Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

My mother dined with us last evening, and she arrived bearing a gift for me from a family friend. I laughed heartily when I saw the title of the book she was carrying. And, I am still smiling as I look at the cover across the room.

My gift:

The title proverb is attributed to Barney Greengrass.

I also note that the author is a graduate of Columbia Law School and appears to make his entire living as an author. Hmmmm.

Thanks Bill!

I find myself asking this question frequently these days.† Surprisingly, I ask not out of frustration or impatience.† I saved other questions for the times some impediment or another got between me and getting Just Cured’s products to market.† Rather, I have been asking this question as a matter of reflection and introspection.

I ask myself because others ask me.† As I move Just Cured from the development phase to full production and distribution, I am speaking with many people for the first time: prospective customers, consumers, suppliers, members of the press and more.† Invariably, they ask what prompted me to switch careers from transactional lawyer to smoking and curing fish.† The answer to that question is becoming clearer to me.† The answer is too long for a two minute conversation, so I write about it here.

I read the other day that the 250 largest law firms (the National Law Journal 250) employ 115,000 lawyers in their U.S. offices.† Using my former firm as a guide, about 15% or 17,000 are engaged in business transactional practices.† Double that number to take into account lawyers in smaller firms and employed directly by businesses engaged in sophisticated transactional legal work on a daily basis.

• download adulthood

There are 35,000 people (more or less) out there who do what I used to do.† And they all do it well.† The competition wasn’t a problem for me; it was the commoditization of the service and the practice.† Each lawyer brings a slightly different perspective to a transaction; but in the end, we each achieved similar results for our respective clients and went about doing so in much the same way.† I often thought that if the lawyers on a particular transaction switched sides, we’d still end up with the same documents.† In many ways we were fungible; spin the wheel, send in another of the 35,000, life (and the deal) goes on.

While the practice was intellectually stimulating and the transactions were often important to the economy, I ultimately couldn’t see where, or whether, I was making a difference.

I cannot tell you how many specialty smoked and cured salmon producers there are in the country, but the number is tiny.† And the Just Cured product is different from all the others.† I can pick it out of a blind tasting — and I am quite sure most consumers could as well.† I am very proud of the products that we have developed and are beginning to market.† Offering something unique is important to me; and I think I have achieved that goal.

Will Just Cured make a difference?† The more time I spend in this business, the more convinced I become of two things — the most important aspect of our lives is the energy and time we invest with our families and other loved ones, and the food we share is integral to the celebrations and gatherings that are so very important to us.† I feel that† Just Cured and I, by being part of the special gatherings of others, can add to and enhance their significance.† When I provide the food that strengthens the bonds of people I don’t even know, I feed my own soul.† At least for now, that’s difference enough for me.

Well, how did I get here?† Maybe I am still not sure.† I am well on the way, however, of understanding why.

Every time I hear that song, I am reminded of an event from my legal career.† It was sometime after 3 a.m. on the morning of a singificant closing, the fifth night in a row of no to little sleep.† My counterpart and I could barely speak, much less think clearly.† We had been back and forth several times that day over one provision in one of the hundreds of closing documents.† Ultimately we determined the provision did not need to be changed.† When it came time to finalize that document, she asked me how that sentence was supposed to read.† We stared at each other and then the document for several long seconds and finally simultaneously spoke the words to each other — Same As It Ever Was.

Join me on Tuesday morning, September 2 at 8:15.† Tune into Fox 19

Morning News to see me cooking Just Cured’s new Half Smoked Salmon.

If you are already at work at that time, set your DVR .† Out of area readers, I will let you know if Fox 19 posts the segment on its website.

I received from the printer this morning a pallet of labels for Just Cured Smoked Salmon. This photo is of the half pound package as you will see it in stores — or in the box from the online store.

What do you think of our salmon’s new clothes?

I trust that you have noticed that the new home of Just Cured is live.† Thanks to Chris and Alison of Urbanscript for the design and implementation work and to Profitability.net, our new web host.

Let me know what you think of the site.† Drop me an email or leave a comment.

Some fan of 1970s classic rock has a sense of humor — even if he cannot spell.

Is the title of a short profile piece on Just Cured and me in the September issue of Cincinnati Magazine. The issue arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes today and will hit the newsstands in several days.

Thanks to the editorial staff of the magazine and particularly to Donna Covrett, the author of the piece.

I had hoped to have the permanent website for Just Cured up by the time the article came out. It looks like we are still several days away from taking the new site live, however. So, please check back often, especially if this is your first visit here.

