Oh ducks on fire, I am hungry.

Walnuts are not snack food. Walnuts are garnish.

Today's task is to create vegan snacks.

Is there such a thing as a happy vegan?

Every once in a while, a person will pop into the restaurant who has a restricted diet. While we accommodate vegetarians, vegans and Gluten Free requests, it can be intensely difficult to change the course of a busy evening on the line to create a new dish out of thin air. Its unfair that someone would order something that doesn't live up to our standards and a few planned menu options seems like a good idea.

At the same time a vegetarian entrée in the middle of the country, no matter how progressive our community is, does not sell well. At. All.

I am never comfortable with serving food I don't eat. So for a week, I am going vegan - no animal product of any kind. At the time of the writing of this entry, my eyes are involuntarily rolling up in my head.

I think that I can abstain from wine more easily than not eat meat. There are a couple of issues with going vegan. A. I cook for a living. I cook meat for a living. I use cheese and make stocks. I have to taste the food that I work on. Today I am making beef stew. I cannot not taste the food. B. When I crave something (this week's Bolognese special) I don't stop thinking about it for years.

Seriously years. I married the man who made my favorite dish.

This morning's breakfast?

Barley, beet greens and a coulis yet to be determined. i am oh so excited. woop. woop.

Want to know how to gain 40 lbs? Quit smoking, get on birth control and fall in love with a chef. Throw in a thyroid issue and you’ll have the perfect storm in which all of your bits become round and squishy.

Why is it easier to acquire burden than it is to lose it? Yet, can you deny lamb cooked for you four in different ways? Can you deny fondue with hot dogs? Would you rather carry around a baby? No. No. Not really.

Finally, after a couple of years of peering down at my body and wondering whose it might be, I seem to have lost weight. Exercise didn’t really help me. I could flee up to 3 miles at a mildly-panicked pace and all the bits were wibbling along with me. According to the Wii Fit, I’m a yoga expert and hula hoop master. A fat yoga expert and hoola hoop master.

It was the soup that made a difference. It’s magic soup.

Here’s the recipe:
Boil for an hour in eight cups of water:
The ends of two bunches of asparagus (the end you’d compost)
Half and Onion
or
what’s in your trimming bowl that you keep off for stock.
A cup of peas (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste.

Take the pot off the heat and let cool to a non-scalding temperature.

Place contents of pot in blender (this should be done in batches)
Strain mixture in a fine-mesh strainer.
Use a ladle to push contents through the mesh.
Us a spatula to clear off the bottom of the strainer.

Add Lemon zest (to taste) at least a teaspoon.

This is your dinner for evenings when you must dine after 7 PM. Great results.

NOTE: This is not a soup prior to air travel or road trips with destination minded companions. This is a pee inducing soup.

Our flower budget at the restaurant has yet to exist.

Fortunately, spring has brought us an abundance and variety of irides. They make for impressive (if not hastily arranged) bouquets. A cut iris requires a lot of bloom-management, something I used to enjoy but now find more of a chore than an idyll's pleasure.

Now that we have flowers available, I've begun to look at blooms with a wolfish eye. Each stem is inspected for its youth, it's potential and its comparable beauty. Like the wives of Henry the Eighth, they have no idea that it is their beauty that dooms them.

At the end of each work week we must then throw the poor things out, sending perfectly good flowers to an unceremonious end. Poor little Anne Boleyns don't even have a chance to plead their case.

Today shall be no different. Stems will be cut, tossed in the back of the car, thrown into a vase and stuck in a dark corner. Who knew that pity and pleasure could go hand and hand?

The new freezer stands in the restaurant where the old freezer lounged. The new freezer is steely and beautiful – like a young Nordic bride. The old freezer is outside in the alley with a “free” sign on her. She served up a lot of ice cream in her day. Kids ogled her as if she were the most wonderful thing in the world; she did it without being cared for in any way.

Now dogs pee on her.

We started the Café for less than 5K – an investment that made it feel like we were cleverly dating a restaurant. The new refrigeration is like a big double diamond engagement ring.

Part of me can’t help but imagine the freezer and cooler sitting in the back of the kitchen staring at each other awkwardly ala the final scene in The Graduate. It’s true, they escaped the factory, but will they always be together?

Regardless of their future, today is the day that we vacuum out their vents and get the dust off of the condensers. It happens once a month whether they desire it or not. Ten years from now when the freezer needs a tune up, she’ll never say no one tried to take care of her.

