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EMILY PATRICK
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21
UGA HEROES FWm
JANUARY 18,2012 • FlAGPOLE.COM 31
FP: You're not from Athens originally, are you?
NB; I'm not I've lived all over the country, and
the longest time, which is kind of
to me, but I totally grew up in Gwinnett.
That was another huge part of my sense memory as a
kid. We had a huge garden that fed the whole family.
FP: People garden in Gwinnett?
NB: Well, my parents were, like, the only ones.
We sold that house, and that garden's gone, of
course, but when I was a kid, I was home-schooled
until I went to high school... A large part of my day
was spent in the garden, and I hated every minute
of it, but now I would give anything to go back and
be a part of that.
FP: So, what do you think about Athens?
NB: Athens is one of the best places to be pas-
and learn about something in the world.
Everything's cheap. Everyone is passionate about
something. Everyone is doing something they love
if they're not students, especially. Usually it's music,
and sometimes it's art, but probably third down on
the list is cooking, since this is totally a service-
driven economy. It's really cool to be able to talk to other
cooks about what you're doing.
FP: You mentioned working for free or for low pay. Is that
something you could do only in Athens, or would you find it
gratifying anywhere?
* NB: On the pne hand, I do think it's only that way in
Athens and other select cities. In Athens—I live on Pulaski
Street, in the best house I've ever lived in for so cheap, with a
garden and chickens.
out later—I heard about the opening [by] word of mouth
downtown. I've always wanted to work at The National. I'd
probably turned in five resumes—I knew they were doing
something special—and they never called me back. I'd always
wanted to be a server, over the years, and then I finally heard
that they were hiring for cooks, and I was like, "Okay, I'U check
it out'
FP: Had you ever been a cook before?
NB: I had never cooked anything in my life. Not even in
my life. Me and my brother were like Jacob and Esau: I would
trade anything for him to cook breakfast for me. I couldn't
deal with it I couldn't scramble eggs, and then all of a sud
den, here I was in this fast-paced [environment]. As soon as I
found out about the opening, I got interested in cooking sort
of overnight, I suddenly realized that so many of my favorite
memories from being a child and growing up were about food.
I spent summers in New York and Idaho when I was'a kid, so
one of my favorite meals was rainbow trout in Idaho. We would
go catch them. And I vividly remember being served a gyro in
an upside-down frisbee at some terrible Greek restaurant that
my grandpa took me to. So, I started to realize that I had all
these really cool food memories, and I started to get inter
ested in the intellectual and the thoughtful side of food, so I
grabbed a cookbook—The French Laundry [Cookbook]—.and I
was hooked. It was like reading an amazing story.
FP: Did you always know that you could work for a bw wage
and feel good about ;*t or did you arrive at that point gradually?
NB: I was very worked. I've been a server in the town
for a long time, and you make very nice money for the town
doing that, so I was very worried that I was going to run out
of cash [when I became a cook]. But, I lived very cheaply for
a year and a half—that's how long I've been doing this—so
I've been able to travel a lot. I've been to New York; I've been
to Chicago; I've been to Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, just
because I'm not spending all my money here in town. I'd go
there for food, and Yd go there for coffee because I'm a big
coffee nerd, and I have learned so much. Every lesson has been
amazing.
Emily Patrick
Nathan Brand came to Athens to study English at the
University of Georgia. Although he has always wanted to be
a writer, he became frustrated with literary studies and left
school Now, he works as a cook at The National, and he finds
a strong and profound connection between literature and food.
He has even begun writing recipes and other food-focused
pieces. He is considering returning to school to finish his
degree, but he feels strongly attached to his culinary studies as
well. In an ideal world, he says, he would be in Paris, London
or Copenhagen next year studying under one of Europe's
acclaimed Michelin chefs.
Flagpole: Could you expbin what you do for a job?
Nrthan Brand : Oh, it is really the best job I've ever had,
and that's really why I haven't gone back to school: because
it's so hard to leave, even for, you know, 10 hours a week. It
totally took me by surprise. It was an ad in Craigslist. I found
FP: That's what I'd been wondering: as a former English
major, do you think there is a connection between the way you
experience food and the way you experience literature?
NB: I do now, but when I started I was so overwhelmed I
couldn't even think. I [had been] working at a coffee shop and
a bakery, so I was kind of-all over the place before I settled
•down and focused on just cooking. But I didn't think so before:
I thought that writing was writing and cooking and eating was
cooking and eating. And maybe wine was the bridge between
the two. But I never thought that you could think about food
as much as you can think about literature, and that's what has
kept me going and kept me totally hooked.
FP; Could you expbin what that connection is?
NB: I think that connection is creativity, and I've started
to understand that flavors are kind of like words, and they can
be put together beautifully, or they can go together in kind of
a messy way. They can be very pure, or they can be
kind of muddled. It's all about technique, and that's
one of the things that writing and cooking have in
common.! spent my whole life trying to be a writer.
When I was a kid, that's all I ever wanted to do was
practice and practice and practice, so now I'm pretty
good. But now, I feel the exact same way about
cooking. I've had to practice and practice, and that
was really discouraging at first, but I started to
get better exponentially after awhile, and that's an
encouraging thing.
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