Stories

My brother is at odds with Thomas Wolfe. He is living proof that you can go home again. Oklahoma City is just that kind of place. I can’t really describe what makes my hometown so special to people who have never passed through the capital of the panhandle state. Perhaps the folks best suited to explain the city’s certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ are its chefs. Chefs like my brother, Jonathon Stranger, Mark Dunham, Josh Valentine, Chris Becker, Kurt Fleischfresser, Russ Johnson, and the father of Mission Chinese, Danny Bowien.

Like many members of this crew, my brother left Oklahoma City at eighteen and explored various parts of the globe through a cook’s lens. At age 27, armed with folders full of harrowing but valuable tales from the restaurant world and some culinary tools in his belt, he returned and thought about how he could make his mark on the city’s landscape without turning a blind eye to his roots. And so Ludivine was born, a farm to table restaurant set in Midtown, a newly revitalized area of the city, where Oklahomans could taste dishes inspired by and using fresh, local ingredients, like bison (the tenderloin is my personal favorite).

But what I think makes Oklahoma City’s chefs so unique is not just that they are simply introducing new approaches to food and what it means to dine out to its customers, but that they are working together, side by side, to foster a sense of community in this collective venture. They love food as much as they love the people they serve, the people they grew up with, the people of OKC.

Which is why when the devastating tornado touched ground in Moore on May 21st, leveling entire city blocks and taking 24 lives, including 9 children, it was only natural that this eclectic group would find a way to bring people together and raise money for the victims in a setting that would celebrate who we are as proud, resilient Oklahomans.

A few days before my birthday, a picnic table arrived in our yard, carted down the driveway in Roy’s truck. Roy held out for as long as he could, swearing he was not going to pay money for a picnic table when he could build one for much less, or better yet, build us a really lovely outdoor dining table. I know he was disappointed not to have the time to do it this summer, but at least he didn’t leave us without something to sit around for the birthday gathering.

We positioned the table under the shade of the giant maple, which just happens to be about halfway between the back door and the garden gate—the path we travel most often. We intended to move the table after the party, since it’s in the way of the rope swing. But it seems to be settling in, letting us know it’s happy where it is—and happy to do for us whatever we need. Oddly enough, it’s as if the table was always meant to be here, as if the backyard beckoned it to come complete our outdoor living room. (The grill is right nearby, too.)

Someone wise once told me that ’shoulds’ lead to anger, and that if I ever found myself experiencing irrational irritation or annoyance I should look for ways I’ve decided someone or some thing ‘should’ be behaving, then decide if that ‘should’ is rational. This has proven a very useful technique for me, since I can pretty much chronicle my life through a series of frustrations with how the world behaves, in contrast to the way it behaves in my fantasies. ‘The World Is Not Enough’ would be a good title for the story of my life, had it not been taken already by the James Bond franchise.

A fairly recent exception to my chronic state of dissatisfaction, one that leaves me hopeful that I may have at last conquered my demon, comes in the form of smartphone applications (apps). What makes me especially hopeful that I’m cured is the massive potential for disappointment the smartphone presents. If you think about it, a device that can access the internet wirelessly, take high-resolution photos, talk, sense touch, recognize speech, know exactly where it is in the world (including which way is up), know whether it’s moving and how fast, and recognize the direction and strength of magnetic fields should be able to accomplish some pretty amazing feats.

To my surprise, I find that smartphone apps that should exist, often do. For instance, I take comfort in the fact that there is an app that finds the cheapest gas near my current location, and one that listens to a song whose name I can’t remember and identifies it for me, and one that overlays the constellations over the sky when I point my phone at any part of it.

Truth be told, I’m not all that social. It’s odd, since my actual job title is “Hospitality Coordinator,” a job for which I am completely without portfolio – my background in literature and law suggests something rather more Jarndyce and Jarndyce than Julie, Your Cruise Director. I dodge phone calls and invitations, ducking them as if they were fire-tipped arrows. I am often glad that I went wherever I went, but the dread is crippling. In some weird agoraphobia variant, I fear being buttonholed by a bore, made to act out The Twelve Days of Christmas or just jangled to death by the repetitive intrusion of other peoples’ noise and chatter and energy.

At this time of year, when events are thick on the ground at work and there are concerts, and holiday parties and family gatherings lurking around every corner, I find myself drawing into a tight, gray ball to think mutinous thoughts. I will wear all black to the Christmas party, I will sit in the back of the auditorium so I can leave quickly and quietly, I will extricate myself from the Never-ending Story by claiming that my phone buzzed and it’s probably my brother making his annual call from the research station in Antarctica, so I’d better take it.