CHAPTER TWO: A LOVE LETTER
Below is an excerpt from my upcoming memoir, The Girl With the Duck Tattoo. The opening chapter begins with me barfing into a stainless steel toilet in the corner of a crowded holding cell in Pigeon Forge, TN. The second chapter jumps back in time to describe how my life was some time before, for contrast. While editing, I realized this chapter feels like a love letter. So here it is. It’s not the most exciting of the chapters, but it’s the one that makes me the most nostalgic (and also inspired for what may be to come). With love, Sarma
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CHAPTER TWO - NEW YORK CITY
Rewind a couple of years from this rural Tennessee jail, and you’d find me in New York City—co-creator and owner of a unique, highly acclaimed Manhattan restaurant called Pure Food and Wine. I was 33 when we opened our doors in the summer of 2004. Despite the city’s notoriously competitive and challenging restaurant market, with its sky-high rent and operating expenses, we’d always done well. We weathered the 2008 downturn that took down many New York restaurants, even long-established ones, and followed that with an upswing. We withstood the recession better than many other high-end restaurants because we were different. If you wanted aesthetically pleasing, organic, raw-vegan food paired with good wine and creative sake cocktails—in a sexy restaurant setting (or a dreamy garden in the warmer months) we were your only option.
Our garden was big—more spacious than the interior—and was part of what made us special. Outdoor seating is an asset for Manhattan restaurants, and ours was further valuable in that the space was private—behind the restaurant, surrounded by other buildings. Compared to the more common sidewalk cafes with pedestrians and traffic whizzing by, our guests could relax in relative quiet under a canopy of trees, the branches strung with glowing white lights. Also, rather than cheap plastic or metal furniture, ours was wood—the tabletops in polished mahogany and the chairs in the folding Parisian-sidewalk-cafe style, with bright cherry red seat and back cushions. We’d paneled the walls along the edge of the garden with slabs of dark ipe (pronounced “ee-pay”) wood. We used the same wood for the banquet seating along that perimeter, which we covered with long, burgundy cushions and pillows. Our cloth napkins were a farmhouse-style: off-white cotton with a burgundy stripe. Back then we’d had to specially request these from the linen company, since no other restaurants used them. Nowadays, they’re everywhere, and I still like to think we started that napkin trend.
During regular service, every table was set with place settings, wine glasses, and votive candles. The L-shaped outdoor bar, a thick slab of dark stained wood, was surrounded by eight square wood stools. We had the same stools at our indoor bar, made for us by an old Estonian man in his woodshop all the way east on Avenue C. (I kind of loved that man; he reminded me of my Latvian father, with a similar accent and mannerisms.) The garden was peaceful yet vibrant. The bright greenery, rich-colored wood, burgundy banquets, cherry red pillows, and golden candlelight created a naturally seductive atmosphere.
The vibe was similar on the inside: custom-made wood tables, chairs upholstered in bright cherry red, the same ipe wood covered part of the walls, while the rest was painted a fiery burnt orange. There was no artwork other than three photographs, hung together on one wall, of a very precocious-looking duck. Low-ceilinged and candlelit, the inside felt warm and inviting, with a glossy wood-topped bar near the front. Four wood-framed glass doors opened up in the summer to face a small front patio with seating for eight to ten. This area was three steps down from the sidewalk and bordered with an iron fence. The semi-subterranean feel added to its cozy feel.
People sometimes had a hard time finding the restaurant. Our signage was a simple bronze metal “pure food and wine” lit from above to give it a subtle glow. Irving Place, the street on which it was located, was astonishingly quiet for being just one block from the very busy Union Square. Our next-door neighbor was the more brightly lit Mario Batali-owned Casa Mono, with illuminated colorful signage and a prominent corner location. Around the corner, Casa Mono connected to a small, casual bar called Bar Jamon, and then a few small storefronts beyond was our juice bar and takeaway spot, followed by a windowed kitchen, with an entrance for staff or deliveries. Our spaces were all connected in the back, forming an L-shaped property which wrapped around those owned and operated by Mario Batali’s restaurant group. It was convenient because I could come and go through the entrances on either street.
