The Apple Blossom Cluster FINAL

Word Count: 999

Intended Publication: Kalamazoo Gazette

She’s been waiting for this moment ever since she was born. She is the most desirable in a long line of family legacy. She sits proudly on the beauty table being washed, blow-dried, powdered and tweezed, eyebrows trimmed, teeth brushed.

Eminem thumps through her head: One shot do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.

“12 month bitch #20 on deck!” Woof!

The doggy stakes are high at the 2013 Apple Blossom Cluster Dog Show, held at the Expo Center off of Lake St. just outside Kalamazoo. Over 1300 dogs from the Midwest and parts of Canada compete to advance in five showing events that form the “cluster” from May 23^rd-26^th 2013, an event that was sparsely advertised in the Kalamazoo Community. This dog show is the largest grouping event in Michigan, and has been held in Kalamazoo for over 10 years.

“We lightly advertise it, but it doesn’t necessarily draw a really strong gate from the public. It’s a hobby and a sport that the group people like,” says Jim Frankhauser, the Cluster Secretary/Coordinator for the event.

“Some people do golfing, some people do bowling, some people do dogs”, explains Bob, member of the Holland Kennel Club, one of the five sponsoring clubs. The lawn outside is sprawled with hundreds of campers and RVs housing the owners, handlers, and dogs competing in this year’s show.

“Dog shows should be named as the evaluation of breeding stock”, says Frankhauser.

The judges determine which dog matches most closely to the “standard” of their breed.

“You want to have your dog compared against the standard because otherwise you lose track of where you are”, explained Linda Lockstein, showing two Chows from Ontario.

Judge Janet Nahikian judges the Toy Chihuahua category.

“We look for three things: type, soundness and showmanship. And how well they’re built and how well they move… we look at the confidence a dog has. You know, you want them to say ‘here I am’. I look for beautiful head properties, the dog that moved beautifully and fit the standard.” Nahikian is from Coloma, Michigan and has been judging since 1986.

The Expo Center and Fairgrounds, which hosts a multitude of large animal shows and flea and farmers market events each month, is a perfect venue for the show. The large rooms accommodate multiple show rings, and provide a separate prepping area for the dogs, wafting scents of shampoo.

“The same shampoo doesn’t work for everybody, some have straight hair, some have frizzy hair”, says Julie, a professional dog shower from Flint. “You know that soap they use for oil spills and things? It works really well for dogs, and its really nice and cheap.” She begins to apply sharpie to the eyelids of one of her Border Collies.

At a nearby table, Linda Lockstein, yanks a small metal comb through her Chow Chow’s mass of thick matted fur, practically falling over with release of each knot.

“You have to go from under her chin” Linda says about petting Maile, “she can’t see with all of her fur, and gets spooked.” She gets out a blow dryer, which one could easily mistake for a vacuum cleaner, and blasts Maile, flattening her fur. To finish, she ties a bib around her neck.

“Just so she doesn’t get wet.”

Like many owners, Linda is showing more than one dog today. She wheels Maile and her male dog, Traveler in their carriers to Ring 4 for their event.

The Chows are trotted in by their handlers who do a lap, and then lead their dogs up onto a ramp for inspection, molding their legs into a perfectly aligned stance. They cup the chin of the dog in one hand, and the tip of the tail in the other, while a judge observes from different angles. Occasionally the judge feels the bone structure of the hips or shoulders, or quickly opens the dogs mouth to examine its teeth.

The owners are dressed in suits, which quickly become covered in dog hair, and many women show with a comb sticking out of their ponytail, for quick touch-ups before or even during the class. A few owners hastily removed the comb, did a small brush down, eyes darting around and then shoved it back in their hair while the judge’s eyes were on a rivaling dog.

Even though owners do feel a sense of competition, at the end of the day, they still love their dogs. One Dockson owner coo-ed in child-directed speech nose to nose with her dog:

“Oh I love her! She’s a loser, but I love her. Well, she’s a loser today, but we don’t care.”

Dogs hope to advance through a series of elimination rounds each day.

“You continue to compete until you’ve been beat, one dog comes out being undefeated”, says Frankhauser.

Dog and Bitch winners of each breed compete against “Champion Dogs” (exemplary in their breed), ultimately dubbing a “Best in Breed” winner. These winners compete against the winners of other breeds in their group, and the winners of each group compete on Sunday for the “Best in Show” award.

But, there are credentials to be earned for all dogs at the show. Ribbons are awarded for 1^st-4^th place at each level, and awards for smaller class winners are donated by breed organizations. Additionally, non-winning dogs can still accumulate points by beating other dogs, which accumulate over time to achieve Championship Dog standing.

“We do it for the love to the breed, and the love of the dogs, and because we’re kind of crazy,” Faith of the Holland Kennel Club explained.

“Yeah, we’re all kind of crazy,” Bob echoed.

At the photography stand an owner with a paw print tattooed up her ankle takes about 10 minutes placing her Chihuahuas paws just so, trophy towering over the dog. Once the owner is ready, the photographer tosses a toy laxadazically, the dogs ears perk up at a perfectly candid angle, SNAP! Kodak moment.

Photojournalism Project: Brian Polcyn

Brian Polcyn is a meat guy: practitioner, chef, and teacher, of "Charcuterie" (shar coot er ie), the art of curing and preserving meats. Between his polish heritage, travels to Italy, and apprenticeship with Milos Cihelka, Polcyn is fluid in the art of curing salamis, hams, and other meats. He has been locally active in Michigan, studying at Schoolcraft College and building his restaurant career in Milford and now Birmingham, currently owner of Forest Grill. His expertise is nationally acclaimed: co-author of Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing, he travels around the country teaching and speaking about this ancient art. He has been written up in the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly, as well as nominated for a James Beard Award and Restaurant of the Year in Michigan. He now teaches Charcuterie at his alma mater, a required class for a Culinary Arts degree. Polcyn values local sourcing and hopes to use his example and businesses to make a difference in the food system by spreading awareness of the importance of food transparency, and creating a demand for it in his following.

