5 Things About Me

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Joy, The Restaurant Whore, had tagged me for the "5 Things About Me" meme. I thought to myself, "Ho, if there's one thing you do know about me, it's that I don't have time. I'm building a restaurant, yo."

Last month I was mired in the final stages of designing my restaurant, preparing plans that were supposed to have been submitted by the end of January at the latest. Most nights last month I woke up at 3 am, second guessing nearly every decision I had made about my restaurant. No grill... am I crazy? Do I really want to seat people at the kitchen counter? Should I scrap the garden area in the front for a proper bar? Where the hell am I going to put the slicer... or store the wine... or put the cutting boards? How am I going to live without a walk-in refrigerator? How am I going to pay for all of this? Maybe I should put the damn place on the market and buy a one way ticket to Barcelona? I'll rent a small shack on the Mediterranean coast, disappear for a while, write the definitive sardine cookbook...(there's a market out there for that, isn't there?).

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. I've made peace with most of my decisions (except maybe the lack of a walk-in) and, at long last, the plans are nearly ready to be submitted to the building department (next week, fingers crossed).

I suddenly have time again. Not a lot, but hopefully enough to sneak a few posts in on my neglected blog. You can expect some updates on my restaurant. Maybe even a few recipes, if I ever cook a meal at home again. First, though, I'll respond to Joy's tag and tell y'all five things you don't already know about me.

1. As a child, I hoped to become a cartoonist when I grew up. I was obsessed with Charles Schulz and Walt Disney. You'd rarely find me without a pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. I was a real prodigy and nearly every teacher and classmate assumed I would become an artist as an adult. I even had cartoons published in our local paper. Sadly, though, after my father died the same year that I entered my teens and high school, I lost interest in drawing. My creative aspirations didn't resurface until years later when I took an interest in cooking, and more recently writing and photography. One of these days I hope to return to drawing. Perhaps when I move to that little seaside shack?

2. I was a champion long distance runner in high school. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, although I did win the league championship in the mile my sophomore year. My southern California high school, which no longer exists, used to have one of the premier cross country (long distance) teams in the state. I stopped running for a decade or two, but have recently started jogging again a few times per week. I'm training to build up my endurance for that marathon also known as "cooking in a restaurant."

3. I nearly died in a tragic bus accident in the Alps. After high school graduation, about 30 of my classmates and I went on a 3-week bus tour of Europe chaperoned by two of our school's literature teachers (who also happened to be the coaches of the cross country team). During the final week, we headed from Bologna, Italy, to Zermatt, Switzerland. Coming from suburban LA, we eagerly anticipated visiting Zermatt, the home of the Matterhorn. We all knew the Matterhorn as the mountain that inspired our favorite childhood roller coaster ride at nearby Disneyland. We couldn't have anticipated that we would take the scariest ride of our lives in the shadow of that mountain.

The brakes on the bus failed as we descended the hairpin turns leading into town. I remember the screeching sound of the bus scraping the sides of the metal road barriers -- our driver's futile attempt to slow us down. I remember the silence of the previously raucous group of teenagers, my close friends and classmates, as we sped around those hairpin turns. I remember the speed of the bus as it traversed narrow mountain bridges at an alarming pace and bounced over roadside boulders that our driver hoped would stop us. Our driver made a last ditch effort to save us by making a sharp turn at the inside of a hairpin turn. If his ploy failed, our bus would have rolled onto its side, maiming half of us, or bounced over the side of the cliff, killing us all.  Fortunately, the move by our driver, a former English stock car racer, stopped the bus instantly. He and one of our teachers flew through the windshield. There were no fatalities and just a few serious injuries (including the teacher, whose nose had to be sewed back on in the hospital). The bus, on the other hand, was totaled, as you can see from the picture below.

4. I taught English for a year in China. Although I may have briefly mentioned this in one post, most of you don't know I spent my first year out of college teaching English at a technical college (the College of Post and Telecommunications) on the outskirts of Chongqing (aka Chungking), the largest city in Sichuan (Szechuan) province. I whiled away my year in a tiny mountainside town famous for its Taoist temple. I spent most of my time on campus hanging out with my students, learning tai-ch'i and the proper way to make and eat dumplings. I rarely left town, because the journey to and from Chongqing and its 30 million inhabitants was an arduous one. The trip back home included a ferry ride across the Yangtze and a choice between spending 30 minutes sandwiched between my neighbors in a bus ascending hairpin turns or walking up several thousand stone steps cut into the side of the mountain. After my Alpine excitement, I tended to walk. Besides, the stairs featured a breathtaking view and several pit stops with tea and dumplings.

5. I've been married 4 times. All you countless fans of my wife N need not worry! All 4 times were to the same woman, my darling N. I was exaggerating (what more would you expect from someone who, when 18 years old, shortly after the aforementioned bus crash, quipped "I suppose that's the brakes."). We actually had just one wedding ceremony. But we had 4 receptions in 4 different cities.

The year we were married, N and I had just moved to San Francisco from Washington, D.C., where we both went to college. My mother lived in a suburb of LA (in the house my father built, where she had raised my brother and me). N's parents lived in New Jersey, where she had grown up, and her grandparents and extended family lived in India. N and I insisted on a small wedding that would only include our friends and closest family members. As our wedding was the first one for both of our families, not one of our parents or relatives was pleased with this decision. They wanted to invite all of their friends and all of the relatives. And each family member wanted the wedding to be in her town.

We came up with an absurd compromise. We agreed to allow each faction to throw a reception in our honor (I never have been one to turn down a party). So our Wedding Tour began in San Francisco, then headed to LA, then New Jersey, and finally concluded in Rajkot, a city in Gujarat in western India, north of Mumbai (Bombay).

I won't bother to tag anyone else for this meme, as most bloggers have already participated. If any of you bloggers reading this haven't revealed your innermost secrets and are just dying to share, feel free to consider yourself tagged!

I'll write again soon. Hopefully.

Comments

[Anita]

No grill?! That's it -- I'm not coming.
No way... I'm *so* there. And I hope there's a seat at the kitchen counter. :D

I'm glad you didn't die in the alps.

[sam]

this is by far the most moving and incredible response to this meme I have read. I am in tears, literally. Gobsmacked, flabbergasted and thank god for the English eh? I can't imagine a world that wouldn't have had the Brett we've grown to admire within it.

[Sean]

While all five of these things are utterly, totally remarkable and revealing, the best part is hearing that you have made significant progress on the restaurant and (sort of) have time on your hands. But seriously, great post chockablock full of majorly interesting tidbits about Brett.

[David]

wow....the bus story freaked me out. glad you made it...after that, opening a restaurant's going to be a piece of cake

[Tea]

Seriously! Glad to have you still here with us. But, um, did you say dumplings...

[susan]

yay a new post! i want to go teach english abroad too but been stuck at my job. dang, shoulda went right out of college. and wow that crashed bus looks crazy. you got an interesting 5 point meme there brett! :)

i can't wait to visit your restaurant on my next trip up to sf!

[dsg]

just discovered your blog searching for a rogan josh recipe and found the entries about kashmir (my husband is a kashmiri and my family is from w.bengal)! your entries for kashmir are really well-written...even more delighted to see that you are a bay area person, and most excited to try your new restaurant when it opens!!! i've bookmarked you.

[Melina]

Hi Brett! I've been reading the story of your life! The bus accident, the pizza vs. the plane...wow! Don't worry about the fridge situation. I think the uniqueness of their placement will be really cool! Pun intended!