Archive for September, 2009

I love meeting all kinds of people - and of course, having punished myself for years living the musician’s life on the road I get a real kick hanging out with musical wing nuts every chance I get...ah, those road stories and reflections always stir up the old dust (yep, some day I’ll buy myself an old Volkswagon camper Van and hit the road again…this time with Mini and little princess in tow!).  And , you know, what I’ve found over the years having met many celebrities, bigwigs, party people, family people, musicians, artists, moms and dads, and folks of all walks of life – is that we’re pretty much all very much the same. 

Good people are good people, no matter what you’ve gotten up to in your life – and good people can always relate, like old friends. Especially at the table, with good food.

Case in point -  Rockstar LUKAS ROSSI was in the house on Thursday night  – you may remember him from the wildly popular ROCKSTAR:SUPERNOVA phenomenon a few years back – and I had the cool ‘trip’ of cooking, hanging, and smokin’ darts with Lukas and his handler for a couple of hours….funny, the song really does remain the same – no matter who you are, where you’ve been and what you’ve seen. We hit it off like old pals, and he spent some time getting to know our guests around the Supperclub room.

We shot breeze about food, paying our days, working for a dream, staying sober in search of real goals, making waves and staying true to self, our insecurities, and the importance of having only our allies (and great women) by our sides as we help each other figure out this beautiful puzzle of life.  Sound Familiar, friends? The things of life that make us all one and the same…Yep, we truly are all Rock Stars, aren’t we?

And good food, as I’ve always said, breaks down all barriers and unites us at a common table! Of course (note the last name) Lukas is a died-in-the-wool Italian boy and we traded off  food anecdotes (and old Italian swears)  for a bit – and Rossi swears the chow at our Respect is Burning Supperclub would put most L.A. ‘BUZZ’ restaurants in place…and that great Italian food like ours is next to impossible to find – even in the City of Lights.

Duh, no surprise -  we’ve travelled enough to know….’nuff said, my nonnas taught me right!

Ah, look at the bags under the Boy Eyes...Mini's, of course, are perfect!

We had some chuckles about some of his exploits with fellow Rock Gods Tommy Lee (ex Motley Crue), Dave Navarro (ex Jane’s Addiction and ex-hubby to uber-BABE Carmen Electra), Jason Newstead (Metallica, Bassist!) and Gilby Clarke (guitarist legendary Guns n’ Roses!) – whatever he could remember,  as he says that the year and a half after ROCKSTAR: SUPERNOVA was a friggin’ blur of a rocket ride…and that’s, of course, where most musicians definitely can relate.  That having been said, I was getting the old itch..just a quick shot or two of grappa  down the hatch…just to catch that old down n’ dirty rock n’ roll buzz….

Anyways, we both held firm and stayed away from the bar - Lukas never drinks before a show – anymore ;) – and I haven’t had a drink in 3 months (and I won’t till my soon-to-be-born first child and little princess is born…and then look out, wine cellar!)  – and we parted ways with the handshake deal that we’d re-unite for a Godzilla versus King Kong style showdown with a few bottles of good red vino and tequila, and a party of legendary proportion in L.A. sometime soon.  God forbid, and somebody please get me a doctor – I promise I’ll do Sudbury and all of you BIG justice and show the Hollywood Bad Boys that we mean business!!

Love ya, and till next time - EXCELSIOR!!

signed - CHEF WHO WILL ALWAYS LOVE THE ROAD

With RIBFEST now behind us, I thought I’d take you and I both on a look back at another killer event pulled off late this summer – again, in the streets of our DOWNTOWN Sudbury!!

Recently, the Greater Sudbury Restaurant and Food Association was formed – sounds like a dull tag, but the motivations and goals are dynamic and cool and the implications are HUGE (more on that on a later post, I promise – and this is going to interesting!  Watch as I peel back the curtain W-5 style on the REAL differences between chain restaurants and what you’re getting when you support a local fightin’ INDIE resto like our Respect is Burning Supperclub!!!  This is gonna be good and it sure won’t win me any favours in corporate franchise world – but you deserve to know!).  ‘Nuff Said!

Anyhoo, the first mission of the GSRFA was to throw a downtown Dinner Party to showcase the major players in our City’s Indie Restaurant Scene.  Dubbed “SAVOUR THE STREETS”, this smokin’ event was the first of its kind and it ROCKED!

One massive, galley-style table snaking down Durham Street feeding 7 courses to a seated crowd of over 200 hungry (and very thirsty) downtown dreamers and supporters!!! We jumped at first course, serving up Tuscan Coal-Grilled Lamb and Stuffed Quail over summer Canellini Bean and Prosciutto Salad…mmmmmmmm…..

Sure, there were a few minor glitches, but definitely one for the history books and one great piece of the puzzle in the dream of bringing our people back to the heart (or, as they say in the old country, ‘La Piazza”) of the city, our collective birthplace. Look out for a repeat – BIGGER AND BETTER – of this awesome event next year, and many, many more new events being taken back to the streets - for all of us!

