chain lube and peanut oil...

Been a fun week here at the Farm, busy working to get the garage settled in what has been fairly shitty weather. Only a ride to town or two...and a MASSIVE Iron Chef Cook-Off with none other than Puglia's own Alessandro Miro, aka Shady Chef and Me. What started as an Idea of our mutual friend DJ Livia, a super fun day hunched over a prep table, cooking and throwing out crazy ideas, with limited ingredients (sunday the grocery stores are closed) and a few beers drank along the way - turned into an amazing dinner with about 13 friends, a gang of wine, spilled vodka, two deserts, and shocking faces from the Itals...the likes of which exclaimed to me (in italiano) "Who would have thought such amazing food from a character like you..."



















and thats exactly why hes called Shady Chef...











Paint your own desert...



Yeah, it was THAT good...





Miro holding court with the ladies in attendance...



not sure which couple got after it first but the food was THAT good!



It was a great night, but processing the remarks, and the following remarks around the farm about my art led me to more epiphanies about the life I have lived. I have always relied on words to tell my own story, to represent who I am to people. But that representation is based on story and in hindsight not always the most accurate version of who I have really been. In Italy, with a language and cultural barrier I have to rely on ACTIONS, and for friends to see and taste my food creations, or see my painted art, makes me much more than just a silly, funny, bike mechanic guy. In Italy artists paint, chefs cook, and bike mechanics wrench - and they seem for the most part to be ok with the lot they have usually dedicated a lot of time and energy and schooling to. Chefs are fine cooking, artists are fine making art...Me, Im not fine doing anything for very long, but that has always made for good stories...

"Back when I was a veterinary technician..."
"When I used to work in a winery..."
"When I used to be in charge of a raw material quarantine area in a biotech company..." No really, I was!

I realized last night that with this new experience in a foreign land, where I still want friends, and a party, and honest work, and a paycheck...that I get to represent myself without words, to just BE. And with that comes the feeling of security that I am a great cook, a decent artist, a great bike mechanic, and one hell of a dancer... (ok the last part is a lie...)

Doing IS being!
Go DO something that makes you happy today!!!

Scott "makes-the-BEST-pad-thai-in-emilia-romagna" Hinkson