Michael Dickman has worked on and off at the Deli since 2000. His work has appeared and is forthcoming in FIELD, Tin House, The American Poetry Review, and The New Yorker. His first collection of poems, The End of the West, is due out in Spring of 2009. This summer Poets & Writers magazine will be publishing an article about his work. In July he is moving to the west coast to continue cooking and writing.
by Michael Dickman
When I started cooking for Zingermans in 2000 the relationship the kitchen had to
locally produced food, to the small farmers within walking and short driving distance of
our front door, was that there wasn't one. Other people might remember other things.
This is my memory.
No tomatoes.
No greens.
No mushrooms.
There were many exciting things happening in the kitchen at that time, but they had to do
with imported ingredients. Hard work from other countries.
Fine food shipped overseas.
No peaches.
No pumpkins.
No spinach.
Over the past eight years this has changed, thankfully, and beneficially, for all of us.
You can look at the deli case and know the season. On Wednesday and Saturday you can
walk across the street and find the menu.
This morning, by 8am, every hand in the kitchen was stained a pinkish red. A balsamic
reduction was being poured over a sure sign of Spring.
Strawberries.
Strawberries.
Strawberries.
Within these berries lives our relationship with local Michigan farmers and the Ann
Arbor Farmers Market. It is the single most important relationship the Deli has to offer.
Spring.
Summer.
Fall.
Winter.
Winter? Hoop houses. Yes, Winter.
It is the single most important relationship we have to offer because it is the best story
we have to tell about our lives. The story that says we received, we gave, we put everything back.
Rhubarb.
Peas.
Arugula.
Blueberries.
Working with small local farms is what interrelatedness in the universe means.
It means tomatoes five miles away.
Pawpaw patches.
Melons.
Melons.
Melons.
When, as a company, we stay committed to these farmers, to this food, we become more
dynamic. We are alive in the world.
Our palates deepen.
Our dreams become more vivid.
Our brains work harder.
We become better looking!
We bless our bodies.
There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying
blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.
— Robert Hass
We bless our bodies.
We walk across the street.
