A Simpler Kitchen

Five days a week, from 6am to 1pm, I command the grill at a local diner.  Eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, hashbrowns, burgers & fries.  During the week, we offer a lunch special - meatloaf, pork steak, scalloped ham & potatoes, chicken & biscuits - and you can always get the hot roast beef sandwich drenched in gravy.  The mashed potatoes are real, the pies and desserts are made in-house, and now that the weather is turning cold, you can get a bowl of chili or ham & bean, or chicken noodle.  Next week's soup is creamy potato.

The grill is behind a service window that looks out onto the dining room and from there I watch the world: the truck drivers, the coffee ladies, the Catholic League, the local businessmen, the dusty farmers and their stoic wives, the young families.  There is talk of the weather (it's been another dry year), crop prices, the government, birth and death, marriage and scandal.

The waitresses are efficient, sassy, and quick with a laugh.

I watch it all from my place behind the grill.  I crack wise.  I nod to the regulars.  I love every minute of it.  It is a far cry from my years as a retail manager.  Maybe I don't make as much money, but the poetry found in a plate of scrambled eggs and toast is worth far more.

I have always enjoyed cooking.  I make a mean lasagna, a firebrand chili, a whiskey-infused meatloaf.  Working in the diner, I have learned the art of cooking simply.  I have memorized farm recipes from stained 3x5 cards.  This summer, I gave up processed foods, went local as much as possible, including growing my own peppers and tomatoes.  I buy honey from the Amish farm a mile up the road.  Last week, I made my own whole-wheat bread.

I revel in this simpler life; the former disco boy clubkid trading the mirrored ball and laser lights for cast iron skillets and a whisk.  I'm in bed early and wake up before the sunrise.  This morning, I'd already baked a loaf of bread, moved the woodpile and washed the windows by 7 o'clock.

A slice of warm bread dripping with butter and clover honey.  That's poetry.