|
************ |
A Public Prayer for Great Food
The bright yellow room is a cacophony of sound – fifteen conversations simultaneously overlap and intertwine to the accompaniment of chinking silver ware and waiter’s call for orders and kitchen support. The cash register hums steadily at the bar as an attendant rings up another tab. On the other side of the counter the prep-cooks bark commands and pass off their arrangements to the master chef behind them.
At a table in the middle of it all sits the Revercomb family – 4 children ages 8,10,12 and 14 and two adults who are, well . . . just old. We are at an eclectic little restaurant in Pawley’s Island S.C. The owner, Chef Orobosa Uwagbai is a Nigerian immigrant who came to the US and began working as a dishwasher somewhere in Ohio. He soon discovered that he had both the joy and gift for great cooking and a winding career journey ultimately led him to the executive chef position at Litchfield Plantation where he thrived for many years. But his dream of opening and operating his own unique restaurant never left him and he recently made the move into a small shack of a building that looks like it might have been transplanted from a swamp in the Louisiana Bayou via tornado.
The landing must not have gone very smoothly.
The rambling main building is painted bright yellow with red trim and an adjoining and equally shabby structure is painted in the same motif with the same sagging eaves and window frames. There are seven Adirondack chairs on the sandy lawn - each brightly painted a different color of the rainbow. The bathrooms are only accessible by going outside and traversing a covered walkway, but this inconvenience is wonderfully offset by the salty smell that floats in from the nearby marsh and the long locks of Spanish moss that hang from the ancient oaks above. Did I say eclectic? Yes – just a little bit.
Our food has arrived. There is no real children’s menu so Orobosa has prepared the meals uniquely for them. Pasta and either a cheese or marina sauce with fried chicken tenders sounded great to all our little guys. But Mom and Dad have gone to sea. The wife has chosen a fabulous seafood combo of fish, scallops and shrimp. Dad has selected a veal, shrimp and tomato dish in a brown sauce that is so much better than could ever be described that I will not attempt it. Suffice to say, that if you find yourself within 100 miles of Pawley’s Island you should skip all the usual places and go!
A young waitress sets down the final plate and asks us if we need anything else. We thank her and smile. She reciprocates and moves on. The children all look to me to see if this is the sort of restaurant we are going to offer a prayer in. They are hungry. It is easy to tell that they think God wants us to eat more and talk less.
I’m not certain what fully goes into making the decision to offer a prayer before a meal in a restaurant. There are certainly some occasions when we either forget or somehow feel we may become more of a distraction than we care to be at that particular moment. But mostly we do, and while the prayer is intended to be no more than words of thanks directed to God, one can’t help but feel the effects as soon as one begins. Conversation drops precipitously as other diners take note – some likely in respect, some in surprise or a sort of unintended if not feigned reverence. For those whom such words represent wasted time offered to empty air, there is the palpable sense that offense has somehow been taken - as though the right exist to not have to hear a conversation directed towards a presumed God. I have even been scowled at before which seemed rather strange. I’m not a big fan of motorcycles as I have come upon several accidents that have ended very poorly for the rider. But I do not scoff at those who make the decision to pursue riding them. Tonight is no exception. There are those in the room who will be uncomfortable being reminded that others place great stock in the God of creation. So be it.
Putting a good meal on the table once occupied the majority of a person’s daily effort and was for our forefathers reason enough to give thanks indeed. But most of us no longer truly feel the immediacy of that need, so I usually try to incorporate other blessings. Today there are many to choose from – the sheer beauty of the creation as witnessed near the ocean with the drama of the surf by day and the peace of the marshes at night. The joy of watching one’s children experience and share their own joy with one another as they discover a unique shell or catch “the perfect wave,” the simple pleasure of a good book and the time to get so lazily lost in it . . .We give thanks for all these things.
As we lift our heads you can feel the gazes upon us – both sweet and sour as the case may be . . . But the food is anything but that, and as the conversations rise again Orobosa himself is standing in the corner in white apron and cap looking directly at me and nodding with a toothy smile as bright and wide as the ocean itself.
Thanks Orobosa, for providing another uniquely wonderful corner of America to give thanks for!
- Stuart