![Breaking-dawn-bella-jacob[1]](http://jv-foodie.typepad.com/.a/6a00d835146fbe53ef017c318eb6f0970b-800wi "Breaking-dawn-bella-jacob[1]")
I know I am considerably late to the party to weigh in on the debate of Team Edward vs.Team Jacob in the Twilight saga, but I am going to anyways . . .Team Jacob, all the way, baby. Jacob, played by Tyler Launtner, is ruggedly handsome with a completely masculine energy, animalistic instincts and is warm blooded . . .Bow Wow! What's not to crave about that?
I should come clean, about a year ago, I listened to most of the Twilight books in my car going back and forth between Oklahoma and Kansas City hosting my
Test Kitchen dinners. It was ear candy for a long and terribly dull drive for me that I had made hundreds of times before. But, I vowed at the end of the 3rd book, that as a grown woman, I was no longer able to pretend that it was okay that somebody in that book had not had sex with anyone else. Now, I don't want to come across as a desperate housewife, I just wanted the love story to progress beyond butterfly kisses and hand holding. I was over it, and refused to listen to "Breaking Dawn." They were teenagers for pity's sake. Hormones should have been raging for someone, supernatural, or not.
However, in a moment of weakness this weekend, I hit up the Redbox and rented "Breaking Dawn" to see Bella and Edward's honeymoon night in Brazil. (Spoiler alert:) Bella winds up preganant with Edward's baby, and she almost dies giving birth to it. Jacob is there for the birth of the baby and realizes that he is going to have to kill Bella's baby to save his pack, besides he thinks Bella is dead, and that makes it easier for him to kill the evil vampire baby that took her life. Just as he is about to pounce, the baby girl, named Renesme, looks at Jacob and he imprints on her. This is apparently something unique to werewolves and it means that she is his soulmate and no one but her will do in Jacob's heart and mind. Of course, there will be an age difference between them, but he will wait and protect her, until she is ready for him. (I know a little far fetched, but the author had to figure out a way to keep the love triangle alive, dontcha know.)
I love the idea of someone imprinting on someone else. I think it is a very romantic notion that someone was meant for you. That they have no choice, but to be with you, and you, alone. A person destined for you, pehaps even created for you. It's so Adam and Eve, no? The definition of the word "imprint" is to impress or mark on a surface or body. Impress away, Jacob!
This idea of imprinting got me to thinking about how a form of culinary imprinting takes place when a new Chef or restauranteur takes over an old space and gives it a new life with all of the love that only a new owner, like a new lover, can bring. An existing restaurant with a new owner is seen with new and loving eyes. It is given a new name, spruced up with new decor, new food, new staff and new creative vision.
It's like all of the new owners fresh, bright, hopeful energy overflows into this space where it mixes and melds with the energy of all the other people and businesses who had also felt that way about that same space . . .giving a place a sense of time and place, and adds to it's long rich history. It the the same idea as the old saying; you stand on the shoulders of those that came before you.
This idea of culinary imprinting on a space really hit home for me when I was talking to Chef Colby Garrelts about securing a location in Mission Farms for his new restaurant, Rye. Colby and his wife, Megan, after looking at several spaces finally decided on an interesting space in the back corner of Mission Farms that faced a lovely pond.
The issue was that this place seemed cursed with several fair to partly cloudy restaurants in the past. Colby was not concerned at all, and moved to lease the space. Colby explained to me that with the changes that he planned to make to the space and decor and his team's experience running restaurants he knew he could make that place work. (If traffic is any indication, he certainly has made his place work. Rye is a big win for this culinary power couple, and for Leawood.)
When I asked him specifically if he was worried about the "curse" of previous tenants failure in that space, he laughed out loud, and said, "No way! I am grateful for that Mexican restaurant (Los Cabos) that was here. They put in a ton of kitchen equipment including a serious pantry and fry station to make their baskets of corn chips . . .all of that, it's mine now." So, Los Cabos, although not successful in that location, left their own culinary imprint in the space in the way of "like-new" kitchen equipment that Colby, and Rye, now reap the benefits of in their operation. I'd like to personally, give a big shout out and thank you to Los Cabos!
I also take some pride in the small culinary imprint I have made on a great little pizza shop in the West Plaza area called, Johnny Jo's Pizzeria.
Johnny Jo's Pizzeria is owned by outgoing, nice guy, John Milone, whose culinary mantra seemed to be: "Don't quit your day job, until your night job pays." Working at Chef Jasper Jr's & Leonard Mirabile's (who also happens to be John's godfather) Italian deli, Marco Polo, by day, John who had a dream of making and delivering the highest quality pizza he could, would go home at night and tinker with making the perfect pizza from an old recipe he found in his grandparents things.