Batali’s Spanish-themed restaurant and bar couldn’t have been more different from us; they were known for organ meats, with a big grill up front at Casa Mono, and a giant cured pig’s leg of jamon displayed prominently in the window of Bar Jamon. Meanwhile, our menu featured only plant foods, nearly all of it raw. I realize this description hardly makes our menu sound appealing, but our food was good: vibrant, flavorful, beautiful and, as a bonus, healthy. To this day, I’ve never tried a non-dairy ice cream as good as ours. It wasn’t just good compared to other vegan ice creams—it was good compared to all ice creams. People couldn’t reconcile how it was so rich and creamy yet contained no cream, or milk, or eggs. At a food event during our first year, renowned chef Michael Lamonaco, having passed by our table to pick up a sample of our ice cream, came running back waving the tiny cup and spoon to tell me, “This is amazing! You are on to something big with this!”
And I think he was right.
Our ice cream sundaes were exceptionally good, and I take some comfort knowing they’ve at least been visually immortalized in photos on the Pure Food and Wine Instagram, along with our signature and seasonal dishes. Then there were the mini savory tarts we sent out with the tasting menus: pecan, black pepper, and pinot noir shells filled with herbed cashew cheese, caramelized shallots, marinated black trumpet mushrooms, and a drizzle of gooey apricot-Riesling sauce. I can taste that combination of flavors and textures now in my mind. My insides ache when I think about all this, and of what it felt like sitting at the candlelit bar, marinating in the good vibes of that restaurant, safe and sound.
We frequently benefited from low expectations. It was common to hear of someone having been dragged to the restaurant by a friend, assuming they were going to hate it, expecting to have to dial for a pizza delivery as soon as they walked out, who had instead been totally blown away. I loved it when this happened. Or, when we got overflow from next door, since Casa Mono and Bar Jamon were both small spaces with limited seating and tended to be very busy.
The second summer Pure Food and Wine was open, a middle-aged couple introduced themselves, excitedly telling me that they’d first wandered into the restaurant about six months prior after intending to eat at Casa Mono but finding the wait too long. They’d figured, Why not try this place next door? They hadn’t realized it was meat-free until already seated in the garden, but since the setting was so beautiful, they stayed to give it a try. Why not. That dinner, they explained, was revelatory; they’d loved the food, felt unusually good afterwards, and acknowledged that they could stand to lose a few pounds. From that day forward, they shifted their diets to incorporate more fruits and vegetables, cutting out most meat and dairy. They came back to the restaurant often. “I’ve dropped thirty pounds!” the man exclaimed, patting his belly. Moving his hand a couple inches in front of his stomach: “It used to come out to here!”
I loved stories like this. The accidental happy converts.
“One Lucky Duck” was the name of the brand I’d launched one year after Pure Food and Wine opened, at the same time that I began to formally split from my original collaborator in the restaurant—just as our cookbook, Raw Food Real World, was published.
Timed with the book’s release, I launched an e-commerce site: oneluckyduck.com. It was an online store for our cookies, snacks, and other products, summarized by our tagline: “the best of everything for the ultimate raw and vegan lifestyle.” We carried all the otherwise hard-to-find ingredients to make the recipes in the book, plus skin care and supplements. The site also housed my blog, where I posted essays, often getting very personal about my aspirations and my struggles. My openness was a bit unusual, but it had a way of making my readers feel like they knew me.
I also renamed our juice bar, “One Lucky Duck Juice and Takeaway.” It was a small and cozy spot offering fresh juices and shakes, a takeaway menu that mostly mirrored our lunch menu, and a rotating variety of desserts, cookies, and sweets displayed in a glassed-in pastry case. A freezer in the back housed pints of our popular dairy-free ice cream. A few small tables lined one wall, above which hung three photographs of baby ducks, sourced from the same photographer who’d supplied the big duck photos in the dining room. On the opposing wall, rows of shelving held various products, including our packaged cookies and snacks, made in our own kitchen, branded with the distinctive One Lucky Duck logo.
In the early years, we sold One Lucky Duck branded snacks wholesale to other stores in and around New York City, and then to the local Whole Foods stores, eventually expanding to over thirty Whole Foods locations, many in California.
By 2009, I published—this time on my own—a second colorful hardcover cookbook. Both books were sold in stores, on Amazon, and via our own locations. In 2010 we opened a second One Lucky Duck takeaway location across town in the Chelsea Market complex. Later, my younger half-brother—who had worked at the restaurant for a while—opened a third One Lucky Duck outpost in Texas, where he lived. We were on a trajectory to keep growing.
