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?