Writing Process

Whoops, sorry about that:

This piece was really fun to report and write. I feel like I could play around with it for the rest of this summer and still find fun ways to describe the things that I saw and overheard. I feel lucky to have such good material, but at the same time it leaves me with an enormous amount of dissatisfaction, like I could always be saying something better, that I haven't felt with my other pieces. It's good to get feedback about what sounds good and is enjoyable to read, and what is just dull or sounds confusing. And Colin is right, I don't have a conflict. I guess every show man/woman at the show had their own conflict and pot of gold: a dinky ribbon to put in their glass wall case at home, but I'm trying to capture the whole scene here, so in that sense I don't know what the conflict is. Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow.

Apple Blossom Cluster Means Spring!

She’s been waiting for this moment ever since she was born. She is the most desirable in a long line of family legacy. She sits proud on the beauty table being washed, blowdried, powdered and tweezed, eyebrows trimmed, teeth brushed.

Eminem thumps through her head: One shot do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.

“12 month bitch #20 on deck!” Woof!

The doggy stakes are high at the 2013 Apple Blossom Cluster Dog Show, held at the Expo Center in Kalamazoo, MI. Owners and handlers from all over the state and other regional locations in the Midwest and Canada brought over 1300 dogs to compete for “Best in Breed” awards between May 23^rd and 26^th.

“Some people do golfing, some people do bowling, some people do dogs.” Explained Bob, member of the Holland Kennel Club, one of the sponsoring Kennel Clubs to host the event. The lawn outside is sprawled with hundreds of campers and RVs housing the owners, handlers, and of course dogs competing in this years show.

The show inhabits the entire expo center, with white picket rings in each room for the obedience and breed classes. There is a large warehouse for grooming and prepping the dogs, with rows and rows of tables stationed, equipped with roll-away kits to primp the dogs. Vendors line the side wall selling collars, key chains, and embroidered paraphernalia.

In Ring 4, bulldogs are trotted in by their handlers who do a lap, and stop on the far wall, hastily crouching next to the dogs, molding their legs into a perfectly aligned stance. They cup the chin of the dog in one hand, and the tip of the tail in the other, pulling up to evoke presence and pride from the dog, while a judge observes from different angles. She moves to the front of the line, and the owners rotate around their dogs in synchronization, arranging the chin fat of the bulldogs into a nice ruffle of expression. Occasionally the judge will feels the bone structure of the hips or shoulders, or quickly open the dogs mouth to examine its teeth.

Unfortunately, in the world of dog showing, not all dogs are created equal, leaving the judges to determine which dog matches most closely to the “standard” of their breed, bring home the highly coveted prize ribbons accordingly.

Judge Janet Nahikian judged the Toy Chihuahua category.

“We look for three things: type, soundness and showmanship. And how well they’re built and how well they move… we look at the confidence a dog has. You know, you want them to say ‘here I am’. I look for beautiful head properties, the dog that moved beautifully and fit the standard.” Nahikian is from Coloma, Michigan and has been judging since 1986.

Awards are given in a small area in between the show rings, and the beauty room where blow dryers whizz, wafting scents of shampoo.

“The same shampoo doesn’t work for everybody, some have straight hair, some have frizzy hair.” Says Julie, a professional dog shower from Flint, “You know that soap they use for oil spills and things? It works really well for dogs, and its really nice and cheap.” She begins to apply sharpie to the eyelids of one of her Border Collies.

At a nearby table, Linda Lockstein, a small older woman from Tilsinburg, Ontario is yanking a small metal comb through her Chow Chow’s mass of thick matted fur, practically falling over with the force of the release of each knot. The loosened fur poofs up into the air and floats away onto a nearby object or person. We chat, and I ask to pet Maile.

“Oh no, you have to go from under her chin” Linda explains “she can’t see with all of her fur, and gets spooked.” She gets out her blowdryer, which one could easily mistake for a vacuum cleaner, and blasts Maile, like a dog in a convertible on the freeway. When she’s finished she then ties a bib on her, the strings barely meeting around Maile’s mane.

“Just so she doesn’t get wet.” Linda explains. She wraps her tiny arms around Maile’s waist, only a bit larger and stronger than the dog, and lifts a stiff, perplexed Maile safely onto the ground.

Outside the ring the competitors are friendly, congratulating one another and making small talk,

“How many of those do you have at home?”

“About 6. Before Christmas I has 11, but I had a lot of extra males, so…”

Some owners are juggling 6 to 7 dogs at once, hastily lifting them out of their carriers, showing them quickly and then putting them back in to remove the next nearly identical dog. For many handlers this is their way of assigning credential to their breeding.

The owners are dressed in suits, which quickly become covered in dog hair, and many women show with a comb sticking out of their ponytail, for quick touch-ups before or even during the class. A few owners while holding their dog in position, hastily removed the comb, did a small brush down, eyes darting around and then shoved it back in their hair while the judges eyes were on a rivaling dog.

Even though owners do feel a sense of competition, at the end of the day, they still have their dog, even it its not a prize winner. One Dockson owner coo-ed in child-directed speech:

“Oh I love her! She’s a loser, but I love her. Well, she’s a loser today, but we don’t care.”

“We do it for the love to the breed, and the love of the dogs, and because we’re kind of crazy,” Faith of the Holland Kennel Club explained.

“Yeah, we’re all kind of crazy,” Bob echoed.

At the photography stand an owner with paw print tattooed up her ankle takes about 10 minutes placing her Chihuahuas paws just so, trophy towering over the dog. Once the owner is ready, the photographer tosses a toy laxadazically, the dogs ears perk up at a perfectly candid angle, SNAP! Kodak moment.

