Happiness is: Cooing and Coaxing

Friends, good morning from beautiful New York City, where your good Friend Sarah is looking back on the last year and realized that I think in pictures and meals.  This is how I remember conversations that are life changing and all the people who were there when those things happened. 

I can look at a picture of a meal that I took and tell you when and where it was, who was there, and why that dinner was important.  I remember having my first taste of whale while in Oslo, Norway, with Dag, as I talked about the stirrings of needing change in my life.  Dag is my confidante, one of my closest confidantes with whom I can be completely myself, guard down, dreams laid out on the table, and he’s one of the people I trust most to listen and hear me and give feedback and challenge me and encourage me in ways most other people cannot, because I am very, very hard on myself.  I adore him, it’s true.  He is one of the only people I run to, and I mean RUN to, in every airport we meet.  We were in Australia, Paris, Brussels, Norway, Minneapolis and New York this year, working hard and playing hard, but most importantly, LIVING.

 I remember his and his Friend Thomas' holiday at my place this past summer, when we had a glorious dinner at La Belle Vie, my other home away from home and a restaurant close to my heart, where the Chefs spoiled us crazily that night....so happy.

 

I remember Family Night at La Belle Vie this past summer, where the dinner was only for industry peeps, and I was included.  I tried to be super cool and brought a special present for the staff.  I’ll tell you that story over a beer sometime, because it turned out to be quite the night that surprised just about everyone, thinking sweet little Sarah could never pull off the stunt I did that night.  I should have ended up in jail, I’m pretty sure. 

 

I like surprising my Chef Friends.  They encourage me like no one else in the world is able to do.  Here are Tim (La Belle Vie) & Landon (Haute Dish, otherwise known as my “cousin” Landon, we look so much alike in some pictures we probably should be related) on Family Dinner Night, and Landon & Lorin (La Belle Vie, Heyday) and Bill (La Bell Vie).  I missed Diane’s pastry course because I could not keep my act together.  Long story, but I regret it to this day, because that girl, that Chef, is incredibly talented and is one of my biggest cheerleaders, plus, we have a lot of fun when we’re out and about, checking out the scene.

 

 

 

Here are pictures of my lunch with Chef Jimmuh at Zen Box on South Washington in Minneapolis, where we made plans about restaurants and life.  John Ng and Lina Goh (owners of Zen Box) were also at Family Night at La Belle Vie, and I dig their ramen and Japanese pickles. I am craving them today, as usual.

 

Chef Jimmuh and I also checked out Left Handed Cook, which was the precursor to The Rabbit Hole, Minneapolis’ new Korean gastropub, both by Thomas Kim and Kat Melgaard, who not only opened a new restaurant but also had their first baby, all within 2 weeks of each other.  Love them and miss them a lot, too, along with their Korean fried chicken, naturally.  Jimmuh and I had the 21 spice Korean spice chicken as we talked about the shifts going on in the dining scene in Minneapolis and Belgium and Denmark, where he staged at Noma.  I am excited to have him preview their new restaurant menu in my loft before opening.  If you’re lucky, and if you talk all sweet to me, you just might end up on the invite list.  I’m looking at you, Jason DeRusha, and the rest of you, too.

I thought of the authentic Mexican mole I had with Drew in southern California a couple weeks ago, as we made plans to set up a business venture and took time to just recharge our batteries.  He’s a pediatric oncologist, and his dad did my thyroid biopsy back when things were a bit hectic in my life a few years ago.  Drew is family to me, and this meal was important, as was our talk, because it is going to mean exciting changes and new adventures ahead, working alongside another of the people I trust most in the world in business and in life.  We started putting the pieces in place, the first pieces, here, over this lunch.

 

I remember dinner at Salinas, here in NYC, with Juan, one of my vascular surgeons who always tells me things about myself I never would have thought to think---he is one of those people who gives me energy in a way that makes me climb and do and be more than I ever thought I could—all while looking good and laughing all night long.  We can have crucially honest conversations about business and life, and he is one of the people I respect most in the world.  I WILL HAVE his mom’s bacalhau (salted cod) recipe, mark my words.  We have traveled and eaten our way through Berlin, New York, Minneapolis, and he listens to my ideas and helps pare them, shape them, polish them.  He also mocks my college level Spanish, which is fantastic of him, as he also teaches me the key phrases to use to open doors that normally would not be opened for an American girl while traveling.