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO, courtesy of Rob Provencher of WESTMOUNT PHOTOGRAPHY (www.westmountphotography.com) – who was everywhere that day – including jumping roof to roof (you know, the view is pretty amazing from the top of Respect is Burning Supperclub…gonna try to get something going on our rooftop someday!).

HERE IT IS – ENJOY, AND EXCELSIOR!!!!
ROB

This year, we move forward to our next step in our BIG DREAM. MWUUAHAHAAA!…and we want everyone out there on board! You see, we never envisioned our restaurant creation as the end…we only ever saw it as a beginning,  and as the heart of our dreams.

Great food is an amazing thing! It gives life to us all at the most basic level, it makes friends, it nourishes communities of all shapes, sizes and ideologies. It helps us grow both physically, spiritually, mentally…yeah, man, that’s heaaaaavy….

Are you white collar, blue collar, no collar, white, brown, black, purple, liberal, conservative, artist, banker, painter, punk, politician, top model or loving homemaker, CEO or skater … it doesn’t really matter, does it?  We all eat – and in its best form, food gives immense enjoyment and a feeling of togetherness to all who share a table!  And that’s why we love creating great food – because it speaks to us all in a way that brings us all together. And we love people!

SO, what do we see in our future?

We see a future that becomes part and parcel of the fabric of our community. Yep, we’re working on creating a legacy with you – food building entertainment, and entertainment building community, and community building fun, energy and excitement for all of us!   We see a downtown that truly becomes a part of everyone’s lives again.  In fact, we see entire community endearment to this birthplace of our city.  We see a downtown that morphs to the next level, with a community and urban vibe that makes us the envy of cities everywhere – great for families, great for friends, and busting out with great food for all – inspired stuff, not the corporate mash being peddled as the modern restaurant thing.

We see people waking up from a corporate-induced slumber where it once felt normal to eat in a soul-less space, a ‘restaurant’ where food is pulled out of an air-lock bag, microwaved and put on your table, with fabricated slogans like “FEEL RIGHT AT HOME’ or “YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD BAR & GRILL”(Hmmmm….I don’t know about you…where I was raised, neighbourhood wasn’t a parking lot surrounded by shiny warehouse Box Stores. Anybody else catching the irony, friends?).

And we see our community once again truly thinking about supporting each other, seeking out each others services and offerings,  sharing the fabric of life together, coming together often. And in my mind, downtown’s where it can start again.

I’ve traveled alot, I’ve been lucky – and having been to countless places, towns and cities where downtown remain the cultural, epicurean and entertainment center for all citizens, suffice it to say that pure magic happens on a daily basis. Now, I’m not about to compare our downtown with that of Toronto, Montreal, New York, Rome, or Tokyo…but just IMAGINE.

That’s why we came down here to the birthplace of our city in the first place, at a time when everyone was getting the hell out of Dodge. Because any city’s downtown truly is a telescope turned backwards on us all, a barometer for that city and how much that city really cares about itself and its own…and everybody else is watching, far and near. And with the allegience of many, many of our friends and their families, we’ve served an incredible number of great meals to a mind-blowing number of great people who’ve jumped back on board early with us, Downtown.

And so, we’ve started a community at Respect is Burning Supperclub in our Downtown…something that strikes most people at a level deeper than just sitting in a fancy booth in a generic (and yet…AHEM… ‘branded’) retail box owned by shareholders in some ivory tower eating ‘food’ that came off an assembly line in a factory many, many hundreds of miles away.

It  makes us feel REALLY good when we meet people in our space who really ‘get it’  (and happily, we hear it often!) because at least then, we feel like the risks we took and will continue to take and the fever we’ve got for our vision – for the food we love so much and the ability to serve it to our community like our parents did and our granparents before them did, and the desire to be a force in re-creating our downtown in a positive way for us and everyone else  - surely must be felt by at least a few others…damn straight!

We’ve got a population here of 150,000 – IMAGINE if only 1% of that population came downtown on a daily basis.  That’s 1,500 local citizens walking together, dining together, sipping cappuccino together, breaking bread together and saying ‘hello’ to each other. Twirling fettuccine, sipping good wine, snacking great street-cart foods, watching jugglers and street buskers and artists and caricature painters work with us and entertain us – IMAGINE introducing other locals and visitors and our children to this amazing place we all own together!!

Because any city’s downtown truly is a telescope turned backwards on us all, a barometer for that city and how much that city really cares about itself and its own…and everybody else is watching, far and near. And we want us all to look GOOD.  EXCELSIOR!!!

COME ON DOWN - EVERYBODY'S HERE!

Lamb Chops Al Fresco taste GREAT!

PREPARE, FRIENDS – THE  SUPPERCLUB ADVENTURE PART 2 IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!