Apparently, Anthropomorphism is the only way I can cope with spending vast amounts of money on things I can’t wear on my feet.

Last night, we re-enacted The Battle of Mexico City. 26 people against 2 isn't a fair fight.

The freezer decided it didn't like being a freezer and shut itself off. I was scrambling to get wine out to a 6-top when I looked up at a wild-eyed Erik– his arms full of buns.

Adrianne, I need you now.

In the middle of service, each table fuller than the last, with chicken crackling on the stove, we had to empty the contents of the main freezer into the spare freezer.

We did it. Everyone got food and wine and love was in the air.

We even sold two PBRs!

Go team.

After the dust settled the dishes stood – a comically teetering stack of nearly all of our plates, bowls, utensils and glasses. There was a moment of disbelief. Why we aren't serving food on paper plates I don't know.

Breaking down the line – storing all the food and washing all of the container that held them – was an endless exercise.

Our day had started at 6:30 AM. We had served lunch at a winery (which had required it's own prep, breakdown and slog through dishes). I was dead on my feet. Erik was dead on his feet.

You'd think that after a dark winter of four people a night, we'd be smiling and the evening would skip along like the final montage in a quirky movie about a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

And then....

And then the I-Shuffle started playing... Don't Stop Believing by Journey.

If you had peered into the restaurant's kitchen window last night, you would have seen two people made with love and exhaustion, dancing like they stepped out of a John Hughes movie. Erik bounced. I kicked. Life roared back into us for a few minutes.

Indeed, the power ballad is a precious thing.

I threatened the printer.

Then I threatened the computer.

We print our specials menu every week. We add wine from the valley as often as we can afford. Between halving chickens and cubing cheese I try to get one of the menus printing so that they can be trimmed and cornered. The regular menus get dingy after four nights of service. Wine and ink mix too well.

I'm using Adobe Illustrator v.Pre Dawn of Time to lay out my documents. It has stopped working.

The printers have decided to quit the 5-year old IMac. The drivers just walked right out of the utility, sauntered up to me, grabbed my hand and led me into Outdated Software Purgatory. It's been happening for a while, but I'm just getting around to feeling violent about it. In the past few months the printer(s) have decided what color they want to print without any logic. I clean them, I align them, I give them new expensive ink.

I have come to the conclusion they desire, above all else, to be punched.

Before you call Technology Protective Services, allow me to defend my actions:

A. They are already blue and grey and hobbled.
B. The movies told me it was okay. What's the best scene in Office Space?
C. Better the printer (and computer) than a customer.
D. I never hit them too hard - bloody knuckles don't garner much confidence in a diner.

So I've decided to save my pennies and spend it on a professional – someone who will typeset and print menus because that's their job. Starting next week, no more printing in house.

Hand me a bat, there's some recycling to be done.

When one thinks about owning a restaurant, one imagines serving beautiful plates of spine-shuttering food to smiling diners who love every thing you say and do. One thinks about pouring wine and laughing with an adorable couple while the candles flicker and the music carries the night jauntily into the next self-satisfied scene. These images are not far from the truth, nor are they the entire truth.

When you own a restaurant (as Erik and I do), you learn really quickly that it's a dirty job. The beautiful plates of food turn into dirty plates that must be washed and put away. The wine must be sold and with alacrity – but not with abundance, lest your customer be too intoxicated to drive. Every wine glass is washed by hand. Then we steam buff them... steam burns hurt lots.

The candles require their own set of tools both to light and clean. The music? The night that Erik raced away from the sizzling stove to the stereo because Too Drunk to Fu** was playing with gleeful abandon was the night I started to panic every time I put a CD into the stereo. I'm deaf in one ear, I barely hear music, I don't hear music lyrics.

The word Restaurateur is a fancy way of saying person-who-wakes-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-wondering-if-table-six-really-did-like-their-dessert-or-if-someone-could-have-laid-off-the-buttercream-when-she-frosted-the-pucky-out-of-the-cake. Should we be marketing ourselves? Why do my knees hurt? When is the vacation? Where did I put the till?

The word Restaurateur means wash-your-hands-every-time-you-touch-food-or-dishes-that-contain-food.

Then a lovely couple comes in to celebrate their wedding anniversary and you feel like you can know them for years and the heart swells. Our restaurant is a part of lives and important memories and we must make every effort to do our best by those lives and memories. It's that simple.

So here we are, my friends, a new life. An old blog.