When he thought he had it right, he began delivering them to friends and neighbors asking them for feedback. The feedback was loud and clear. Starting at about 5:30 pm when he would get off work, his phone began ringing with friends and family wanting to order pizza's from him . . .and they wanted to pay for them. Thus began his home pizza delivery business. Within months of burning the midnight oil making large, New York style pizzas, he began looking for the perfect small footprint to open his "hole-in-the-wall" pizza shop. He needed a commerical space to keep up with the demand for his pies.
That's when he stumbled across a small stand alone building near the corner of 47th and Holly, in the West Plaza neighborhood that used to be a cute pink and black cupcake shop called "Cupcake Al A Mode". He measured the shop, and it proved to be just big enough to hold the pizza oven he was purchasing to make his pizzas and signature stromboli's. He signed the lease and began making his pizza's at night, while continuing his work at Marco Polo, during the day. Finally, with a little press, a little luck and a lot of success he was able to go ahead and quit his day job to have his pizza shop open for lunch and dinner. Johnny Jo’s is now open 11 a.m.—9:30 p.m. Monday—Thursday, 11:30 a.m.—12:30 a.m. Friday, and 5 p.m.—12:30 a.m. Saturday.
I grabbed Tastie one night, and went to Johnny Jo's for dinner. I was hoping to meet John to tell him how my own retail culinary experiences in his new pizza shop in the West Plaza neighborhood were hopefully helping his pizza place. John was at the pizza shop that night, as HE IS the only employee in this one man enterprise, which I didn't realize. He answers the phone, rings up customers and makes the pizzas . . .like a BOSS. He is also a joy to talk to, because he has a singular passion and focused belief that by doing one thing, really well, and by using the highest quality ingredients (like San Marzano tomatoes for his sauce and a 50/50 blend of mozarella and provolone cheese on his pies, along with local Scimeca's sausage) you will be successful.
As he began to make a 20" half cheese, half sausage pizza for Tastie and I to enjoy, I began to tell him about my own previous culinary adventures in his space as the owner of a retail shop selling foods, arts and crafts from Brazil. (Cupcake A La Mode came in after we closed.)
The shop was called The Brazilian Cargo Company, and my mother-in-law at the time, Anna Lucia, and I ran it from 2000 to 2005. We loved that little store, but eventually closed it when most of our regulars had graduated from Park University and UMKC and moved back to Brazil. Look how cute our little place was! See Anna Lucia at the register, and that little boy sitting at the table having a snack is Tastie. Tastie called our store "The Blue Store" and it was where he spent most of his days when he was little, as I continued to work full-time at my corporate job after he was born. He considered himself an ambassador of that shop, mimicking what he saw Anna and I do, when we had people entering our shop. He has impeccable manners for a 2 year old. "Goodbye, thank you for coming," he would gleefully shout and wave at people as they were leaving the store.
We decided after the first several years of owning the store that we wanted to become a coffee shop that would serve Brazilian snack foods and small sandwiches. So we began the long, painful, process of working with KCMO Health Department to try to convert what had previously been an office space, and before that a dried flower shop, into a coffee shop. We had already gutted and remodeled the space for it to work as a retail space, and after the Health Department left us with our first punch list of must haves, we began to work to bring the bathrooms up to code to be unisex, and installed a three comparment sink in the back with a floor drain. Then we started working on converting all of our workspaces to stainless and began shopping for commerical grade equipment. We called the Health Department back out after we had fulfilled most of the punch list, and were tragically disappointed when we were presented with a whole new list. With most of our reserve cash depleted, and the end of the spending no where in sight, we dropped the idea of being a coffee shop in that space, and continued on as a retail shop . . .disappointed and disillusioned.
As, I told John my story, his eyes grew wide. We laughed about the crazy landlady who STILL owns the building, and he told me is still using my unisex bathroom and three comparment sink in the back at Johnny Jo's. He regaled me with his own horror stories with the Health Department and this building and we both recognized that we had shared similar experiences. John, however, had the guts to see them through to success, where I just didn't have the ability to take that financial risk for my shop at the time.
As Tastie and I ate our pizza, which was absolutely delicious, I smiled to myself at all the memories that place held for me, and a tear or two spilled down my cheeks. I thought about the years I owned the store, and memories of Tastie's cute little presence there. That was another time, and another place, in my life. One that I had not thought about for a long, long time.
As I said good-bye to John, and walked out into the cold night air, I realized that had a feeling of pride, about the fact that the changes that I had made to that building, ultimately set it up for future restaurants to flourish there. The Brazilian Cargo Company had made it's culinary imprint on Cupcake A La Mode and Johnny Jo's Pizzeria...and who know who else in the future.
