Mixing Up the Menu with Dylan

It’s Bob Dylan’s birthday this week. He’s 85 and still on tour. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m 40 and tired enough already. But his birthday has me thinking about why I’m enamored with his work. Yeah, he’s arguably the greatest songwriter of all time. Honestly, it’s not really an argument. But he’s also a folk hero who went electric and kept being born again… and again… often into characters who both excel lyrically and spark entirely new musical eras. He creates something accessible, coverable, and cherished, and then, right when people want more of the same, he walks on down that long and lonesome road and reinvents himself all over again. Some folks stay behind because they don’t like the new sound, but others keep walking alongside him.

That ease of reinventing yourself over and over again is admirable. Times are changing. Menus are too.

Maybe it’s ADHD, or maybe I just keep remembering and forgetting that what I’m doing isn’t working and I need to reinvent myself to survive. Or maybe it’s the opposite: taking what is working, that song I’ve gravelly butchered over the last 15 years, and finding a new arrangement for it. Like Dylan, it takes courage to kill success. Isn’t that when we rise from the ashes, like a phoenix with a better drink selection?

Unlike Dylan, success at Foodhisattva is a few extra sales a week. Our best-selling menu items often only outrank others by a couple orders. Those couple orders can keep the grating but necessary hum of the fridge purring. Changing menus, like changing sounds, is a tough spot to be in.

I think the repetitive nature of cooking professionally leaves me bored sometimes. I think Dylan gets bored too. The stakes aren’t exactly the same. I don’t have a rabid fanbase of historians clawing for a new release, but I do have something Dylan doesn’t: the burden of affordability. Can I afford to be interesting, different, or inventive? That’s a difficult question to answer given the state of the world and the costs associated with running a restaurant. It’s even more complicated in a city like ours.

I find myself wondering if painters and sculptors, writers and performers, wrestle with the same thing. Do they shape their creativity around affordability too? What if Dylan only had an acoustic guitar, and later, when he finally got some cash, he Wayne’s World-ed it over to the instrument shop? No Stairway though. It hadn’t been written yet.

Last week I ran a random beet spread. They say necessity breeds invention, and if you’ve been following along closely, you probably noticed the last couple weeks featured more beet-based specials than usual. Everything else was too damn expensive, and a man with a sack of beets has no choice but to turn them into a dip.

It turned out good. I’ve been eating the leftovers for days, and everyone who tried it seemed to enjoy it too. Beets split a room though, so most of y’all stayed away from this one. I really think American children need to be introduced to more vegetables early on. Beets, eggplant, daikon, and our fungi friends still tend to get hit with a lot of “I don’t eat that” comments.

Still, last week’s “Beets and …” was a reinvention of sorts. The feta and tempeh, borrowed from the current menu’s Neoplatonist (leaving soon!), paired surprisingly well with the sweet, earthy roasted beets. The feta added a cool tang, the tempeh brought smoky texture, and together they delivered the protein everyone suddenly seems obsessed with again.

Podcast bros who are probably wildly deficient in fiber are out here worshipping protein like it mysteriously vanished from the human diet. They’re putting protein in water now. It’s ridiculous. But I digress, as I often do.

When I’m in a creative funk, when I want to do something different or I’m forced to because of costs or time, I usually look toward reinvention. Like Dylan leaning away from his folk roots, I’ll take something familiar and twist it a little. Reinvent the base, electrify it, or restructure the whole damn thing.

We have a lot of customers who order the same thing every week, and that’s fine… until they’re the only one ordering it. So when I mix things up, I try to keep some familiarity intact. Then again, sometimes I look at my schedule and just say, “fuck it, blow it up.” Send something new into the world. I might lose a few people, but I’ve still got my ride-or-dies.

Artists often lose touch with the world once they “make it.” Most of us are just bored and broke. Speak to me in beans! Hope is holding on to the notion that one of those little nuggets is a ladder to the sky. You get my drift.

My job can be crushingly lonely at times. You can’t really clock out when you’re in charge. Responsibility, I’ve learned, isn’t something easily transferred to others without the promise of wealth, recognition, or upward mobility, and a tiny little shop like mine can’t realistically offer what our social media and capital-driven society craves.

Music, though, is different. Music is companionship. I’m chopping vegetables, washing dishes, scrubbing floors, and my headphones are there keeping me company through all of it.

I’ve got a lot to do to keep this place afloat, and thankfully Dylan’s catalog is long and varied enough to keep my brain stimulated. He’s still out there touring, still rearranging his classics into something unfamiliar and alive.

I’ll tell you this though: I’m constantly amazed at how art functions as solace. A comforting friend you share the experience of living with. The road — or the kitchen — doesn’t feel quite so lonely when you’ve got an old voice nearby telling you a familiar story.

It’s kind of like sitting quietly with your favorite meal.

And yes, I’m firmly Team Eat Out Alone.

That’s what the bar is for.