Welcome to a new chapter of all23bunnies: The Café.

In the process of applying for a liquor license, Erik and I must list the addresses at which we lived for the last 10 years.

I can recite the provinces of Canada with alacrity.

When I lived in which Belltown Apartment and when is impossible.

In performing a background check on myself, I am listed as living places I have never lived. Unnerving.

How exactly am I going to recall which Belltown Apartment I moved to when? It dawned on me who would know... my mother.

She wrote everything down. Did I keep her daytimer?

I'm off to a shed to find out.

Erik, for my birthday, bought me a Wii Fit Plus.

To play the wii Fit Plus, you have to go through a body test. According to our perky little balance board character, (an animated friend that inspires Wiley attack the screen with wild eyes) I am not a well woman.

Happy 35th birthday to me!

If you've ever watched someone play Wii Fit, you know that Wii Fit isn't about working out, it's about laughing at the person trying to fly like a chicken over an ocean.

Have you ever watched a grown man try to flap their little wings and land on a piling? It's an excellent ab-toning exercise. You clear out the tear ducts too. Careful that you don't hit the floor too hard as you laugh hysterically while he bumps into large numbered balls with is groin.

The other thing about Wii Fit that it is best played with a glass of wine. Wine is not great for your balance, but it is an excellent facilitator when learning about gravity. Even better, observe someone learn about gravity as they walk the tight rope over an alley between buildings – their little hands fluttering in panic as they weebill-wobble to their Wii doom.

It's been a lovely distraction to the lip-biting mania of running a restaurant.

When you have a restaurant, you get a lot of feedback. Some of it is valid (put unscented hand soap in the bathroom). A bunch of it is bullshit (the more people who know about your restaurant, the better).

The other day, in a kind intent to give me a compliment, someone called me Erik's right hand man. I let it slide (at the time), as he meant all the best and I dearly love him.

In the process of renovating a building, from putting the first foot in the door to maintaining the vision when the dust obscured everything, I have found that when it comes to plumbing, electrical, structural conversations – regardless of the gender of the person speaking – they always spoke to Erik about the details of the project.

I found this an odd way of communicating with me.

The fact of the matter is, though I can work as hard as Erik, though I can worry as hard as Erik, though I clean and plan and think as hard as Erik though I can rewire and install light fixtures and reconfigure old pieces of throw away furniture, though I can replumb a sink and he will not – I am not his equal in the eyes of many who look at us.

This, let me say, is not Erik's fault. If Erik were a Joe or a Dave or an Adam, the case would still be that people tend to believe the man is the leader and the woman is following along. Even if that woman is me, Adrianne Dow Fucking Young.

In the not-so-recent past, the attitude that my male partner is the leader and I am the follower would have caused me hard thoughts.

At present, I'm too tired and too busy to care that I am considered a right hand man. This exhaustion has liberated me as a woman. Ironic as it is, those who cannot talk to me about plumbing and electrical or even food, no longer have opinions that matter to me – they have become the lesser.

I can ignore the rest of what they say and go on to the next bathroom remodel or restaurant design in peace.

It is Erik that must patiently listen to all of their expertise. Poor man!

This realization, I must say, has renewed my vigor for doing more of everything and being better at it still.

Every morning (ish) I take the dog for a bit of a walk/run around the park and past the orchards that sit along the waterfront. It is low, marsh-like land that used to be owned by the local tribe. The road is one of scents: Spring cherry and apple blossoms; hot hose water; chemical spray; Apples, Rotting apples, apple cider, frost.

I listen to music on my walks because the earphones are really the only time I can really hear music. Having one dead eardrum is like having a SPAM filter. I hear only what I have decided to receive – the rest is noise.

On my playlist is Faith by George Michael. I guess I had never really listened to the song before. Had I, I would have made fun of it's bi-polar self entitled b.s. long ago.

In a nutshell, this guy wants to have sex but falls in love but doesn't want to be hurt (he's been tied down by rules in the past) so he is saying goodbye, but he has to have faith (in love or leaving, I don't know).

I start to really cock my head at the country guitar solo that evolves into a surfer guitar solo.

This was a very popular song in its day! Did no one else listen to the lyrics?

Sometimes the song comes up just as I pass the apple orchard. Up until a week ago there were apples fermenting on the ground, and Faith smelled like pickling. Yesterday Faith smelled like the sewer line. Sometimes I watch the cooper hawks slice through the sky and grab at the little birds. It is then that Faith seems to make sense – the psychotic chase for something fulfilling.