1014 Words

Intended Publication: Claws and Paws Michigan Dog Publication

Post for Tomorrow

Here is my post of "stuff I think everyone should read/look at":

First, here is a narrative blog from Middlebury College that i stumbled upon... they did a series called "how did you get here" that kind of reminds me of our final photo journalism project. It's cool to see that other students are doing similar things:
https://sites.middlebury.edu/middblogs/tag/fellows-in-narrative-journalism/

Also, I really love Graphic Novels and wanted to see how people think that they fit into this genre of story telling and narrative (more personal narrative). But I think there is a real art to being able to write and illustrate these well and effectively. This is a cool NPR program that I stumbled upon that featured a book and then highlighted some of the narratives from within it, so it had some succinct(er) examples of narratives through pictures. I didn't have a ton of time to browse, but go for it!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/04/11/176568118/cook-illustrated-a-new-graphic-novel-that-live-to-eat-types-will-savor

I kind of had trouble finding cool things... I don't really have a cyber-realm of journalism that I browse regularly, but hopefully these will be fun to look at.

See ya tomorrow!

Life, Liberty, and the Prosciutto of Happiness: Making it in the Michigan Restaurant Business FINAL

Nationally acclaimed practitioner of Charcuterie (char coot er ee), restaurant owner, author, and teacher, Brian Polcyn, stands at a table in front of a small cooking class at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. He raises a spoonful of risotto to his mouth, slurps a small taste and rolls his eyes back in his head. His face melting, he tosses the spoon on the counter and steps back with his hands in the air saying “I don’t know how I do it.”

A few weeks later, I stood with him in front of his classroom at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan, sampling and critiquing the work of his students, and he told me about how he became Chef Polcyn.

“Next!”

His gruff low voice booms from the gut of his meat belly out over the classroom of culinary arts students in the unmistakable accent of a Detroit native. Students come up periodically to present their work. He cuts off a piece of sausage and hastily puts it in his mouth, tossing the hot meat roughly with each chewing motion.

Meanwhile students slide around the kitchen, turning sideways to fit through small spaces, and lifting raw meat concoctions overhead to avoid colliding with one another. The classroom smells of salt and cured meats, slabs of raw cuts laying all over the place, being dressed and stuffed and flavored by the students: chicken breasts, jerky, fish, pork chops and sausages of cow and pig piled in coils, or in long strings draped over pieces of equipment. There was nowhere I could stand and feel like I wasn’t in the way. In an environment where it was easy to feel like a burden, Chef Polcyn made me feel like a guest, including me in the chaos that was culinary school finals week.

Student Brian lands a smoked trout on the altar of critiquing.

“Smoked fish? Ok, watch this, she’s going to grade you. Whatever she says goes, and do not be nice. I want you to ask yourself, is it pleasant to eat, first and foremost?”

It was.

“Ok, is it too salty?”

No, it wasn’t.

“Is it moist?”

Ehhh it was a little dry.

“Ok, so here’s someone who doesn’t know a lot about food, but this is our customer, right? So we have to listen to her. So for a score of 1 out of 25 what would you give him?”

I gave him a 24, but Polcyn is cheeky.

“If I liked him I would do 24, but I don’t like him, so I’m gonna go 23.9.”

When he’s not grading, Polcyn barks his way around the kitchen, critiquing sanitation practices, fixing broken equipment, and cutting cured meats for sampling from the transformation room, where salted meats have been hanging, aging for years.

“I’m taking you in my transitional room where I take no one. Not even my students," he says, "They’re all like ‘Who is this girl?’”

At first, it looked like a bunch of dry, hanging, moldy ham. But this is Charcuterie. Charcuterie is the art of curing and preserving meat without cooking it.

Polcyn speaks of Charcuterie as common sense. Refrigeration has only been around for about 100 years, but people have been eating meat forever. Polcyn doesn’t just worship meat, but also the fat, which Polcyn learned in Italy, is where the flavor truly lies. He has the fat-o-phobics chanting “Fat is flavor, Fat is our friend, We love fat!”

In a review in the Atlantic monthly magazine, Food critic Corby Kummer wrote:

“Polcyn knows how to get true flavors. His forte is meat, appropriately enough in the Midwest. The pork and the duck were the best I've had in years—anywhere, even in southwestern France, where every house is a farm and every farm fattens a few ducks. Specifically, Polcyn's forte is charcuterie, the art of sausage-making. Every day a different pâté or terrine is offered, and the peppery duck pâté I tasted was a tour de force… Even better, both meats, with their full marbling of fat, tasted the way they used to, before Long Island ducklings were raised in quarters closer than a Manhattan apartment and Iowa hogs were bred to be slim.”

How does this carnivore reconcile the vegetarianism of so many of his customers?

“I don’t have a problem with it… I don’t see the importance of it," he says, "I mean you need a certain amount of fat in your diet, and I think animal fat is the best.”

He recognizes vegetarianism as an important value to some of his customers, using some of the methods with vegetables. For example, a terrine is typically a meatloaf style casserole wrapped in additional meat such as bacon but can be made with vegetables.

“I adapt the principle of the ancient craft of Charcuterie and apply it to the modern American menu. In my mind, I’m honoring the tradition, but I’m also thinking about the contemporary palate of my customers. Yeah, I know it sucks. It’s an oxymoron. It’s like saying jumbo shrimp… vegetable terrine,” he says.

Ironically, he shares his office with a vegan, and they seem to have agreed to disagree.

His space-mate made two good cases for veganism: most illnesses stem from meat consumption, doctors advising their patients to stop eating meat, so why wait until you get to that?

Polcyn has an ego, but he knows a good argument.

“He makes a good point. I hate it when he’s right.”

The second reason being the land used to feed animals could feed people instead.

“Oh shit, I hate it when he’s right.”

Co-author of Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, Michael Ruhlman, wrote about a conversation he had with Polcyn told him about the beginning of his love for Charcuterie:

“My Polish Grandma, my father's mother, made Kielbasa every Christmas and Easter. Then my mom took over the job. We didn’t have any money so everything we used and used well. We’d grind the meat and season it. The next day we’d stuff it, tie it into big rings, hang the rings over a broom handle on chairs, put the dog out, and set the kielbasa in front of the fire overnight.

“But this romance with Charcuterie didn’t start until my early twenties, when I went to work at the Golden Mushroom, outside Detroit, for Milos Cihelka, a Czech immigrant, my mentor and one of Michigan’s great Chefs. I’d been cooking for five or six years and thought I knew something. But when I started grinding meat and smoking sausages for Chef Milos, I realized how little I knew. I was also fascinated by the process. I got to work early and left late. I took notes like crazy.”

