Time to Reflect

I don’t need to say or comment on how crazy 2020 has been so far. Instead, I wanted to share my reflections on the last few months and the changes that have occurred in our world. For those who have read the RubberBand Doorknob from the beginning, you may remember the story behind the name. It relates to a broken doorknob and our passion for welcoming people into our home through food and stories.

So, I thought I would open the door a little wider this month. The story I want to share starts the day we left Vegas in March. I was presenting at a convention about incorporating global flavors into catering menus. The audience was attentive but small due to the situation outside the convention hall-the beginning of the shutdown was underway. I would be one of the last presenters at a convention in Vegas for a while. Bad scheduling maybe, but an eye-opening and somewhat surreal experience in my career nonetheless.

Travelling the day after was a completely different experience than it was five days earlier. (By the way, you can’t bring certain cleaning wipes on a plane.) There was definitely a sense of flying into the unknown, and not just for me and my wife-you could see it in the other passengers’ eyes, especially if you sneezed or coughed. I knew then and there in mid-March that we needed to find a new direction for our business and careers. The hospitality industry was going to be deeply affected around the globe, from farmers to the dining room table. There were simply too many conversations involved, from supply chain to third-party delivery companies. On that flight, I knew immediately that we needed to look forward, not backward.

Now, seven-plus months later, we have launched a new business. The core motivation of starting this endeavor comes from the same emotions and desires we had in opening our kitchen and table to our friends. The RubberBand Doorknob is about bringing the flavors and experiences of our professional culinary careers and sharing them on our table at home. Skokie Provisions was created to provide the flavors, ingredients, knowledge and passion of a professional kitchen to you in your home, especially when we don’t know when we can share a table together.

I am taking this opportunity in this month’s RBDK to let you know that I am always going use this monthly forum to talk about food and beer, plus other things not so entirely related, including tangential observations. However, I am going to take a little break from the Digital RubberBand Doorknob in its current format. I will continue to bring you my observations on food through this forum; however, we want to focus on presenting recipes and instructional videos on the great line-up of products we are creating over at Skokie Provisions. When we have the opportunity, we will be back at the editing desk with more episodes.

By the way, there are some great new beers coming into play this fall. We are going to be overwhelmed with barrel aged and big beers. So hang on, and I bet I will have a few stories to tell about that.

Enjoy the fall!