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World Trade Center
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World Trade Center, 1973-2001
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La Belle Cuisine
What
Can I Offer You in this Time of Tragedy?
Wednesday, 12 September 2001
"Terrorist
acts can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings
but cannot
touch
the foundation of America."
-- President George W. Bush, address to the nation
"The
ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
You
might be reading this from anywhere in the world. From New York, from Washington, D.C., from Boston, Los Angeles, or
San Francisco. Or
you might
be much further removed from the horror, from its immediacy, feeling its
reverberations in a different way. That is the case with me,
having determined the whereabouts of my
elder son, who was scheduled
to fly American Airlines from Chicago to
Washington yesterday morning.
And
whose flight did not take off, thank God.
You
may need condolences, sympathy, due to the loss of a family member
or
close friend. If that is the
case, please know that my heart goes out to
you.
Indeed, you have my most profound sympathy, my fervent prayers
for
your strength, courage, and, ultimately, peace.
Or you may simply need encouragement to do what you need to do
today. You may be feeling helpless, hopeless, wondering why you
should bother doing anything at all
if this is what it comes down to.span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> I can relate to that. I
continue to be attacked from time to time by a devastating sense of
futility.
Yesterday
I found myself wondering if anything I was doing really mattered
at all,
in light of the prevailing horror. All
I could see was massive death and destruction. My day-to-day activities seemed totally insignificant by
com- parison. I have given this
a great deal of thought. Do
recipes matter?
Do
food-related web sites matter? Am
I making a worthwhile contribution,
or am I simply spinning my wheels,
passing time?
This
is what I have learned. So
far. Each of us has a unique
gift. We do
serve a purpose
in this mystery called life. I
am not a politician, a military
expert,
a diplomat. Nor am I a doctor,
nurse, fireman, policeman, clergy-
man, or psychologist. The demand for people with these gifts is great.
What, then,
can I offer you today, in your hour of need?
I am a
journalist of sorts, a writer, a cook, a collector of
recipes, cook-
books, and quotes. During
a time of great crisis in my own life, I decided
to do something that
would make my gifts available to the world. I believe very strongly that there is something of value here, otherwise I
would not
do what
I do seven days a week. But now, today, when the whole world seems to have gone mad? Yes. Today. This was my goal, when La Belle Cuisine
began to evolve more than
two years ago:
“Our
goal is to provide a beautiful, relaxing atmosphere,
designed
to inspire, entertain and inform you.
Please
enjoy your stay, and come back often.”
Perhaps
you will find, today, that exactly what you need is “a beautiful,
relaxing atmosphere, designed to inspire, entertain and inform you”. And
all
of us do, after all, have to eat. My personal decision, then, is to pursue
my chosen assignent. With vigor. I shall
give it my absolute best.
In order for me to
persevere, I must continue to believe that what I do has value, that it is
worthwhile, even though on the surface it does not appear to be a matter
of life or death. A man whom we greatly admire, and whose expertise we often
share with you, has put it very well:
“Back
to Work
We
can't act as if yesterday never happened. All of us will remember the
events
for the rest of our lives. Minute details about the day will live
on in our minds.
But
the best thing we can do today is to dive back into our daily activities.
Most
of us were not directly affected by the attack. Even though everyone with
a
soul was deeply shaken, life is not terminated by feelings of violation
and
outrage.
I'll
tell you what I'm going to do. I made a few hundred dollars for a speaking
engagement a few days ago. I'm going to invest all of it in the stock
market
today.
The
second item on the agenda is to spend an extra hour thinking of ways to
expand my service to other people…
And,
at some time during the day, I'm going to have a spectacular meal in the
best restaurant I can think of. [Mr.
Fitzmorris is an esteemed New Orleans restaurant critic and author.]
If
this sounds callous and selfish, please know that as soon as funds open to
help
the 9/11 victims, I plan on giving to them, too.
But
I think at this moment the open display of confidence in our society and
its best institutions is thumbing our noses at our attackers…”
-
Tom
Fitzmorris
There
is a great deal of wisdom in those words. If we give in to our darker emotions, we will be, in effect, giving
up. And the forces of evil
will have won.
What
do you do? Every day? What is your profession, your passion? What are your gifts? What
is the job you do now - if only to keep body and soul together - on the
way to pursuing your dream? Are
you a secretary, a postal worker, a retail salesperson, a short-order
cook, a waiter? We need you. We need your services.
Or
perhaps you are an artist, a musician, a writer.
We need you more than ever. Especially
now, when we are surrounded on all sides by visions of horror, we need
beauty, grace, and inspiration in our lives.
Maybe you are an actor, or a
comedian. Yesterday was
certainly not the
day for comedy. But
in the challenging days to come, a sense of humor
will be vital to us as
well, for its extraordinary power to heal.
Whatever
you do, please give it your best. It
matters. I believe that every
single individual human life matters immensely. That is one of the principles upon which this country was founded,
and one which has made it great.
As
I write, I can hear New York City’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani urging
New
Yorkers to go on with their lives by beginning to resume their normal
activities. He is urging them
to go to restaurants, to go shopping, to show
the world their strength in
the face of tragedy.
Who
knows. Perhaps reading about food and recipes would actually be helpful to
you today. It might even be
soothing. Should that be the
case,
if you feel the need, then by all means please check out
Comfort
Food.
Be
well, my dear unseen friends, be safe, and above all, do not lose heart.
Give your best. Give, give, give. We are Americans. We are resilient.
We are survivors.
“The
purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful,
to be
honorable
to be compassionate, to have it make
some difference
that you have lived
and lived well.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Until next time, remember:
The purpose of human life is to give and receive
love.
Michele
"It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love,
are so
mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think
of one without
the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I
am really writing about
love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the
love
of it and the hunger for it…
and then the warmth and richness and
fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it
is all one."
~ M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating
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