But, to paraphrase Orwell, some babies are more beautiful than others. And, as I learned this week, some parts of each baby are more beautiful than other parts of that baby.
And so, I spent countless hours this week with my brand identity gurus dissecting my baby Just Cured, all in an effort to capture the essence of the company and our products. And that’s the easy part they tell me. Once we capture that essence, they, with my input, are charged with translating it into tangible things like a logo, colors, fonts, package design, and a score of things I don’t even know yet. Oh, and that essence has to accurately portray not only the company and the salmon products we have identified, it should also cover planned or logical extensions of the product lines that we haven’t considered yet.
As I write this, I am staring across the room at a “mood board.” It is a collage of sorts consisting of colors and shapes and images taken from a variety of sources. I am to study this mood board and decide, for example, if the shape of a particular vodka bottle conveys to me an impression similar to that which I want Just Cured’s products to convey. I’ll be honest; mostly, the shape of the vodka bottle makes me thirsty.
This is the fourth mood board I have seen this week. This one is a distillation of the three we discussed at a meeting earlier in the week. I have looked at the boards for too long now; my thoughts are becoming less rather than more clear. I will focus my attention on the images and what they mean to me tomorrow. In the meantime, I will attempt to put some organization to my thoughts in this public place.
Are Just Cured’s smoked and cured fish (and maybe, someday, meat) “old fashioned”? Our products incorporate techniques that are ancient. Preserving the spoils of a kill by exposing the flesh to a smoky fire probably happened right after the fire was first used to cook the freshly killed animal. Further preservation with salt was not far behind. I think of our smoked salmon, for example, as “traditional” because of the ancient methods rather than as old fashioned. A holiday dinner at Aunt Sally’s might be a tradition; her home decor is old fashioned. Can we convey a difference that subtle in the brand?
We will produce Just Cured products using high quality ingredients and with individual care and attention. Accordingly, the products will be priced at the high end of the range of our competitors’ products. In addition, no one needs smoked salmon. Does that make our products luxury items? What is the difference between a premium quality product and a luxury good? Does creating a brand around the premium quality push us into the hoity-toity or the frou-frou, or worse, the merely irrelevant? In my mind, our products constitute a minor indulgence rather than a full-blown excess. Again, how can we convey that in the brand itself — or is our premium quality not the most important thing to convey?
I intend for Just Cured to encourage and support sustainable husbandry. Does that make Just Cured “green”? I think not. But should that goal be part of the brand itself? And if so, how large a part?
Do I still think my baby is beautiful? Of course I do! Which part of her do I show off to the world — and have a high likelihood the world will agree with me?
Stay tuned for the answer. In the meantime, I’ll put the mood board next to the television on which I intend to watch a few basketball games this weekend.
Maybe it is the importance placed on bread in this season’s celebrations of the Christian and Jewish faiths. Maybe it is my more flexible schedule that has put me near a kitchen for large parts of many days. Whatever the reason, I have been thinking about bread a lot lately. I have also been baking a fair amount of it, including my continued tweaking of a recipe for a bread to serve with Just Cured’s smoked salmon.
Because my family and I spent an unusually large amount of time during Easter week telling stories of the long ago past — the times only my parents, sister number 1 and I recall, I have also been thinking about the traditions that bind a family.
Once again (what is it with that column?), an article in yesterday’s New York Times by Alex Witchel brought those two trains of thoughts together. The parallels are too obvious to avoid. We both are recalling our paternal grandmothers. Both grandmothers went by the name Nana. We both recall and desire a now-unavailable food she prepared; her Nana’s kreplach, my Nana’s (you guessed it) bread.
Nana’s bread recipes died with her many years ago. Her youngest daughter tried for many years to duplicate her mother’s efforts and results, carefully observing technique and measuring what Nana added by feel or by eye. About the time Nana and Pop were selling the big house, that daughter took Nana’s bread-making bowl — the only one that provided the correct visual references and feel — to a local potter. She had the potter make ten identical copies of Nana’s bowl. She then distributed the copies to the homes of each of Nana’s ten children “so mother can bake bread when she visits.” Nana did bake when she visited us, but she was never pleased with the results when using the bowl-clones. The copies weren’t her bread bowl.
