Revival & Alma - December 23, 2015
(Running joke with a chef friend whose food I’m fond of. He posted the wallpaper once as a tweet, so now every time I go I take a picture of it. Sometimes I send it to him, sometimes I just keep it in my photos to forget about it until later.)
Mentioned before, but I didn’t take a lot of vacation this year, was either saving it up in hopes of a trip that didn’t happen or other reasons. I worked the weeks around the holidays last year because I wanted to save the week that’s allowable to be carried over to the next year. Somehow I found myself with a few more days than that though, so to prevent losing, I ended up using.
Historically I would have been content to lounge around, or find a coffee shop to sit in, and read. Sometime over the past two years though -as I’ve alluded to before, if I have nothing to do and I don’t make an effort to volunteer in some manner, it doesn’t feel right. During the week when I volunteer, that puts me just a few blocks away from Nicollet, home of a lot of great restaurants. It’s called “eat street” for a reason.
When I told good friend and frequent dining companion Kat that I was thinking of hitting up Revival for lunch one of the days after I was volunteering we agreed it would be fun to meet up for lunch. We’re both big fans of what Thomas and his crew put on the plate. So we met up for a late lunch. It wasn’t as busy as it would be the the next week, so we opted to wait for a table.
Kat did a collage of pictures.
Half Bird Tennessee Hot Chicken: The primary reason I go to Revival, I’m not brave enough to go full on Poultrygeist yet, but the Tennessee Hot gets me. Succulent, crisp, hot - if you haven’t had this you’re depriving yourself.
Hoppin’ John: Such a good side. I want to figure out how to make this so I can make it at home and put a soft boiled egg and some hot sauce on it.
Mac & Cheese: Still my favorite Mac & Cheese in town, I like my homemade version almost as much, but I can buy this without having to figure out what to do with the other 5-7 servings.
Pimento (puh-men-uh) Lucy: If you’re at all familiar with the Twin Cities, you’re aware that the burger phenomenon hasn’t always been about the recently much loved double cheeseburger. Before doubles it was Lucys. This was a great Southern take on the Twin Cities institution, using Pimento cheese instead of the traditional sliced American was a really good idea. Still a great grind and blend on the meat, the cheese was so gooey and great. This is usually a Tuesday night special, but we were lucky enough at lunch on Wednesday to get the last one that didn’t sell the night before. If you can get there at 4pm on a Tuesday or don’t mind waiting a while (it’s worth it), definitely get this one.
Instead of splitting this into two posts I’m just going to keep going since they were the same day and it was on my way home. Plus I’ll have more to write after.
I had my first Alma experience this summer. I’d eaten the food of sister restaurant Brasa countless times, either at the restaurant or via catered lunches at work, I’m a big fan. My bus ride home after work takes me right past Alma and the future home of its attached bakery/cafe, so the temptation and reminder to go back is nigh daily.
While the bakery is still a dream yet to come true, every so often they let us get a glimpse of what’s coming by hosting the occasional pop-up. This time it was just in time for Christmas. To say that their pop-ups are popular would be an understatement. Lines out the door on a day with a rain and snow mixture, entire families so they can buy a few more dozen cookies.
If you peruse my Instagram feed from 2014, you’ll notice that I baked, a lot. From the quality control during that time frame, and because I’m a big guy already, I don’t really want or need cookies. I went with the intent of buying some to give them away, maybe getting something that is different for myself. Given there was a 3 dozen limit and 12 cookies, it only made sense to buy 3 of each. I also grabbed a loaf of Farro bread, a Kouign Amann, and some of the Cocoa Nib Praline.
(A picture with all 12 given to my friend Kat)
I ended up giving a dozen each to two close friends while delivering Christmas cards the next day. One’s a great friend that has a respectable sweet tooth. The other a dear friend who’s like me in the respect that she’d rather make something and give it away instead of having it around, besides she had family coming and one member follows a gluten-free regimen. I fully intended to take the remaining dozen to my family’s Christmas day celebration, but the demands of the day, and baking some cookies for my mom distracted me, so after the next few days, I managed to get through them. They were really good.
I eagerly await the opening of the bakery and cafe proper. Catching an earlier bus just to get off and enjoy a coffee and maybe a baked good before getting on the ultimate bus home could become an easy ritual.
After deciding to combine this post I ended up thinking on the relationship between the names of the restaurants. Seeking patterns and connections is something my brain does often, sometimes too much. But it’s helpful in my line of work and in my chosen hobbies.
When you look up the definition of “revival” you get the following:
But when I hear the word “revival” besides thinking of the above restaurant, I don’t think of the definitions given above, the first thing that comes to mind is those big tent gospel revivals of lore. I’m unsure what aspect of literature or pop culture placed this association so deep in my psyche, but it’s what I think of when I hear the word.
Now Alma, alma. First some backstory. I used to be really good, and really enthusiastic, about math. So much so when I was in sixth grade I had to go to the junior high school to take math class, and in eight grade, I had to go to the high school. You couldn’t just go to the high school for math, the timing of buses and classes meant you had to take an elective as well. A couple of the students took German, but most of us took Spanish. I ended up learning it pretty well and enjoyed it greatly, and not just because it introduced me to the previously written about “El Meson.” I took all four years that were offered, and when I decided to take my first trip out of the country during a break in college, I went to Spain. I spent most of my time in Madrid in tapas bars and museums, but did travel around a little to sample paella in various areas.
In Spanish, and all Romance languages really, “alma” means soul.
