Zanzibar: pt. 1 in How I Became the Hog Farmer’s Wife
Do you sometimes stop and ask yourself what are the events and people from earlier in your life that really shaped you into who you are today? I was reflecting on this the other day--specifically what caused me to be passionate about food and raising animals that would become good food? The two are not mutually exclusive, although there are many American chefs who are interested in the concept of Farm to Table and restaurants that incorporate food from local, small farmers are increasingly becoming more visible in the restaurant world. To patronize your local, small farms is very en vogue, so to speak, in the food world right now--wonderful news for the small farmer.
My infancy in the food world began at Zanzibar, a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that has now been closed for years, whose chefs and owners had great dreams but perhaps too much real estate to support them. Though Zanzibar, like many restaurants, was the product of many individuals, its main proprietors I knew were Richard (Dick) Shubach and Marilee Sturtevant--they hired me to work the front of the house in the beginning of my time there, as a hostess. Zanzibar's kitchen operations were directed by Misty and Todd Callies, siblings, though by my estimations Misty was really in charge.
Zanzibar had a good kitchen. I can't remember the jingle that management trained us to describe their style of food--something like "globally inspired food with an American twist" (Pan-American I see from a quick google)--the Callies and Shubach and Sturtevant had sophisticated taste and the clientele who ate at Zanzibar was worldly enough, often hailing from far corners of the world as guests of professors or business executives visiting the University. Zanzibar also hosted a lot of after parties after local university music society events and brunch (the dreaded brunch!) on the weekend. It was at Zanzibar that I first tasted raw, fish carpaccio made alive by citrus, crispy rice cakes flanking delicious tuna steak salads, spicy Moroccan braised lamb shanks, and French long-simmered beef stews (with cocoa powder in the sauce!)--these dished all shared the vision of Zanzibar's proprietors of being rooted in global food cultures yet always with something to bring them back towards an American palate. And the kitchen did all of this from scratch--stocks, soups, sauces, rubs, marinades, ferments and pickles, multiple step meat preparations, and the list goes on. Though I never worked in the kitchen, while I was a hostess, then server, then [pretend] bartender, I witnessed a seriousness brought to food that I had not seen before. Both of my parents are committed to the preparation of quality food in their own ways and perhaps laid the ground work in my appreciation of good food, but Zanzibar opened my eyes to the idea that good food and using it to cultivate an experience was a way of life for some.
Richard Shubach, in many ways, served as a bit of a mentor in this vision for me. Management expected its waitstaff to know the difference between an ale and a lager, what made Wagyu beef different, why the roasted hazelnuts on the roasted beet salad made for an elevated experience, why it mattered how a flank steak was sliced, and so on and so forth. Zingerman's Roadhouse, a restaurant (and part empire?!) that would set a high bar for employee knowledge of food and wine, was still in its infancy when I worked at Zanzibar, but the management at Zanzibar was cut from a similar cloth. It was while working there that I bought my copy of The Food Lover's Companion, an exhaustive encyclopedia guide to every and anything food one would ever wonder about. Dick seemed to know everything there was to know about food, and I spent many a slow lunch shift quizzing him on food preparations for upcoming meals I had planned, or hearing about where the best place was to buy sausage in Ann Arbor (nowhere! or Kroger!), or learning the merits of why Sherry vinegar was really the best vinegar to have on hand. It's interesting that I didn't end up working in the kitchen, but I think now that that kind of role switch would've required a different intensity, and I was about one year shy of admission into the MFA program at U of M, just trying to bring in a bit of money to help my family make ends meet. My role at Zanzibar allowed me the intellectual space to explore food while at work and then at home, in my own kitchen. In this space I had room to think about how a seriousness brought to food, like I saw at Zanzibar, might somehow intersect with the home kitchen. I didn't want my own restaurant, but the idea of the offering and cultivation of an experience around food rang like a truth in my head. But how would that play out?
Originally posted 11/13/2020
