Paradigm Shift

Sometimes you have to stretch out of your comfort zone. Life is about challenges and how you rise to meet them. I love to try new restaurants. It is something that has been an interesting shift in me for the past few years. It has been a bit strange traveling so much in the past year or so to find myself in a new city and finding the same stores, the same new clean, well landscaped Main Street Disneyland type areas, full of the stores that each of you know so well, or watching those with money to spend go to them. Growing up, I loved my big box chains, my Olive Gardens, O'Charley's, etc. Now, I can understand the allure, you always know what you are going to get, it's always going to be the same. But you're missing out. Every city has numerous local joints that offer up a flavor of the city, or even push it out and adapt it, or those who have emigrated bring in a taste of their own culture. It's all at our fingertips. My birthday was last week, and my only prerequisite for the dinner was that it had to be a place I'd never been before. In Louisville, I chose a cool little place called Havana Rumba, in the St. Matthews area. It was out of this world, an over the stands walk off homerun. It was my mental projection of a happenin Key West restaurant, or would fit in well in Manhattan. I won't go into the meal itself, but it's an example of what's out there that we're all missing when we settle, when we're comfortable, when then anxiety of ordering in broken English puts us over the edge. In this town, there is a gold mine website louisvillehotbytes.com that is fantastic, and I fully recommend, nay, endorse Robin Garr in his status as foodie extraordinaire. I have also been fascinated with Anthony Bourdain, a 28-year professional chef in NYC and now world sampler for the Travel Channel. This is a man who gets the concept of good food as gathering, as friendship, as celebration, as well as wildly entertaining and near enlightening to watch his travels. It's the closest thing to a vacation I get these days.
Wrapping up, I implore you, stretch out; do things that take you out of that comfort zone. The first few times I ever took a stage to perform I can't begin to describe the nervousness and anxiety of the whole thing. Now, it's one of the most pure and fulfilling times of my life.
b
08.27.06