So, now I have what comes to mind when I think of “revival” and what “alma” means. See my connection? It takes on another level when considering that Alma is a bakery, wherein one gets bread, which is a requirement for the gospel. In this instance it might just be a series of coincidences, but it’s linked to the examination I’ve mentioned and begun.
A lot of my friends would be surprised to learn that I was a pretty biblically knowledgeable kid growing up. Sunday school for religious instruction, buses to Bible Camp to memorize the books and learn more lessons, a brief time in the Royal Rangers before switching to Boy Scouts. It all ended during confirmation. I was too inquisitive, too stubborn, and/or too impatient. I lived near a library from the time I was 10 years old, if I had a question, I would hike through the woods in my back yard, cross the parking lot, go into the library, and seek. I don’t think that was the most conducive to the formation and strengthening of my younger self’s faith. So it ended up discarded.
I didn’t have a label back then for what it was, it was just something I dropped and didn’t have anymore. I knew enough that I had to be really creative when answering some questions during the interview to be awarded the rank of Eagle Scout, specifically about a scout always being “reverent.” I ended up politicking the answer to that, twisting it to mean “solemnly respectful” which *is* one of its definitions.
There were brief periods when I tried to pick it up again, most notably when I was in basic training in the Air Force, and a couple of times during my enlistment. But like some Arthurian sword, or mythological Norse hammer, my half efforts wouldn’t yield purchase.
I’d long become familiar with the word to describe one that doesn’t have faith and doesn’t have questions. I was an atheist. I was comfortable with that, for a long time. I even used to look for more of what I thought were unanswerable questions, highlighting the Bible my grandparents had given me before confirmation had started. I still have it, it’s not as marked up as I remember.
I say I was an atheist, but that was only until the rise of the Internet Atheist, I couldn’t count myself among those that choose vitriol and would become thieves of others’ comfort and beliefs. So I started looking again. Buddhism caught my imagination for a while, but didn’t hold it. So my quick detour through agnosticism quickly became something probably worse, general ambivalence.
This lasted for years until I started thinking about string theory and M-theory, silly as that sounds. Whenever some outcome wasn’t what I expected or desired, I’d use my weak understanding of the latter to rationalize that just because it didn’t happen here, it probably happened in at least one other universe, that lessened any disappointment there might be. This mindset didn’t last long, but it did raise the question, if there’s an infinite number of universes with various combinations of happenings, is it possible that there was a universe that did have deity like beings that could affect the happenings of the entirety of said universe? If so, could it be this universe? Again, these were just thought experiments, they never reached the level of theory, knowledge, of belief. But they were fun to think about.
Things remained static in this ambivalent scientific agnosticism for a long time. During this time I never intentionally disrespected anyone for their faith, a part of me was jealous they had it and I didn’t, but it had been a decade and a half since I thought deeply about it. Then I started volunteering, which I’ve mentioned frequently. At first it was to get out and socialize with some like minded beer fanatics with Surly Gives a Damn. Then it became more. I didn’t want to wait for the tweets, Facebook posts, and emails calling for SGAD volunteers. Sure, I still wanted to do that and help a variety of organizations. But once I volunteered with a food organization that was directly helping people, I found that that’s the type of permanent volunteering I wanted to do.
Parallel, and just prior, to this period of time, I was asked a couple of times if I was interested in becoming a chef. (For the record, I don’t think I’m qualified, but it’s nice to have someone think you’re capable of it.) During one of these offers I was asked “what do you love about food?” My inquisitor had more than a few drinks in him, so I tried my best to explain in my words that it was the aspect of it being a great act of trust. We need to eat. We enjoy it, yes, but we need to do it. By going to a restaurant you’re saying to the cooks that you trust them enough to help you continue living, and that you hope you’re going to enjoy it while they help you do so.
I think that mindset is what led me to choose to dedicate my personal volunteer time to a food based organization. The thankfulness of a few of the clients of the organization, with their effusive declarations of “God bless you” and “You’re doing the Lord’s work” were falling on non-believing, thus non-receptive ears. Or so I thought. After a few months of this, always choosing different routes to deliver, I didn’t realize it, but I started wondering. Wondering if I was missing something, if they knew something I didn’t, or had long forgotten.
Then, early on the anniversary of JFK’s death, while reading and writing. I decided to stop wondering and start examining. An interesting thing related to the date of JFK’s death; it’s also the day that Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World,” and C. S. Lewis, author of the “Narnia” books, both died. Working in a bookstore for a couple years, I was tangentially aware that C. S. Lewis was also the author of a bunch of Christian books beyond the heavily symbolic “Narnia” books, but that wasn’t an area of the bookstore under my responsibility, and not within my spheres of interest. Until I read about his history, on the anniversary of his death.
That’s when I learned that his trajectory was eerily similar to mine, but his arced a little further.
Later that day I went to one of the sister bookstores to the one I worked at all those years ago and went to the section that I never had a reason to go. I grabbed a few of his books. The next day I ordered some of the ones they didn’t have from Amazon. Then I started reading. A dear friend recommended some other books, I’m reading those too.
The core lessons and tenets of what I’m reading involve the sharing of a meal - specifically bread, the deliverance of food, that ultimate trust of that which is consumed is necessary for life.
Too recently, when I found myself in a church or similar place of worship, I’d casually mention the truth that the only time I found myself in these places was for weddings and deaths. But more recently I found myself in a beautiful house of worship on Christmas Eve with a dear friend, singing, and it didn’t feel wrong.
I don’t know where this examination will end. I still wonder. I’m definitely going to keep reading.
That’s what the connections between “Revival” and “Alma,” made on an uncharacteristically rainy December day, made me think of.
¯_(ツ)_/¯