The introduction of the new site will also coincide with the release of our retail packaging, the rollout of a second product and, I have high hopes, additional retail outlets for Just Cured salmon.

The next week or two should be very interesting.

There was something in the air in my new work neighborhood yesterday, and in a good sort of way. It was hard for me to put my finger on anything specific, however, that made it seem that way.

It certainly wasn’t the morning of downpours that brightened anyone’s mood. And it could not have been the afternoon’s stifling humidity; the humidity only made the lower than forecast temperatures seem a lie. It wasn’t the air that was in the air.

Maybe I was struck by the sense of calm when I entered Tucker’s early in the lunch hour. The restaurant was packed, and Carla was off for the day attending to her mother’s knee replacement surgery. Perhaps the customers noticed her absence and were a little more patient and a lot less demanding. Certainly the staff stepped up to the short-handed challenge. They exuded that professional get-it-done attitude that I expect (but rarely actually experience) in restaurants with much greater aspirations. Well done, guys and gals; I was so proud of you –† you were certainly affected by that something special in the air.

Maybe it was the concentration of “good mornings,” “good afternoons,” nods and smiles that I received as I walked through my Over the Rhine neighborhood. Perhaps I am becoming accepted as part of the urban landscape. Or perhaps there was just something in the air.

Yesterday was National Night Out, and our local festivities were held at Findlay Market. Law enforcement arrived with police cruisers, a crime van, a horse mounted officer, bicycle riding officers, a D.A.R.E. vehicle and a fire engine from the Cincinnati police department, the Hamilton County sheriff’s office and the Cincinnati fire department.

The neighborhood turned out in force, families, kids, couples, singles, you-name-it. I enjoyed watching the kids climb on and around the fire engine, pet the horse and ask questions about him, and beg to borrow an officer’s bicycle “for a quick spin.” Even with something in the air, the answer to borrowing the bike was firm “no.”

I am not sure whether the neighbors visited for the education, the entertainment or the free dinner. When I turned my head to the food line, I saw T.O., the nominally full-time waiter at Tucker’s, manning the grill and in the weeds. The menu consisted of burgers and hot dogs from the grill, chips and pasta salad contributed by the Tucker family, plus soft drinks and bottled water. The food line was 20 deep; the guests were orderly and extremely polite. You see, there was something in the air, even if it was only the smell of grilling meat.

For the next 45 minutes or so, I helped T.O. at the grill, in charge of the hot dogs and putting burgers on buns. The line of guests never got shorter, but the tempers didn’t either. The grill was always packed with food, yet we barely kept pace. T.O. claimed this morning to have cooked 800 burgers and dogs in the two-plus hours of the party. I wouldn’t be surprised; the air was full of hungry, happy souls.

The most eye-opening part of my evening was T.O.’s running commentary on the people coming through our line — this transvestite hooker, that pimp, the other drug dealer all making nice to the cops, the absent father of many families, the inattentive mother, which kids were good citizens, which were already in trouble and those who were on their way there. Everyone was in such a congenial mood, it was almost easy to ignore the challenges that these people, these families, face every day — almost. Some things the air can only disguise.

Earlier in the day, as I do many days, I walked to and through downtown for a meeting there. As I passed the corner of Seventh and Walnut, I saw not the anonymous office building on the northwest corner; rather, I saw the imposing facade of the Schubert Theater that once inhabited that corner. Off and on throughout the afternoon, I reflected on the plays I attended in that space in the early and mid 1970s (for only a dollar or two a ticket) courtesy of a student program, the name of which I have long since forgotten, and of a girl who introduced me to the program.

As I left the Market mid-party, a song and a scene from one of those plays (that I am nearly certain I saw at the Schubert) popped into my head. I suppose that the sight of the neighborhood kids’ with few advantages gleefully playing at any opportunity reminded me in some way of Fagin’s gang in this scene. In any event, here is the scene from the glizty movie that I have never seen. My memory is of the lower production value, but higher energy, version of a touring company. As I said, it was something in the air.

(On another note, I just took a look at my LP copy (the big vinyl record with the little hole) of the original cast soundtrack from 1962. It contains a caution for those few listeners in stereo that voices may seem to move from side to side.)

Today, I received the proof images from the photo session that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. To say I am thrilled with the results is a dramatic understatement.

Here are unedited versions of three photos that will almost assuredly make the permanent Just Cured web site.

A Splash of Bourbon

A Sprinkling of Salt

Sliced Salmon with Garnish

Please check in often; the new site is imminent. And, I will be making other announcements very soon as well.