The logo for the company was, of course, a duck—the one I got tattooed on my arm. I believed in the brand so much that I branded myself. We’d built a loyal following, and our tote bags, t-shirts, and other products emblazoned with the logo were popular. It thrilled me to see people carrying our One Lucky Duck bags around, effectively advertising for us. At the counters, we gave away colored One Lucky Duck stickers and included them in every online order. Customers would send photos of them stuck on laptops, kids lunchboxes, bicycles, and so on. Again, more free advertising.
The response was encouraging. I felt with absolute certainty that we were building a movement, the aim of which was to make a healthy way of living—one that also benefited animals and the environment—appealing to the mainstream. We were stubbornly nonjudgmental in both our style and output, and therefore attracted a diverse audience—not just hardcore vegans or vegetarians. Our customers were young and old, male and female, famous and anonymous, fashion plate and hippie—but usually they were of means. It always frustrated me that our food and products were so expensive, but our clean, unprocessed, all-organic ingredients along with New York City rent prices made that unavoidable.
Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck were covered consistently in the press, and nearly always favorably. Mainly this was because we were seen—especially at the beginning—as groundbreaking. No one had opened an upscale raw vegan restaurant in New York before. The only other like it had been in Marin County, California, and had closed by the time we opened.
I was particularly proud of how the media ranked us alongside other top-tier NYC restaurants. Forbes magazine featured annual lists of the city’s best restaurants, and we were included four times in the three-star category—alongside names like Gotham Bar & Grill, Eleven Madison Park, The Modern, Veritas, wd-50, Blue Hill, and Babbo. Press mentions sometimes resulted from sightings of famous people at our tables. During interviews, I always felt squeamish when inevitably asked to name celebrities who had come in to dine. Wanting to respect their privacy, I disciplined myself to name only those who had already been publicly identified as having visited. Either way, it was fun seeing actors, musicians, politicians, athletes, and other celebrities at our tables or picking up an order from the takeaway.
Sometimes I’d learn that someone noteworthy had visited the restaurant without my having heard about it. I was having dinner one night at an Italian restaurant in the West Village with a friend who’d acted in a few films. Emma Stone was seated at another table with her then-boyfriend, Andrew Garfield. My friend had worked with her on a film and, and, on our way out, he introduced us. She shook my hand with a funny look on her face, as if something was registering in her brain, then, having figured out what it was, blurted out, “Oh my gosh, I love your restaurant!” I was flattered and reeled a bit from that encounter. When you’re not used to being recognized, that kind of moment with someone famous feels funny, in a good way. Of course, I was probably carrying a One Lucky Duck tote bag—my regular stand in for a purse, which might have given her a hint. But it struck me that I didn’t know she’d ever visited the restaurant. Some people were in and out under the radar. New York City was kind of like that. You’d be standing in line at the grocery store and realize the frazzled woman ahead of you with no makeup on and a fussy toddler in the cart was Kate Winslet. No big deal.
There was always outside interest in expanding either Pure Food and Wine, One Lucky Duck, or both. Some of it wasn’t serious, or else it was from a random person pleading to franchise in whatever random small town they were from, which made no sense. But most of the interest was incredibly flattering and sometimes intriguing. Rob Trujillo, bassist from Metallica (and a major crush of mine), told me he would be my investor if I would open a Pure Food and Wine in Northern California. Gisele Bundchen, at the time living in the West Village, repeatedly said she’d be my partner to open a One Lucky Duck near her townhouse. I don’t know how serious these offers were, but they seemed reasonably so, and why I didn’t take them up is another story.
There was interest internationally, too: a prominent group from Japan was eager to bring both Pure Food and Wine and One Lucky Duck to Tokyo and, after meeting a few times in New York, I flew over to Tokyo for a few days to see their operations and tour the city. They took great care of me, treating me like a dignitary. A similar thing happened with a Turkish investor. I was flown first-class to Istanbul, picked up in a fancy car and installed in a low-key but very cool boutique hotel. It was one of the best short trips of my life. When discussing business, the investor and his colleagues treated me like a serious businesswoman. When showing me around the city, taking me to restaurants and bars, I was treated like a sister. When it snowed unexpectedly one morning, they called my hotel room inquiring about my shoe size so they could buy me boots. (A heartwarming offer that I graciously declined—the snow wasn’t that bad.)
