Keeping up with changing tides
BACK OF HOUSE
I grew up on Canada’s Atlantic coast, surrounded by the ocean, and have always been fascinated with the ebb and flow of the tides. The seemingly mysterious pull of the moon on the ocean waters, at once drastic and powerful, is at the same time calming in the tides’ predictable rhythms. The beach below my home laid bare for hours, only to be covered again by water.
The rising and falling tides have been used since the beginning of time to help explain natural cycles; as anecdotal proof of the flowing rhythm of all natural things, or to help explain the ‘yin-yang ’ around us: Mother Nature as flexible and prone to change while Father Time remains unmoving and predictable – the tides are both. And when the tide changes, it is always startling.
Kitchens possess a natural ebb and flow rhythm, too. Every year we roll to a similar rhythm that, with experience, can be known ‘in one’s bones’. I have been at this game long enough to have a sort of ‘force’ that I channel, unwittingly.
The first pulse of a Niagara year starts with Mother’s Day – recorded as one of the busiest days in the restaurant business across the country – everybody takes Mom out for brunch, it seems. Following from this inevitable day, I can accurately sense when certain things are going to fall into place: Ramps will start off our growing year, followed by rhubarb, asparagus and so on. My equipment will be in fine working order until mid-June, when the heat and humidity rise and then I will spend six weeks of torment around the discovery and repair of my fridges and freezers. The health inspector will doubtless visit during that ‘ebb’ and wave his/her laser thermometer all over my kitchen, cautioning me around the findings. My staffing will be in perfect order until school is out and we are truly ‘weeded’ with business, then will follow the litany of “Chef, I have an opportunity I just can’t refuse”, or “I want to be an architect”, or “my band is going on tour.”
Of course, no matter how well I know this, how many successive and similar years, how deeply in me and subliminal, I am still struggling to work seamlessly through a season. Maybe the years hold more change than I consider.
And then the tide can change. When I first moved to Niagara the average wine consumer and foodtourist to our region was in their mid-60s; there was a certain tenure in place. Today the lion’s share of visitors are in their late 20s to mid 30s, curiously with serious disposable income. This change has impacted my menus, the flow of our service and demands as well as the décor and feel of several restaurant offerings in the region.
Subtly other changes have crept in to my ‘predictable’ season, too. I have become older and this year for the first time in many I am able to sit here on Father’s Day without the obsessive compulsion to call in and check on things in my kitchen. I have an effective team who are in the process of earning their own ‘in the bones’ culinary compass.
Perhaps most surprising for me so far, this season, is the enormous growth in business this Father’s Day. The day restaurants used to count on as ‘deadsville’, since no one takes Dad out to celebrate in a restaurant, actually eclipsed Mother’s Day at my shop. In fact, we had a record day. Talk about a change in tide!