Now Polcyn has an army of his own students learning from him. He describes the culinary world of apprenticeship as a responsibility to teach the next generation everything he knows.

“I expect my students to go out and teach the same, just like I do.”

Even though Charcuterie is a required class for a culinary degree at Schoolcraft, the students enjoy Polcyn.

“He makes it so much fun,” said student Joline, a middle aged DJ on the radio, who really hates meat, but is taking the class to graduate.

Polcyn returned to teach at his Alma Mater after opening and closing two restaurants, and opening a third which he still owns: Forest Grill in Birmingham, MI. His other restaurants included Five Lakes Grill in Milford, which he turned into Cinco Lagos, a Mexican restaurant, when Five Lakes was starting to fail. But he sees these openings and closings as normal fluctuations in the restaurant business that have contributed to his success.

Not only has Polcyn succeeded in one of the toughest professions, he has done it all in the state of Michigan, independent of cities with established taste and demand for his skills.

His son, Dylan, a student at Kalamazoo College, was equally charismatic and vibrant, eager to talk about his Dad. Dylan attested that if his Dad had hauled the kids out to New York or Chicago, he would be a star on the food network right now. But instead he prioritized the values that distinguished Polcyn from other chefs and the sacrifices he has made throughout his life for his family.

Though he attempted to cut back on complexity of menu items in order to have more time with his family, his restaurant gained credentials that ultimately had him written up in the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly, as well as nominated for a James Beard Award and Restaurant of the Year in Michigan, all of which showcased his talent amid his natural and feasible habitat.

“I got nationally recognized as a chef in that little community where I could raise my family and just be open for dinner. I could go coach soccer practice at four o’clock and be back at the restaurant for dinner service because it was only five minutes away. I’m a very successful business man, very successful chef, Nationally acclaimed, financially stable, I make a lot of money for being a cook. That’s not bragging, that’s fact.”

Polcyn’s accomplishments are a testament to his skill and acclaim he has built in the field, all while being a father.

“For me, being a chef and married to the same woman for over 30 years, and raising five children, in this profession is more of a challenge than cooking in Michigan because the business that I’ve chosen is very demanding. What time of day do people eat dinner? Oh, in the evening… so what time of day do I work normally? Oh, yeah… see, I work when everyone else plays.”

Dylan is impressed with his father’s dedication to their family. “Every Chef is divorced. I mean every chef. The fact that they’ve made it for so long is crazy,” he says of his parents. Dylan also recalled the absence of his father through the childhoods of his older siblings during the closing of Five Lakes and Cinco Lagos. They had a weekly ritual of watching Saturday Night Live and making grilled cheese at midnight, because that was the only time he was home. Once he opened Forest Grill, though, he was able to spend more time with his two younger kids.

Chef Polcyn packed up some sausage, corned beef and desserts from the pastry class for me to take home. A week later Dylan and I cooked up the sausages for dinner, consulting his dad over the phone about how exactly to cook them, and hoping that his new line of pre-packaged meats and meals would make it onto our campus someday.

As we sat down to eat, in honor of Chef Polcyn and of the meat we were eating, Dylan and I shared a Chef Polcyn-ism: “Praise the Lard!”

Word Count: 1927

Intended Publication: New York Times Diner’s Journal

The Events of October

This is such an incredibly well-written story. And the amount of information, testimonials, details, stories and perspectives that are so artfully woven together is unbelievable. I feel as though there is nothing missing from this story: everything we might want to know about the characters, their backgrounds, characterization from their friends, family, details as vivid as Maggie leaving her book open on her bed, and never coming back, it's all here. What a process that must have been! I can't wait to talk to the author about what it was like to collect all of the pieces that put this story together. Not only that, but I feel it was a hard one to write given the event, and how she dealt with sensitivity surrounding that. There must have been a certain amount of time that had to pass before she felt comfortable interviewing people and asking them to uncover their memories. Even though no one was in the room with Maggie and Neenef, we get everything else. And it makes it such a vivid, real, and tribute-ive story.

Additionally, how did the author hope the story to function an closure for the event or at all? It is so difficult to reconcile something like this and understand its place in the college community. I think the story could have functioned as a sort of closure and memory of it all which is a very brave thing to write. Finally, for whom did the author intend this story and how was she sensitive to that while writing? Though I think this story is valuable to non Kalamazoo College community members, it certainly strikes more of a chord with people who know the buildings, the professors and the inter workings of the campus. How did the author deal with this if at all? How did she think about ways it could be for the students? For the families? The story certainly helps reader to understand why it happened, which is an important narrative to take away from an event like this. Would the community have received that "why" otherwise?

Reading Response Week 7

The segment on dialogue was really helpful both in validating the use of lots of dialogue, and using large chunks of it, and also in helping to decide when to use it and when it can be most effective. For example, dialogue as the “punch line of a joke” or the most explicit way we can convey the subject’s life or story was helpful in thinking about the strategies with which it is worked in really enhance the story. Like Marin said, we are not telling the subject’s story from our perspectives or what we have heard, we are telling it from the perspective of the narrator and people who know the narrator, so quoting IS really important.

I think coming up with an ending is something that I’m struggling the most with, so it was nice to hear some strategies such as “bringing the story full circle”. It was also helpful to understand the importance of an ending, because part of me thought maybe no one would notice if it just dropped off… so that’s something I am continuing to work on in revision.

I also feel I am clos(er) to conveying strong character and scene through thoroughly describing exactly what I experienced, and building character from a climactic moment (when we is tasting the work of his students) and then explaining how he got there. This is such a cool process for building character, and I hope I am somewhat accomplishing it.

Finally, reading about voice really helped to synthesize the point of these assignments for me and understand that even though I am trying to capture little details of this character and this story, ultimately the writing does have to fall into my own voice. Sometimes when writing about very distinct characters I feel pressure to recreate or deliver their personality through my own writing, but instead, the writer strives to do this by capturing them in their own writing style. That is important to remember.

