The Truth Behind Vegetarians

This is the second post for dinner #23, the one before it I wrote and than deleted four days later.  

I had the pleasure and luck to sit down during a meal next to Ze Frank, who I told about our Thursdays at Worth Street experiment. I asked for his opinion on the project and he replied to me with a question that gave me a totally new and insightful perspective. He asked: Are you telling the truth about the dinners when you write about them on the blog? My knee jerk reaction was to reply yes, of course! But his question also came just at the right moment where my truthfulness in my writing was about to be put into question. The TRUTH is, I do find something very unique and special about all the dinners we have had so far, but of course, there are some things that go wrong, that are off, that don’t catch flow or connect in the way we would want them to. His question made me question my writing, in a good way of course! It made me shove it a little bit against the edges of social correctness and create a new filter I can evaluate my writing against: Complete and utter truth. I will now document the pink, sweet and fluffy but also all those gray areas in between.

The second expression of dinner #23

The night felt a bit off right from the get go. I was leaving to go to a conference in Mexico early Wednesday morning and we didn’t want to cancel dinner for the week so instead we decided to have the dinner take place on a Tuesday.  Like the butterfly effect, this had an impact in just about everything leading up to the dinner: Brainstorming the menu, going to the market, confirming guests, consulting wines, and many other endeavors that happen in between dinners. On top of that, it was a complicated dinner since it was all vegetarian. Not to blame our vegetarian friends, but these dishes, rather than more simple can become very complex and elaborate, especially when one is trying to escape the traditional and present an exciting menu to a group of people who are usually limited in their options. We wanted to allow our guests to rethink their possibilities when it came to food and create something  for them that was rich and fulfilling. Very beautiful in theory, much chaotic in practice.

This complexity quickly became apparent in what a real, full on restaurant would be the back of the kitchen, but unfortunately for this particular night, was front and center and completely visible to all the guests.  The kitchen became a HOT MESS, there was barely any room left to prepare the food, the kitchen counter was FULL with ingredients, sauces, plates, skillets, pans, you name it! It looked like a crazy Turkish bazaar. It was so crowded with stuff that even I felt there was no room for me in it. Felipe was maintaining composure but I could tell he was getting flustered. While he wasn’t making it apparent, he had on that undeniable vibe only couples pick up from each other. For the first time, I was not let in, I became a guest rather than a player, I sat on the bench, waiting for my turn to join in on the game.  And suddenly, still on the bench, I started seeing all the pieces coming together. All of these food elements were actually randomly connected. The kitchen started to make sense and that tension all of a sudden started wearing off. At the end, this was one of the most delicious dinners Felipe has made. It was exceptional, delicate, unique and just exquisite! Best of all, I got to see it all. I got a sneak peak into the imagination of his brain and its ability to deconstruct and build back up again. I got to see and enjoy the food from the perspective of our guests.

So to all our vegetarian guests, which also came randomly together, thanks for pushing Felipe’s culinary limits and challenging us in just about every way.

Can we please borrow your brain for just a tiny bit longer?

This post is about dinner #12, but I will actually take you back to Monday night, three days prior to the dinner, the moment that gave birth to its theme: Flowers! It came from my sister in law who over a glass of wine on a Monday night was telling us about her experience as a Colombian who is now living in Mexico City. She was telling us how impressed she was of the amount of flowers used in the Mexican cuisine. Myself, being Mexican, hadn’t noticed but as soon as she said it, it actually made a lot of sense and seeing it in retrospect, I agree and in fact have eaten many, many flowers growing up! And there we had it! The theme for the our upcoming Thursday dinner. But even though the story of how many flowers and flower petals we have ingested in our past is a promising one, there is a bigger story to be told here, and that is the amazing ability this project has had to let people in. This experiment has really been a collective creative process filled with discoveries and surprises that has pushed us all to the limits of our imagination. And when I mean all, I really do mean ALL of us. In the same way my sister in law came up with the theme for dinner, right now, we have my mom creating the Worth Kitchen logo, my best friend Christina planning the future of the Worth Kitchen, Felipe’s cousin coming up with a business plan, friends contributing to dinner development brainstorms, friends who we use as guinea pigs to test new recipes, colleagues who send us recipes we can interpret, and the list goes on. It also has really opened up my relationship with Felipe to all who are very close to us, allowing them to participate, to see first hand our first months as a married couple, to capture those moments that are filled with just about every type of emotion. So I write this with much gratitude not just to previous guests, but to all who have followed us through this journey, opening up new roads for us, showing us some shortcuts, allowing us to see beyond one, two, even three streets down the road. I raise my glass to you all as we continue on this fascinating journey, hoping all of you stay on board!

What do you bring to the table?

Part of the magic around Thursdays at Worth Street is detecting what people bring to the table. I am not talking about food or wine here, I am talking about the emotions, thoughts and feelings people bring over with them, and how these end up playing a crucial role in defining the experience of the night.  And don’t get me wrong, we love taking all of these emotions in! Whether these are feelings of happiness, sadness, tiredness, forgiveness, whether a guest has a grudge to hang on to, a moment of disillusionment or a guest who just wants to seat back and enjoy a hopeful moment, there is a space for all these emotions here at the Worth Kitchen. I am not sure whether its the food, or the wine, or the fact that these happen on a Thursday, a timeframe when people are already loosening up to the weekend, but one doesn’t have to pull very hard for all these different emotions to pop out. Maybe its food therapy, music therapy, wine therapy, or just sharing all of this among friends. Maybe it’s the fact that we keep calling this an experiment, so all the thoughts and emotions people bring with them float around in limbo, not hitting one hundred percent reality, but also not hollow enough to not create some impact, like emotions that get handed out on test tubes. Well, whatever the reason may be, we love it and look forward to that every Thursday. What will our next guests bring to the table? And will these feelings change or be able to turn a corner after passing through our kitchen? Whatever the case may be, every Thursday, we hope that people leave with a full belly and hopefully a happy heart. And at the very least, I hope our guests leave knowing that its better to just lay it all out on the table before calling it a night. Thanks to all of our guests for bringing so much to our table and making each and every one of our Thursdays a truly memorable experience.