It's the song, I think that starts off our restaurant. From where we started to where we are, we have landed in a place of potential. Now to press forward though the ever-lamented-by-the-locals-and-beyond winter.

The Cafe is almost up and running. It's been a haul. A 90-day scrub and paint fest.

The next chapter, my friends, has begun.

4:30 AM
Rooster One : Hey Guys! I'm up! Anyone else awake yet?

Rooster Two: Cough. Hack. Cough. Where are my smokes?

Rooster One: Hey Guys! I'm up! ANYONE?

Rooster Two: (inhales) Cough. Cough. I. I -ah- I am.

Rooster One: HEY GUYS! GUYS! GUYS! HEY!

Human turns over. Other Human turns over.

Human: noooo.

Other Human: wragh.

5:30 AM
Cat: Good Morning! I'm awake and ready to destroy your house. Allow me to demonstrate how sharp my claws are on the corner of this chair. Yeeeaaaahh that feels soooooooo good! How's it sound? Does it sound irritating enough for you to pick me up and place me in front of my food bowl?

A Human: ARNEIS!

Cat: You could feed me...

Another Human: ARNEIS, NO!

Big Dog: I-gotta-pee-I-gotta-pee

Small Dog: Don't you give him cheese without me. oh, he's just going for a pee. I could go for a pee.

A Human gets up, opens door for dogs. Human proceeds to flip over cat-abused chair. Cat slinks under other object of destruction.

Small Dog: I've taken to barking. Watch!

Big Dog: What's that! What are you seeing that I'm not? Where? Where? Where?

Another Human: Officer! Wiley! That Will Do.

Big Dog: hrmph. Just one more good give-em-hell.

Small Dog: But it's cute when I bark, it sounds like a frog being squished! Listen! See, don't I sound like a frog being squished?

Rooster One: For the kabillionth time, is anyone else is up?

Rooster Two: Cough. -inhales- Scotch! Gimme scotch!

A Human ushers dogs inside, grabs at cat, cat relents to human goes back to bed where other human coos at cat.

Sleep ensues. almost.



6:30 AM
Large-hunting-dog-in-white-truck: I got my head out the window and I am really happy about it.

(repeat the above 20 times in a high pitched yip)

Cat claws and bites any human body part that is convenient.

Big Dog: WTF! Where? What? Who are you?

Rooster One: Hey dawg! 'sup!

Rooster Two: I'm still relevant, damn it! -inhales- Cock-of-the-walk-I-was-I-was. Co-cough-ck.

Rooster Three (yes, three): Whoa, you guys wake up early. Dudes, shut up.

Big Dog: I'm bored. Can I have a pony? What's that over there? Get up. What's over here? I'm bored. Can I go play? What's over this way? Maybe I should go back over there. A Human, Another Human, get up.

A Human: Wiley, settle.

Small Dog: I think this barking thing is kinda fun. Listen to this, wrah-wrah-wrah.

Big Dog: Is there something out there to bark at? GREAT!

Small Dog: What are you barking at? I'm going to bark at it with you!

Big Dog: Wait, you're not barking at something?

Small Dog: Ummm, well I'm barking.

Big Dog: At what?

Small Dog: idunno. Does it matter?

Rooster Three (yes, three): So how do you do this crowing thing do you start out high and go low or do you go low and start out high. I like high to low, wait no maybe I like low to hi... no let's try that again.

A Human: Coffee?

Another Human: Coffee.

Every night I dream that my mother is still alive and that she has come to me because she's dying. It's a particular hell, the expectation of disaster.

The fact that my mother is dead is bothersome but I keep busy to ignore the fact. Yesterday, I needed to call her about a veritable resister. I have 8 lights on a single pole, do I need a specific resister? Do they come in 1,000 Watts? Erik mentioned that he was told we needed a bigger one. I can't imagine why people don't tell me these things. I am the one installing the damn stuff.

I went on to replace old and poorly wired fixtures with older ones (the details of why are dull and not worth writing about). The wiring was so shoddy, I clipped off the bare ends and started anew. As I stripped insulation off of the return (the white line) and watched my hands twist the fixture wires clockwise, I was given pause.

My hands look remarkably like hers. They aren't as strong and they certainly are not as nimble, but they are lean with heavily lined palms. My mother, though no longer able to tell me what to do or how, is here and she is incredibly useful to have around.