From the outside, it might have appeared as if I led a truly glamorous lifestyle. Traveling internationally in first-class certainly made me feel like I was. On those trips, I most definitely was living glamorously. But the rest of the time, not so much. I returned home to unpack in my tiny, dusty, chaotically messy studio. The idea that I was frequenting the best organic spas, doing yoga every day, or regularly jetting off to fabulous vacations in Belize with a Louis Vuitton bag packed full of designer resort wear was just that: an idea. I was not doing those things. But I sometimes got the feeling people thought I was.
I was doing work I cared for deeply, surrounded by people I cared for deeply, and I could eat the most delicious healthy food all day long. I had so much to be grateful for. At the same time, I was working like crazy, often sleep-deprived, and occasionally deeply unhappy—depressed, I realize now. I longed for things to be different. My normal state was to be outwardly upbeat and gracious but inside I was overwhelmed—sometimes overcome with quiet desperation. Given what later transpired and what I know now, I would give anything to go back to that time of purity and opportunity, messy as it was. Back to the cozy, safe nest of my restaurant family. Back to my regular seat against the wall at the end of our candlelit bar, or my table in the back corner of the dining room. Back to that good energy, soothed by the background music—always from a playlist compiled by me or by my longtime bar manager, Joey.
Joey was nearly as much a part of that restaurant as I was. Hired in our first year, he was one of many staff who had been witness to, and part of, many changes and transitions, including some that involved my personal life. Like the acrimonious, tabloid-chronicled split between me and my original partner in the restaurant, Matthew—who had also been my live-in boyfriend for four years—or when my cat died. Together we weathered business challenges including the recession and two brutal hurricanes, one of which shut down lower Manhattan for over a week. We’d even survive a corrupt CFO and attempted coup. “Attempted coup” sounds dramatic, but I nearly lost the brand to the control of a couple of fat corporate guys who sensed the untapped value and thought they knew better than I did. Never, I vowed, would I take my eyes off the road again.
Meanwhile, with so many artists and musicians on the staff, I went to as many of their shows and performances as I could, trying to be a good Mom. In the early years, I stayed late to drink wine with them after hours. When I didn’t, it warmed my heart knowing they were hanging out late into the night even in my absence. One could have said I was naïve, letting them take advantage of my lax ways, but I didn’t see it that way. I was glad they wanted to stay in each other’s company. If it cost me a few thousand dollars a year in extra wine, so be it.
For years I conveniently lived directly across the street. Sometimes, when the lines to the bathroom were too long, I ran across the street to my own. Or, if I called in the morning and no one answered when a host should have been on duty, I ran over in my pajamas to answer the phones until he or she finally showed up. I remember going to sleep one cool summer night, my window open, hearing the distinctive loud laugh of Jeri, one of our longtime and best servers, hanging out with others on the front patio. This was among the best and most comforting sounds to fall asleep to. It reminded me of when I was little, sometimes going to sleep hearing the wine-fueled laughter of my parents and their dinner party guests downstairs, easing me into my dreams.
Like many restaurant families, we were an incestuous lot. Relationships sparked between coworkers and sometimes things got messy, but we weren’t a dysfunctional family. Everyone genuinely cared for each another and for the business. From time to time there was a father figure of sorts in the picture, like Adam, a bookkeeper turned general manager who stood out for not socializing much with the staff. But he was well-liked and ran a tight ship, keeping everyone accountable for costs and reining in my permissiveness by proposing sensible rules to which I’d grudgingly agree. At the same time, he was supportive of our generosity in structured ways, like giving raises to hourly staff where and when we could, or the time we doled out $30K in holiday bonuses simply because we’d had a good year. I carried a ton of personal debt during these restaurant years (from a prior relationship) but I wanted our family to feel supported.
I was also—always—deeply and firmly optimistic. I knew we were headed for much bigger things and I’d eventually pay those debts. I knew the growth I privately envisioned would come about and that I’d stay in the driver’s seat. I knew I’d never sell out or let someone else dictate who we were or change our style and culture, merely for the sake of inching up profits. It wasn’t about money. As cliché as it sounds, it was about changing the world. I wanted to be part of a meaningful shift, a global shift, towards the consumption of more plants and fewer animals, promoting healthy and compassionate living and abating destruction and suffering. I wanted our work and our brand to matter, to make a difference. And I wanted it to outlast me.