 

 

 

 

I remembered the Minnesota Potluck party we threw at my house this past summer, where Harley and Jill brought a super unusual and cool craft beer tasting (the craft beer movement is exploding across Minneapolis, with so many new breweries opening, including one that is 2 blocks from my loft, yay!).  All of my fantastic Friends brought Minnesota dishes to share when Dag visited Minneapolis---the party I threw together within 3 hours of my flight touching down from Boston.  Great night that night.  I think I’m still a bit hungover just remembering it, and I love that.

In the background you can see 1/3 of my cookbook collection, most of which I have sat on my lounge reading, looking over the skyline of my home city, getting inspired and making dreams and plans of life ahead while in my little loft in Minneapolis.

Here in New York, I picked up the Eleven Madison Park cookbook and saw this picture of one dish. 

I just stared at it for about 20 minutes, taking it all in, letting my brain work its quiet magic in the background, seeing things differently, switching on all the creativity neurons, helping me get ready to prepare a slideset on what I lovingly referred to as absolute nerdery over Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  I am chairing a conference on ethics and regulations in Belarus, Russia, Turkey & Kazakhstan, and leading the panel discussions on a compare and contrast with EU regulations (which I helped shape and co-write/review) and US, Australia, Japan and Canada regulations. 

I will be sitting alongside and leading the conversations all day for all presentations from speaker representatives from the Competent Authorities from each of those countries.  “Competent Authority” = their version of FDA.   There is some intense pressure here, as I will be guiding and facilitating the conversation of the highest people in their government who give the go/no-go decisions about whether or not my research projects get approved to start in their countries, and so I will be doing the charming Sarah dance while showing respect and deference.  I will, of course, also be telling them what is helpful and what perhaps could benefit from a little nuanced change here and there from my perspective, in order to help those countries be even more desirable as places/doctors for my teams to select when setting up medical research projects.  See that?  Smooth Sarah is getting her best dress on and is ready to make nice.  Just watch me do it, because I love those moments, when I can both divide and bring together an audience, working through tough conversations while always, always moving us forward, closer, in the end.

 

My role is not the important one here…mine is to set people up for success and be the facilitator that allows them to be the ones who shine.  That’s my favorite role of all, and that is why I cannot be a Chef.  I am so much better in the background, so much better giving affection and praise and making people FEEL good about doing hard things and having the rewards from it.  I love that part about being a woman…it goes deep into my core, that sense of cooing, coaxing, shaping, setting expectations, and then sitting back and watching the magic happen.

 

THAT is what a geek I am: right now I am listening to Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, switching off with A Tribe Called Quest and Cypress Hill, writing slides for regulations, dreaming of my time in the kitchen, and packing for Budapest as my laundry dries.  I am a study in contrast, a strange mix of right and left brain, a duality and tri-ality and quad-rality, and I would have it no other way.  I plan on discussing these countries’ food scene with them, telling them the places and things I love and want to learn more about, as a way to bring us closer together even in our conversations about differences.  Recognizing beautiful things in everyone’s culture is not only a sign of respect, it’s pretty cool, because in all the things that make us different, there are some things, like being around a table over a meal, sharing laughter and smiling at each other, is universal.  These things make me happy, so very happy, and I am looking so forward to this trip.

 

So my Friends, today I encourage you find things that are opposites yet linked together in interesting ways, to keep you fresh, to light you up inside, to inspire you, so that you, too, are cooed and coaxed and energized to go do everything you want to do in life. And as you go along this path, be sure to stop and thank all the people who quietly, all around you, give you the place and space to think and dream and be inspired, because whether you realize it or not, them living their dreams is helping you live yours.  We are so lucky to have each other.  Don’t ever forget it.

 

Signing off from New York, full of inspiration and joy,

Your Good Friend Sarah