Story Pitch

5 words

Apple Blossom Cluster Dog Show

Who came up with that?
I want to know... so I'm thinking of going next weekend at the Kalamazoo County Expo Fairgrounds to observe, talk to people, and just see what the heck this probably ridiculous event is all about.

Interested?

Questions for Draft 2

This draft is still not these but it is close*er*. I just have so much to write about and I'm having trouble weaving...
Can people please comment on the lead? I also don't really have an ending anymore, because I don't really know where the story is going from there. I dropped in more "in the moment" stuff, and now its just so long. Thanks everyone.

Life, Liberty, and the Prociutto of Happiness: Making it in the Restaurant Business Draft 2

“Next!” Nationally acclaimed practitioner of Charcuterie, restaurant owner, author, and teacher, Brian Polcyn, stands at a table in the front of his classroom at Schoolcraft College sampling and critiquing the work of his students.

His gruff low voice booms from the gut of his meat belly out over the classroom of culinary arts students in the unmistakable accent of a Detroit native. Students come up periodically to present their work. He cuts off a piece of sausage and hastily puts it in his mouth, tossing the hot meat roughly with each chewing motion.

Meanwhile three of his students hold down the sausage stuffing machine, between panic and triumph. Other students slide around the kitchen, turning sideways to fit through small spaces, and lifting raw meat concoctions overhead as they avoid colliding with one another. There are 18 stainless steel prep areas in the middle of the room, surrounded by stoves, ovens, large walk-in fridges and sinks. The classroom smells of salt and cured meats, slabs of raw cuts laying all over the place, being dressed and stuffed and flavored by the students: sausages of cow and pig, jerky, fish, pork chops, and stuffed chicken breasts, but mostly sausages, piled in coils, or in long strings draped over pieces of equipment. There was nowhere I could stand and feel like I wasn’t in the way. In an environment where it was easy to feel like a burden, Chef Polcyn really made me feel like a guest.

Student Brian lands a smoked trout on the altar of critiquing.

“Smoked fish? Ok, watch this, she’s going to grade you. Whatever she says goes, and do not be nice.”

“I want you to ask yourself, is it pleasant to east, first and foremost?”

It was.

“Ok, is it too salty?”

No, it wasn’t.

“Is it moist?”

Ehhh it was a little dry.

“Ok, so here’s someone who doesn’t know a lot about food, but this is our customer, right? So we have to listen to her. So for a score of 1 out of 25 what would you give him?”

I gave him a 24, but Polcyn is cheeky.

“If I liked him I would do 24, but I don’t like him, so I’m gonna go 23.9.”

When he’s not grading, Polcyn barks his way around the kitchen, critiquing sanitation practices, fixing broken equipment, and cutting cured meats for sampling from the transformation room, where salted meats have been hanging, aging for years.

He was nice enough to take me in there, apparently a huge honor, “I’m taking you in my transitional room where I take no one. Not even my students. They’re all like ‘Who is this girl?’”

The transformation room was like a stainless steel version of a smokehouse from Little House on the Prarie. To the average person, it looks like a bunch of hanging, moldy ham. But this is Charcuterie. Charcuterie is the art of curing and preserving meat without cooking it.

Polcyn speaks of Charcuterie as common sense. The refrigerator has only been around for about 100 years, but people have been eating meat forever. Polcyn doesn’t just worship meat, but the fat, Polcyn learned in Italy, is where the flavor truly lies. He always has the fat-a-phobics chant “Fat is flavor, Fat is our friend, We love fat!” or tells them to “Praise the lard!”

But how does this carnivore reconcile the vegetarianism of so many of his customers?

“I don’t have a problem with it… I don’t see the importance of it, I mean you need a certain amount of fat in your diet, and I think animal fat is the best”.

Ironically, he shares his office with a vegan, and they seem to have agreed to disagree.

His space-mate made two good cases for veganism: most illnesses stem from meat consumption, doctors advising their patients to stop eating meat, so why wait until you get to that?

“He makes a good point. I hate it when he’s right”

The second reason being the land used to feed animals could feed people instead.

“Oh shit, I hate it when he’s right”.

He recognizes vegetarianism as an important value to some of his customers, taking methods of cooking meats and making them with vegetables. A terrine is typically a meatloaf style casserole wrapped in additional meat such as bacon

“I adapt the principle of the ancient craft of Charcuterie and apply it to the modern American menu. In my mind, I’m honoring the tradition, but I’m also thinking about the contemporary palate of my customers. Yeah, I know it sucks. It’s an oxymoron. It’s like saying jumbo shrimp… vegetable terrine”.

Co-author of Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, Michael Ruhlman, wrote about a conversation he had with Polcyn about the beginning of his love for Charcuterie:

“My Polish Grandma, my fathers mother, made Kielbasa every Christmas and Easter. Then my mom took over the job. We didn’t have any money so everything we used and used well. We’d grind the meat and season it. The next day we’d stuff it, tie it into big rings, hang the rings over a broom handle on chairs, put the dog out, and set the kielbasa in front of the fire overnight.

“But this romance with Charcuterie didn’t start until my early twenties, when I went to work at the golden mushroom, outside Detroit, for Milos Cihelka, a Czech immigrant, my mentor and one of Michigan’s great Chefs. I’d been cooking for five or six years and thought I knew something. But when I started grinding meat and smoking sausages for Chef Milos, I realized how little I knew. I was also fascinated by the process. I got to work early and left late. I took notes like crazy.”

Now Polcyn has an army of his own students learning from him. Polcyn describes the culinary world of apprenticeship as a responsibility to teach the next generation everything he knows.

“I expect my students to go out and teach the same, just like I do”.

He pokes at his students, and they poke right back. There’s a lot of sassiness in the classroom of Brian Polcyn, but mostly there’s respect.

Even though Charcuterie is a required class for a culinary degree at Schoolcraft, all of the students enjoy the class. “He makes it so much fun” said student Joline, a middle aged DJ on the radio, looking to do some catering work once she graduates.

