Old School

Many of you haven't had the opportunity to meet Ollie and Annabelle. They have worked with me for 1o years (since the restaurants opening) and continue to hold strong. They both worked at Talbot Country Club. Ollie was the Executive Chef there for at least 19 years. Annabelle was there for 9 years and worked in any capacity she was needed. She washed dishes, cleaned, did food prep and banquet preparation. That is Annabelles style, ask her what you need and she will do it with enthusiasm and perfection. Ollie left the Country Club because he retired. Annabelle left for other reasons. Ollie once told me that after he retired from the Country Club he prayed to the good Lord that he would find a job where he could just prep food and be in an environment where he was treated with respect and dignity. He told me his prayers were answered when he was offered the job at Out of the Fire. Tears welled up in my eyes. These are words you don't often hear as a small business owner and when they are uttered they have a profound impact.
Both Ollie and Annabelle deserve glowing praise and recognition for their work ethic, loyalty, enthusiasm and integrity. They remain in the background and that is the way they want it. Annabelle comes to the restaurant every morning at or before 6:00 and cleans the entire restaurant. She returns at 4:00 to wash dishes until we close. She is ecstatic when we are busy even though it creates more work for her. She knows that we all prosper when we are busy. Ollie comes in everyday and preps and washes dishes at lunch. His humility and willingness to do whatever it takes commands respect. Both of them know more about the restaurant than any of us. Ask them where something is that may have been put away in storage 5 years ago, but they will know exactly where it is. They are the brick and mortar of the restaurant. These two are old school. They can work circles around some of the younger employees. Annabelle once expressed concern to me that I would let her go because of her age and I laughed and said," are you kidding, this place would fall apart without you." That is no exaggeration! Both of them have been gifts to all of us. They are those rare people who have an abundance of wisdom and courage. They show up for life everyday and gracefully take on whatever is handed to them. When we are in their presence we are shaded by greatness. Thank you, Annabelle and Ollie for your valuable lessons.

To Read or Not to Read

I have always been a voracious reader so, for me the answer to that question is most emphatically: TO READ. I had the good fortune to have parents who were always reading. They read the paper everyday and I never saw either one of them without a book. So, naturally to read or not to read was never a question in our family. For many that is not the case. The statistics among young readers is staggering and quite frankly a bit dire in my opinion. Literacy skills among teens and our country's reading culture are quickly deteriorating. Following are some sobering statistics:

- Reading scores drop significantly over the course of middle school. In Dorchester County, Maryland, scores drop from 67.2% in sixth grade to 58.9% in seventh grade to 57.3% in eighth grade.

- Teens spend only 7-10 minutes per day on voluntary reading -- about 60% less than the average American.

- 1 in 5 U.S. workers read at a lower skill level than their job requires.

- 84% of proficient readers voted in the 2000 presidential election while only 53% of below basic readers voted.

Poor reading skills directly contribute to high school dropout:

- 1/2 of below basic readers and 1/3 of basic readers fail to complete high school.

The combination of poor academic skills and low self-esteem is particularly dangerous for girls because it strips them of their power to make good choices:

- According to www.teenpregnancy.org, educational failure is a key predictor of teen pregnancy and teen pregnancy is one of the leading causes of dropout for girls.

Teen pregnancy is devastating to girls' futures and contributes to a cycle of poverty and low academic achievement:

- Only about 2% of teen mothers have a college degree by age 30.

- Teen pregnancy costs the U.S. at least $9 billion annually.

- Children of teen parents are 50% more likely to repeat a grade.

If, after reading this, you feel compelled to make a difference you can. Elizabeth Devlin created a grass roots organization called Page Turners which addresses these issues. PageTurners: Girls Who Read to Achieve is a network of school-based afterschool book clubs to empower at-risk adolescent girls, through the discussion of literature, to become leaders in their communities while improving their reading and critical thinking skills. The organization is in its infancy and needs our support. Join Elizabeth in her effort to help support after school literacy clubs in our public school systems . Go to www.pageturnersread.org for additional information.

Small Victories

As I mentioned in the March 2009 post I discontinued offering Coke or
Pepsi many years ago, opting, instead to offer a more healthy alternative.

My decision was embraced and understood by some and rejected and
criticized by others. The restaurant is a wonderful teacher to me. It
is a constant reminder that I will NEVER please everyone, although
for some reason I don't stop trying. Some would define that behavior
as insanity- attempting the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results. Perhaps I just handle the inability to
please everyone more gently and gracefully so I don't fall as hard
as I once did in the restaurants infancy. It is analogous to a game
of wac-a-mole; I just keep popping back up!
Back to the title of this post: Small Victories. I have a regular
customer who happened to be a victim of my insights on the toxicity
of aspartame. He and his wife graciously listened to my monologues as I criticized
his diet beverage of choice, one, that I obviously decided to
eliminate from my offerings. I decided I should bite my tongue and
not bring it up EVERY TIME they visited! So, I vowed to myself that I
would only engage if they brought up the "you know what." So, last
week they came in for lunch and they waved me over to their table and
he said, "Amy, I have given up Diet Coke completely!" I said, "Oh, my
god, I can't believe it, congratulations! "(and I did a little
celebration dance) He replied, "that's not all, I have lost weight,
my blood pressure has dropped significantly and I'm a lot calmer!" I
can't tell you how happy I am for him! So, At the risk of alienating
those of you who actually read my blog I will give you a reprieve from my soapbox, I will challenge you to do the research on the deleterious effects of the known neurotoxin named
aspartame.
I went through a phase not long ago that I felt I needed to do more
to raise awareness around health and nutrition and its impact on our
emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. I realized my delusion
of grandeur (that I could single handedly change the world )was
paralyzing. I changed my mindset and embraced the attitude that small
victories are equally as important and just as sweet as large ones.

Procrastination

In May I planted the first Out of the Fire garden. I planted over 500
plants with plans of documenting the entire process. I was (operative
word WAS) planning on photographing the progress, posting
observations on the blog, etc. So, here we are in October and this is
my first post about the garden. The garden was wildly fruitful and
successful and so was my gift for procrastination. I don't know why I
do this to myself. AND to make matters worse, I use it as an excuse
to beat myself up. I can't think of a more caustic combination:
procrastination and relentless mental floggings! To top it off I
visited a childhood friend who I haven't seen for 25 years who
happens to be doing a fabulous job with her blog: The Dinner Dilemma
by Caroline Fitzgibbons. When she began this blog it infused me with
enthusiasm to post regularly on the Out of the Fire blog. Well, we
all know where that ended! I visited Caroline in September, she
commented on my website and mentioned she accessed my blog and called
me a slacker for not contributing regular posts: GUILTY and feel bad
about it! So, this is another attempt on my behalf to beat away the
flubber of procrastination. Thank you for your inspiration, Caroline!