There's something Amanda Girard Jones told me the last day Cachagua General Store was open (Oct. 16) that will resonate with me for a while.
"He haunts me," she said, "but I love him."
Amen, sister.
She was talking about the one and only, the indomitable, the irascible, the inspiring and the inflammatory Chef Michael Jones.
I've loved his style for a solid decade, before his Monday night dinners became the thing the cool foodie kids do.
That applies to his prose and much as his proteins—for every deliciously charred pizza or habit-forming marrow bone, he says or writes a zinger, often on Facebook.
One of his most recent posts qualifies.
Things Thomas Keller Is Not Doing Right Now #5486…AND…Proof There Is a God and She Has a Sense of Humor #3687:
We have had a fairly crappy couple of weeks. Eighteen to twenty hours a day walking back and forth with heavy loads into trucks, then driving the trucks to unprepared places and then again walking back and forth carrying heavy loads.
There really is nowhere to put all this stuff…not to mention the food. I have tossed a small island nation's worth of yearly food from freezers, and radically slashed our menu after breaking down our walk-in. No…you can't have four different stock pots!
Anyway, in the midst of all this chaos I get a phone call from Dean Forzani: "Hey! When are you going to pick up your beef…it has been three weeks!"
"Uhhh…what beef? Which beef?"
"The one we talked about…"
Two years ago? Perfect.
He goes on to describe the spiritual power of good local product, and how beautiful the resulting bone-in rib-eyes—from the half steer he and another cook butchered—are looking.
"The whole thing about being a cook is being transformed in the presence of killer ingredients, like a cat with catnip," he writes, later adding, "We slowly moving towards Lokal, like two porcupines having sex: very carefully and slowly, but with a certain amount of glee."
But sometimes he gets a little carried away.
Last week that happened when he took to (again) blaming his landlord for the Cachagua General Store exit, when Jones hadn't responded to repeated requests to initiate a dialog—or paid rent—for months.
(He also tried blaming Weekly stories for his eviction, though that was also untrue, as I detail with "Cachagua General Store is in jeopardy, but there's hope.")
But a beautiful thing happened when the landlord's daughter Heather Ruddock—who was a loyal Jones friend, former employee and Cachagua favorite—called him on it.
"My dad gave you half a year without you paying rent," she posted. "I love you but his ego wasn't what let the store go. Thanks for the low call. He hasn't trash talked you to others either."
Jones took down the post and—wait, what?!—reportedly apologized.
He never apologizes.
So maybe his reinvention at Lokal coincides with another type of metamorphosis.
Whatever the case, his latest production promises to rank among the most dramatic, which is saying something.
Starting tonight (Oct. 24), the Monday Night dinners CGS was famous for move to Jones' son Brendan's Carmel Valley Village spot Lokal (659-5886).
They'll be working with a fraction of the staff with a fraction of the food in a fraction of the space, so it will be something to see.
Girard Jones, who knows how to keep it real, calls it a "wacky beta test" and predicts the swinging cowboy doors to the kitchen won't make it through the night.
The 6:15pm seating is already full and the 8:15 is filling up fast.
But before that era unfolds, the amazing run at Cachagua General merits a final testimonial.
Girard Jones sent this along as a sweet and potent goodbye:
Realizing I've developed a warped, uncanny ability to recognize the facial language of someone figuring what to trade me for a 12-pack before my second foot hits the ground of the parking lot…gives me a tickle.
The characters of old Cachagua are mostly passed and Dave and Kano the dog are drinking their daily coffee in heaven now.
Grandma DeeDee (Tomasini), whose father built the store, always said, "You'd better write down my stories..."
Now I hate myself because they're gone to history. My mother always nagged me too, "That's the afterward of Cannery Row you know."
But I never had the time.
I remember the day we bought the store (Aug. 22, 2003) the sheriff came out tho introduce himself to the new owners of the store. He pulled me aside and whispered, "So, could you keep them out here because we don't want 'em in town."
"Yes Sir, I'll do my best" - would now be replaced with, "Yes Sir, it would be my pleasure - and honor."
[Joan Baez's sister] Missing Pauline has me reading [American folksinger, songwriter, poet and novelist] Richard Fariña, for grounding and comfort, as I struggle with feelings of failure.
The store was only closed once before for about six months and I surely never thought it would die on my watch. The feeling of "stewardship" that felt so good (and at times so frustrating) is gone.
Cachagua still runs on old-fashioned values: uphill gets the right-of-way (talking to you millenials!) and someone has to get the boulders out of the road before the next car comes…and the fallen tree…and the lost dog.
The old lease still states that it's The Pack Station for the Los Padres Forest and must "sell basic provisions," which is a relative term these days.
In a dining room overseen by paper curtains and a 100-year-old moose, I never thought anyone would drive out there for Monday dinners or Sunday brunch - no less from SF or Silicon Valley!
A kid we knew got a job on an LA film crew. When he said he was from Cachagua - most of the crew knew, "Oh that's where that famous restaurant is!" "Famous restaurant?!?" huh…wonders never cease - it's just food after all - or was it ??
"The last bastion of freedom" is how it felt. The only law, "Be nice and decent" - an exercise that bordered on performance art at times. That dang place saved my life (after too many years in LA with no meaning) and I wasn't the only one - I can think of four illustrious, well-respected persons of the Peninsula right now who gained solace and hope from the purity of days spent in a place where you truly could be yourself.
No judgement.
A place ruled by dogs and peacocks, the old sycamore tree out front had thankfully been replaced with skateboarders riding up its trunk rather than the Hell's Angels in the wild old days…Michael and I did like the bullet holes in the ceiling though…
While I'm relieved to not have to shop for carloads of stuff for the store each week (only the beer got delivered), I learned that I'm a terrible businessperson…"it's only money - can't take it with you"…and who will extend credit to the guy that lives in the woods, or the guy who just got out of prison for robbery?
But money wasn't the only currency and bartering felt so sweet.
I suppose it had to end this way, because we would have never mustered the motivation to move out without a good kick from the real world.
So, with heavy hearts and great memories we go and bid farewell to a rich, storied place…praying that things don't really change in Cachagua.
I also pray that the integrity of the building - built over time by the great folks who settled the land that few dared to tread - remains intact…because it's not just a store.