Polcyn returned to teach at his Alma Mater after writing his book, and opening and closing two restaurants, and opening a third which is still owns: Forest Grill in Birmingham. His other restaurants include Five Lakes Grill in Milford, MI, which he turned into Cinco Lagos, a Mexican restaurant when Five Lakes was starting to fail. But he sees these opens and closes as normal fluctuations in the restaurant business, that have all amounted to his success

Not only has Polcyn become Nationally acclaimed in one of the toughest professions, he has done it all in the state of Michigan, independent of cities with established taste and demand for his skills. Though he attempted to cut back on complexity of menu items in order to have more time with his family, the demand in the restaurant grew to credentials that ultimately had him written up in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, nominated for a James Beard Award, Restaurant of the Year in Michigan, showcasing his talent amidst his natural and feasible habitat: “I got nationally recognized as a chef in that little community where I could raise my family and just be open for dinner. I could go coach soccer practice at four o’clock and be back at the restaurant for dinner service because it was only five minutes away. I’m a very successful business man, very successful chef, Nationally acclaimed, financially stable, I make a lot of money for being a cook. That’s not bragging, that’s fact”.

Polcyn’s accomplishments are a testament to his skill and acclaim he has built in the field, all while being a father.

Son Dylan attests that if his Dad had hauled the kids out to New York or Chicago, he would be a star on the food network right now. Why not? Because of the values that distinguished Polcyn from other chefs and the sacrifices he has made throughout his life for his family.

“For me, being a chef and married to the same woman for over 30 years, and raising five children, in this profession is more of a challenge than cooking in Michigan because the business that I’ve chosen is very demanding. What time of day do people eat dinner? Oh, in the evening… so what time of day do I work normally? Oh, yeah… see, I work when everyone else plays”.

Dylan is equally charismatic and vibrant, eager to talk about his Dad: “Every Chef is divorced. I mean every chef. The fact that they’ve made it for so long is crazy.” Dylan also recalled the absence of his father through the childhoods of his older siblings father through his childhood than his two older siblings who had a weekly ritual of watching Saturday Night Live and making grilled cheese at midnight, because that was the only time he was home.

His co-author also wrote that this craziness is not uncommon for a chef:

“It’s in the nature of the chef to accept with cheerful willingness a workload that is completely impossible. It’s a matter of pride and personal challenge, even taking on a third job when too full time jobs are really already just a little too much. And a chef does this not wineingly or with a sigh, but rather with a breezy immediate response: sure.”

Profile Process

This piece was way harder for me to write than I thought. i felt like we did so much good build up reading, like I had all of my strategies down, but when it actually came down to it I couldn't project any of that theory onto my writing. First of all, I don't really know what story i'm trying to tell here... I want to tell all of it, but I'm starting to see that maybe there are some sub-stries in here I could zoom in on. But I go back and forth, because I feel like the point of the assignment is to write about oval themes and subjects in their life. I also felt like I relied on quotes SO much. Probably too much. He just said things so nicely. Is it too much?
I also wrote with a little bit of perpetual fear. He is such a sharp, knowledgeable, witty, and accomplished person I feared not capturing him properly, so that's probably why I relied so much on the ways he captured himself. I am also working on getting some other sources in here (writing that other people have done about him) but I had some logistical issues with that and couldn't get the book in time. My apologies. Basically, I know this piece could be loads better, but I don't know how to go out it. Mehhhh

Life, Liberty and the Prociutto of Happiness: Spreading the Good Word of Charcuterie and Making it in the Restaurant Business

Nationally acclaimed practitioner of charcuterie, Brian Polcyn shuffles into class, Starbucks in hand and a large black bag slung over his shoulder, sporting black leather motorcycle jacket. His deep scratchy voice speaks with an unmistakable Michigan accent: a Detroit native. Just as class it about to start, he emerges from his office with his button up white chef coat stretched across his meat belly, and tall white hat, propping himself on a stool to take attendance.

“Good morning, boys and girls”. His students gather around his all dressed in the same Chef getup, hands behind their backs, answering “Here, Chef” when he calls each name. The students are in the middle of their one week practical exam at Schoolcraft College in the Charcuterie class: the ancient art of curing meats. Each student will prepare a number of meat dishes to be graded and critiqued by Nationally acclaimed author, chef, and of course teacher Brian Polcyn.

Polcyn worked his way up the “totalitarian brigade” of culinary training in his early kitchen years remarkably fast, attributing much of his success to his instructor, Chef Milos. Polcyn describes the culinary world of apprenticeship as a responsibility to teach the next generation everything you know. It was unforgiving and tough to be trained in the culinary profession during this time, and very few people made it.

“I expect my students to go out and teach the same, just like I do”.

The students go about their business and Polcyn barks his way around the kitchen, critiquing sanitation practices, fixing broken equipment, and cutting cured meats for sampling from the transitional room, where salted meats have been hanging, aging for years.

Polcyn speaks of Charcuterie as common sense.

“When was the refrigerator invented?” Early 1900s.

“And How long have people been eating meat?” Forever.

Charcuterie is the art of curing and preserving meat without cooking it. The meat gets dried and brines in salt and then hung to dry in the transformation room.

Polcyn doesn’t just worship meat, but the fat, Polcyn learned in Italy, is where the flavor truly lies. Polcyn’s sausages and salami are speckled, with fat distributed throughout bringing out rich, creamy flavors. The copa muscle on the neck of the animal holds unique flavor because of the nature of the tendons infused throughout the meat.

“The world would be a terrible place without fat”.

How does this carnivore reconcile the vegetarianism of so many of his customers?

“I don’t have a problem with it… I don’t see the importance of it, I mean you need a certain amount of fat in your diet, and I think animal fat is the best”.

Actually, he shares his office with a vegan, and they generally agree to disagree.

His space-mate made two good cases for veganism: most illnesses stem from meat consumption, doctors advising their patients to stop eating meat, so why wait until you get to that?

“He makes a good point. I hate it when he’s right”

The second reason being the land used to feed animals could feed people instead.

“Oh shit, I hate it when he’s right”.

He recognizes vegetarianism as an important value to some of his customers, taking methods of cooking meats and making them with vegetables. A terrine is typically a meatloaf style casserole wrapped in additional meat such as bacon

“I adapt the principle of the ancient craft of Charcuterie and apply it to the modern American menu. So I’m going to make a roasted vegetable terrine. In my mind, I’m honoring the tradition, but I’m also thinking about the contemporary palate of my customers. Yeah, I know it sucks. It’s an oxymoron. It’s like saying jumbo shrimp… vegetable terrine”.