Saturday was bread baking day at Nana’s house. She may have baked another day during the week as well, I don’t recall; but she baked bread every Saturday without fail. I was not around often for the actual baking. We usually visited on Sunday when I would enjoy the fruits of the prior day’s efforts.
She made the same three breads every week — white, raisin and cinnamon. I recall fondly sitting down to a meal at that very large table in that big old kitchen and being served slices of Nana’s bread freshly cut from the loaf. As there always seemed to be a crowd at that table, I never got quite as much bread as I desired — particularly of the cinnamon bread to which I was most partial.
Nana’s bread was a soft crumbed loaf, enriched with milk and fat. Her bread was nothing like the pain ordinaire or pain au levain that I prefer to bake and eat these days. Nonetheless, Nana’s bread, Nana’s table and the time I spent enjoying them form my earliest memories of her, and I cannot separate them. Whenever I taste a bread similar to hers, I am immediately swept back several decades to her kitchen.
I think tomorrow I will have time to bake a couple of loaves of pain de mie, the closest thing in my repertoire to Nana’s bread. When the loaves are just barely this side of warm, I’ll cut a couple of slices. Then, I will ponder some more on the subjects of bread and family traditions — through the eyes of a youngster.
I was intrigued when a friend told me he had “something” for me and to stop by today. I was surprised when I saw this:
Inside the beautiful packaging was this yet more beautiful creation:
The photo does not do justice to this treat. There is a large chocolate egg encased within the chocolate openwork shell.
It is almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.
Thanks JP!
At last, I have been making real progress toward making the Just Cured dream a reality. I appreciate the perseverance of those who have checked here regularly only to find no news about the Just Cured business. I hope to reward your patience with a steady diet of company news, interspersed with a few philosophical wanderings.
- Facility. I have a production location! Just Cured will renting space immediately adjacent to Findlay Market in Over the Rhine, Cincinnati. Our space is in the wholesale fish distribution facility owned and operated by Luken’s Poultry Fish & Seafood. This particular location has several advantages over any of the alternatives we evaluated. First, I have been an advocate of Findlay Market and the Over the Rhine neighborhood for many years. I am pleased that Just Cured will have the opportunity to contribute to the continued revitalization of the neighborhood, albeit in a very small way. The Luken facility gives Just Cured dedicated space built out specifically for fish cutting and processing. Other facilities involved shared use of both space and some equipment. Our location within a fish distribution facility eliminates one step in the movement of Just Cured’s fish prior to our receiving it, thereby providing for more control over quality. We will also achieve synergies in purchasing and transportation. Although we have not yet discussed it, I have a high degree of confidence that Just Cured’s smoked salmon and other products will be available for retail purchase at the Luken’s stand in the Markethouse. Finally, Michael Luken has been a good friend for many years; I think he’ll be as good a landlord.
- Web site. I have retained a top notch development team to produce Just Cured’s internet presence and e-commerce store. In advance of our development of a final company identity, look for a new front page for Just Cured within the next week or so. Fear not, this blog will continue to figure prominently; it simply will not consume the site’s front page.
As next steps, I will be sourcing some equipment for Just Cured and readying our space for production, as well as dealing with a myriad of other details. I will keep you informed of progress on these and all other fronts.
For most of my adult life, I have had the fortune of being a regular at a hole-in-the-wall eatery. During my law school years, it was a place called Albert’s Tavern (more restaurant than tavern, I promise). Albert and his wife, Maryanne, treated me as if I were family. The payback for that treatment was my (willing) obligation to pitch in whenever the restaurant was busy. That restaurant is long gone, but I will never forget the kindness and generosity its owners extended to me.
For the past several years, my place has been an establishment named Tucker’s. Open for 62 or so years, Tucker’s has operated continuously in this location for nearly 60 years — on a block that has seen more than its share of problems and several lifetimes of change. Joe and Carla Tucker took over the operation of the restaurant from his parents 30 years ago; Mrs. Tucker still works every day. If you visit, you will recognize her from the pictures of her as a stunning young woman adorning the walls.
Everything about the place is old, from the straight-backed wooden booths along the wall to the counter stools and from the cooking griddle to those photos from the 1940s and 50s. Yet, to me this space feels almost like another home.
I often describe Tucker’s as the most inclusive 600 square feet in our city. The Tucker family’s guests range from the poorest of the neighborhood’s poor to CEOs of multinational corporations and from struggling artists to world renowned musicians.
