The Worst Business In The World, Chapter One

31 JANUARY 2020

CHAPTER ONE - GAN SHAN STATION

Today marks the closing of Gan Shan Station. It opened 31 December 2014. I was there. I shed tears of joy that evening for Patrick O’Cain. We have been friends for many years. His parents came to Asheville to start a life in medicine and to raise a family. Our relationship goes back decades.

My tears were an outpouring of my own emotion, knowing the challenges of opening a restaurant – the hard work, the money, the stress, but mainly the profound feeling of manifesting a dream. I know the extreme anxiety of wishing to have the food you cook be pleasing. Of all the motivations to cook, to own a restaurant, to dedicate a life to the kitchen, the greatest motivator is the desire to be loved. The other motivator is to be a healer.

I need to make a distinction. Not all cooks are motivated this way. The school of cooking that I belong to, the one that Patrick belongs to, and the cooks whose food all of us most enjoy eating, we belong to The School of Cooking from the Heart. Some of us are tyrants, some of us are magicians, some of us are good business owners, and leaders. What we all have in common; at the stove, is the outpouring of our hearts and souls into the food we cook. This investment is costly.

Years ago, when Paris and a woman were in my life, we ate at Chez Amis Jean on rue Malar in Paris many times. It remains a favorite table. The first time, we sat next to “the pass”, the window out of the kitchen where all food passes from kitchen to server. It was manned by Stéphane Jégo. Born in Breton, he ended up in Paris, becoming chef-patron of this Basque establishment in 2002. He is there today.

Sitting there next to the kitchen, the other story of the restaurant played out in full view.  From decades of food, one recognizes a fellow pilgrim. Tita is our patron saint. We come to the stove to pray, to blend the emotion of our lives into our soufflés and cakes, to please. Thus was this evening. Stéphane’s cooking has never been perfect the times I’ve eaten there. But it has always been totally satisfying. His tears, too, have fallen in the sauce.

I was surprised when I heard the announcement of Gan Shan Station’s closing. Only a few months earlier, I sat in with Patrick and his team, tasting dishes for the next menu. Like his opening evening, I was moved by the aromas, the balance, and shear unctuousness of the food. No mention of closing.

I visited with Patrick this month, to eat for a last time at the restaurant, and to understand why he was closing.

I was not shocked at his thinking.

He is quitting the Station because he has no personal life. For him, the pleasure he has gained from others eating his Tear Sauce is less than the needs he has as a human being. Oh, this so well I know.

To you Patrick, Pilgrim-of-the-Stove: “Thank you”.  I do not know what other prayer to offer.