Polcyn settled onto his stool at the front of the classroom and began sampling his student’s exam dishes.

“Smoked fish? Ok, watch this, she’s going to grade you. Whatever she says goes, and do not be nice”.

“I want you to ask yourself, is it pleasant to east, first and foremost?”

Yes.

“Ok, is it too salty?”

No.

“Is it moist?” Ehhh it was a little dry.

“Ok, so here’s someone who doesn’t know a lot about food, but this is our customer, right? So we have to listen to her. So for a score of 1 out of 25 what would you give him?”

He got a 24, but Polcyn is cheeky.

“If I liked him I would do 24, but I don’t like him, so I’m gonna go 23.9”.

“Another thing I learned is to buy local, which, I have been doing that my entire career: going to farmers markets and developing relationships with small farmers. And, here’s the big secret… today there’s so many buzzwords about ‘gate to the plate’, ‘but local’, or ‘organic’ blah blah blah blah blah. Is there any other type of food? My entire career I’ve never known any other type of food besides organic”.

Buying local for Polcyn isn’t just about supporting the family farm, it’s about getting the best quality product for the lowest price. In fact, while many critics are unable to equate expensive food with high value or quality, Polcyn plans to change the way we eat through his use of ingredients and education of customers surrounding the importance of the food, by “creating a demand”.

“I’m going to impact the way people eat in America. My Charcuterie book has sold 130,000 copies, I’m traveling around teaching classes, I make 1 trip a month, spreading the good word of Charcuterie and saving the family farm”.

How did he make it in the restaurant business? Not only has Polcyn become Nationally acclaimed in one of the toughest professions, he has done it all in the state of Michigan, independent of cities with established taste and demand for his skills.

Son Dylan attests that if his Dad had hauled the kids out to New York or Chicago, he would be a star on the food network right now. Why not? Because of the values that distinguished Polcyn from other chefs and the sacrifices he has made throughout his life for his family.

“For me, being a chef and married to the same woman for over 30 years, and raising five children, in this profession is more of a challenge than cooking in Michigan because the business that I’ve chosen is very demanding. What time of day do people eat dinner? Oh, in the evening… so what time of day do I work normally? Oh, yeah… see, I work when everyone else plays”.

Polcyn was raising his children and decided to open a restaurant in his hometown, giving birth to his value of local community. Though he attempted to cut back on complexity of menu items in order to have more time with his family, the demand in the restaurant grew to credentials that ultimately had him written up in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, nominated for a James Beard Award, Restaurant of the Year in Michigan, showcasing his talent amidst his natural and feasible habitat: “I got nationally recognized as a chef in that little community where I could raise my family and just be open for dinner. I could go coach soccer practice at four o’clock and be back at the restaurant for dinner service because it was only five minutes away. I’m a very successful business man, very successful chef, Nationally acclaimed, financially stable, I make a lot of money for being a cook. That’s not bragging, that’s fact”.

Polcyn’s accomplishments are a testament to his skill and acclaim he has built in the field, all while being a father.

“You can never know everything there is to know about food. That’s why we say we practice Charcuterie, the way a lawyer practices law or a doctor practices medicine, because everything has to be interpreted differently by today’s society because we’ve evolved”.

Polcyn hopes that new technology can bring the flavor and qualities of his food to an on-the-go market, opening vending machines that seal high-quality prepared meals inside plastic that can be microwaved to inflate, and cook the meat inside in its own condensation, that will be marketed at chain grocery stores. He equates it to a Bob Evans, but it will use high quality ingredients.

“We’re being a pioneer. First one through the wall always gets bloody. After I knock a hole in the wall and everyone comes behind me, its easier for them”. Polcyn is going to break down the wall and reform our food system.

Intended Publication: Undecided

Word Count: 1430

Week 5 Reading Response

        I really enjoyed reading the New Yorker profile just before I go to do my interview because it is helping me to get into the right mindset of really pursuing my subject's story. I found the honesty and candidness of the author really reassuring, and it was amusing how she compared profiling someone to becoming intensely interested or even obsessed with them. I don't think I'm on this level yet with my interviewee, but I'm trying to get there before my interview: watching youtube videos of him, reading snippets of his books, and articles about him. Not only do I think this is important for me as a writer, and someone who is going to be genuinely interested in pursuing his story, but I think he will expect it of me as well. It will be understood that I know at least a bit about meat and his accomplishments from his career. As a person interested in his life, why wouldn't I?
        I found the Sinatra piece to be long and disorienting at time with so many characters coming into and leaving the scene. One thing that really struck me though that I want to try to channel in my own next piece is the endless forms of characterization the author uses to illustrate the essence, behaviors, tendencies, and life events of Frank. He does a fair amount of "telling" and describing, but these paragraphs and sentences take on a role of reliability and pace-setting within the piece while other strategies of characterization add dynamic details and subplots. The descriptions of Frank's women, friends, agents (Dexter was my favorite paragraph), fans, and employees and their relation to him all reveal little details about him as a subject of the piece. The description of him as "Il Padrone" held overarching characterization that was classified in this way through different sub-scenes. As scenes unfold, more character comes through showing his emotions, behavior, and dialogue. Later on we hear the story of his birth and childhood, indirect characterization about his development and family life. Even through his somewhat doppleganger Delgado we get additional descriptions and ideas about him. My favorite method of characterization was through the series of quotes of people who know and are related to him, giving us ideas about Sinatra himself, but also about his relationships and the impressions others have of him. All of these things working together made for an incredibly descriptive piece, not just in predictable ways but in creative ones, and gave me many ideas for my own piece.
       I had some apprehensions after reading Telling True Stories as well, as much of the advice and feedback from the passages were based off of longevity and development of relationship with a subject, which I feel is unrealistic for our assignment right now (at least with my subject). I found myself trying to reconcile our short time frame for the assignment. The advice I felt most helpful, though, included witnessing action or being able to look back on it with the subject, unearth it, and unpack it, allowing the ending to be the beginning in some way, and having guided conversations versus interviews. I do feel a sense of formality with my subject because he is very busy and well known, but I hope I am able to find a tone and create a setting of guided conversation. I think it would have been helpful to read these passages for 3rd or 4th week so we could have kept this information in mind when choosing an interview subject. How much of these circumstances should we expect to be realized in our short 10 week quarter, and how many should we just tuck away for our future narrative endeavors?