My wife and I ate lunch there today. Our dining companions included a number of young men in their boxer shorts and jeans cinched to their lower thighs, a few older neighborhood gentlemen who had clearly seen happier times, mothers with toddlers in tow, Franciscan brothers or priests from the church next door, tattooed and pierced bohemians, businessmen in suits and a dozen high school students along with their three teachers on a field trip from a town about 90 minutes from here. Although the crowd was loud and the staff was showing the strain of handling the party of 15, there was no sign of tension at all. Everyone was happy to be sharing a midday respite of home cooking and fellowship.
It occurs to me nearly every time I walk in that door that if only there were a few more places like this one, the world would be both safer and happier.
Postscripts:
Those of you who have been checking in for news of Just Cured and its business will have your patience rewarded. I expect to be posting next week significant developments in the progress toward product release.
I will make a public apology to a dear friend for hoarding this post. Nearly a year ago, she asked me to publish on her site an email quite similar (from what I remember) to this that I sent in response to her essay about a like place in a different city. I declined at the time; maybe I knew I was saving it for another time and place.
A few weeks ago, I wrote that I enjoy the writing of Alex Witchel. The opening of her article (link may expire) in the Dining In/Dining Out section of this past Wednesday’s New York Times struck a particular note with me. The article begins:
It is hard for me to cook for people I donít like. I donít have to do it often, but when I do, I find it a torment because cooking is so personal, so revealing. Even more than sex, I think.
You can have a perfectly good one-night stand, be greatly entertained, and still not know the other person when itís done. But once someone cooks for you, itís almost impossible not to discover who that person is.
I have always understood Ms. Witchel’s words even if I was never able to express the thought so graphically. Her article veered off to a description of a dinner party. My thoughts took another direction.
Like her, I have only rarely cooked for people I do not like. In fact, I can think of only one or two occasions and those were when I did not have complete control of the guest list. I realized, however, that my aversion extends to people that I do not know well — people with whom I am not comfortable sharing a large glimpse into who I am.
Years ago, a colleague was insistent that I host a series of dinner parties for his important business connections. He was incredulous when I refused. He explained to me that I love to cook and entertain, that the company would reimburse for all the out-of-pocket costs and that it would be “good for business.” I used the excuse that there was no adequate compensation for the efforts my wife would be required to make for these dinner parties. What I could not express at the time was that I felt violated by the request. I simply would not expose myself to virtual strangers for some potential financial benefit.
Likewise, I have carefully avoided the many charitable requests to contribute a dinner party cooked in the home of the winning auction bidder. I always thought it was just not the right charity or the right time. I succumbed once to a close friend to whom I have a great difficulty saying no. The request was to co-host and cook for a brunch in her home. The charity was one very close to my heart. On the evening of the silent auction, I had my wife make a preemptive bid for the lot. I think I could have endured cooking for strangers in the home of those friends with their support as co-hosts. In the end, I wasn’t willing to risk cooking for a winning bidder I didn’t like. It all worked out for the best — the charity got a high price for the lot and neither the hostess nor I expended the cost of having a party.
Ms. Witchel’s comment doesn’t touch on the flip side of either her or my emotions. It is for another of her articles to expound upon the joy of preparing a meal for someone for the first time. I get to talk about it here.
Any meal I cook is a supplement to, or substitute for, a myriad of conversations and revelations. The menu is an accumulation of my experiences, distilled for these guests on this occasion. I understand that the foods I choose will reflect not only my personality but also my opinion of my guests, my relationship to them and the occasion of our dining together.
Most often, I appear to make the decisions about a meal without a great deal of thought. In fact, the meal planning is effortless — it is my relationship with my dining companions that requires time, energy, care and nurturing. If I have done those things well, I will know what to serve on a given occasion.
And so comes the joy associated with that first meal. It is a celebration of a relationship that may be either new or long standing. In either case, I have chosen to share a large part of me that is yet unrevealed. That step is scary, yet exhilarating; it is a step from which there is no return — I cannot take back what I have exposed to that dining companion.
I have a friend who claims that I remember ever bite of every meal I have ever eaten. It isn’t true. Most often, I cannot remember what I cooked for someone, even the menu from the first time I cooked for that person. What I will never forget, however, is what I felt when I cooked for him or her — particularly what I was feeling that first time.
|
|