

To me, that is the pleasure of reading a Bradbury story.

They aren’t so much grounded in scientific fact as they are stories of people in unusual situations, and how they react and interact. In Golden Apples of the Sun, a ship carrying astronauts implausibly lands on the surface of the sun. Bradbury makes no explanation as to how that could be possible. In his story, it just happens. And we readers continue on, buying into his illusion because of the masterful writing.

Mr. Bradbury died last night at age 91.

He described himself as a writer of fantasy, and much of which he wrote was dark, but polished in such a manner as to be elegantly unsettling. His characters ranged from dinosaurs to carnival workers, other-world aliens to tow-headed boys. He was one of the early practitioners of the type of writing that drew the label “Sci-Fi” but inhabited another corner of that arena.

Still, many of the futuristic ideas that Ray Bradbury put onto paper have come to pass, among the most commonly seen: iPods, interactive television, reality shows, and televised police chases.

He was more than just fond of television and movies. After relocating to California he incorporated screenwriting into his efforts and won an Emmy for his script for The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nomination for the animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright.

Bradbury provided for me a source of both envy and pride.

I can still pick up almost any one of his works, turn to a random page and passage, and read a line that I would trade most anything to have been able to conjure – because magic is what his writing seems to me.

Previous to the publishing of my first short story, the magazine editor wrote to me that he was including it “because it reminded him of Bradbury.”

It was not even close, but it was the highest flattery that editor could have given.

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