The Ticket to Me Final Draft with Outline

I never thought I would be driving down the highway and turn up the radio to listen to report updates about Proposition 8. I never thought I would be dodging conversations with my family, not quite knowing when or how to tell them what was going on.

“Charlotte, you know what would be perfect for you? If you had a boyfriend who was a cook”.

“Yeah……” I stalled, “Or I could just be a cook”.

There’s nothing scarier than learning something new about yourself:

She was in and out of a relationship with another girl. I thought she was kind of crazy… never showed up on time for stuff and usually smelled like alcohol. We would talk here and there, and one time we hung out for a while, and had a really long conversation about… everything… She told me about what it was like to come out to her parents. I told her I had never been in a relationship before. Right before we fell asleep she kissed me on the cheek, so I kissed her back. It was so much fun and felt so easy, so much easier than any time I had spent with anyone else lately. As we kept hanging out, I couldn’t get her off of my mind, and felt distracted by how strong and dominating our friendship was in my life.

She was just someone that I thought was really cool, who became a good, and then really good friend. We found reasons to hang out together, would make excuses to watch a movie or go on a walk. My heart beat faster when I was around her, and I would sweat a little, I would wonder what she was doing or who she was talking to, and get a little bit jealous… but I didn’t know what it was.

I wrote in my journal: Crush? But that felt weird. Girl crush?

One time we were palm reading in her room, and we looked at our sexuality lines. She had one that meant she liked girls, I didn’t. By palm-reading standards I was 100% straight.

Life went on and we spent time together, and time apart. I was always thinking about her and what she could be doing.

It felt like an unjustified obsession.

I tried taking up meditation.

It didn’t work.

Months went by… We got really close a few times, but I didn’t know what it meant to me, or how to recognize the feelings I had: butterflies when we held hands or spooned on her bed, the tingly energy and faint numbness that surged through me when we connected about something. They were strong feelings, but feelings that I had never felt before, and didn’t know how to label or accept.

The first time she kissed me she was really drunk. The next morning when I told her about it she said: “If only you were gay”. Huh. If only I was…

The second time she kissed me she was just a little tipsy, and came knocking on my door at 4am. I had already gone to sleep, but opened the door for some reason and then got back in bed. She came and laid down next to me, looked at me for a long time, and then slowly came towards me. We kissed once, twice, and then over and over, each one a trial, a question, an uncertainty. We kissed and talked and laid together. It happened again the next night, soberly.

Then it got hard. She was still with the other girl.

“We can’t keep doing this anymore”.

But it kept happening, and my feelings grew stronger, more certain.

And then I was in love with her. Maybe I was all along, but just didn’t know what it felt like. We said it to each other once. I felt the words coming out of my mouth but couldn’t back up the feelings because they felt so foreign to me. Even though I knew it was love, it was love with a woman.

The day she told me we really had to stop (she was really with someone else and as going to make it work), I got an urge to say what I was feeling:

“So… um, hmmm. So, I’m hesitant to say this because I just don’t know how I feel about it, but I think I only like women”.

Saying it out loud it all made sense:

Saying the word “boyfriend” in relation to my future self has never felt comfortable to me, like my motor skills know it will never be a part of my life. I always just laugh along when my friends obsess over boys and their attractiveness… not knowing how to participate. A couple of times I made up crushes on boys I had no feelings for, just because I felt like I should.

She was the best person to tell. She understood all of my feelings and uncertainty, and was practically taking the words out of my mouth.

I remember feeling so confused: “I almost don’t feel right saying it because I still feel like its not really true, or its not mine to say”.

She was right there, “Yup, yup, I know. You’re like, is this really happening to me? Because you never imagined that it would”.

But mostly, she was validating:

“You’re a part of the coolest group of people ever! We’re the most accepting, the most fun, and we’re the elite… we are better than everyone else”. She had a parade for me.

And then it was real.

A few days later I skyped my best friend:

“So, I’m gay… ahhhh kfjneneiunfw. That feels weird to say.”

 She, too, said all the right things. “Girl, it doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want. It reminds me of that Eminem song: I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like”.

It feels right. I was imagining my future and my story as something that deep down I knew was never going to happen. I was trying to get to Omaha, Nebraska without a map, but I’m totally ok to go to Chicago, just a two hour drive, using my GPS… and I know I will like it there. But a little part of me feels like I should go to Omaha even though I know it’s going to feel weird and uncomfortable and hard to navigate.

And the girl? We grew distant, but my feelings for her stayed the same, so I told her again one day.

“This wasn’t just a realization for me, it was more than that! I still really care about you”.

But it became very clear to me that this huge landmark in my life was just a little detour for her. I was left feeling dumb and ashamed not having my feelings reciprocated. I wanted to crawl in a hole. But I guess that is the way that a lot of people feel at some point in their life.

Every day is a new challenge: someone new to tell, something new to think about. How am I going to have children? Sometimes I’m excited to share this new part of me, sometimes I’m scared. My cousin’s girlfriend jokes that the only way she can meet my grandparents is if she has a paper bag over her head and pretends to be a man. When my sister tried to bring her girlfriend into the house to get a drink of water after she had driven her all the way home from Boston to New Jersey, my Dad left the property. He has since been trying to convince her that her relationship is “just a phase”. My mom is so concerned about my relationship deficit that she will be relieved to know it has just been a mass of confusion.

But I‘m not confused anymore. I feel great.

Intended Publication: Modern Love

Word Count: 1343

Outline:

Charlotte eludes herself

Charlotte likes girl

Charlotte explores feelings

Charlotte accepts feelings

Charlotte knows herself