"Doing without" was a way of life during the long shortages of World War II. In his collection of essays, One Man's Meat, E.B. White wrote: "…Every day I shall use the milk of the previous day, never taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy perfectly fresh milk. This is a situation that could be avoided if I had the guts to throw away a whole bottle of milk, but nobody has that much courage in the world today. It is a sin to throw away milk, and we know it."
In 2008, the wrong kind of courage on the part of the wrong kind of mogul got the country into a whole lot of debt. At the kind of places debt was created for—elegant restaurants— things are slow. If you ask any bartender or restaurant owner in the Valley they'll tell you that things aren't even slow as in, "Well everybody's getting ready for Thanksgiving&" or, as in, "It's an off night…" Things are slow as in, when you go into a place on a week night, the music on the sound system is Procol Harum, not something chosen by the front-of-the-house person because the front-of-the-house person has left for the night.
When times are tough, the tough get going. Karl Braverman, formerly a cook at Mulino's, bought Sienna in the sleepy town of South Deerfield several years ago when its former owner took off for Belize. Running an elegant restaurant in a town that looks as if the hitching posts have just been removed is not easy. Braverman, who is not afraid to speak his mind, will tell you that he has done everything in his power to keep afloat."I've put in a larger bar, although no one notices it," he says, caressing the wood of the shiny, very clean bar. "I've dropped prices. I'm serving lunch. What do these people want from me?"
Braverman is doing a lot of what other local restaurants are doing to keep people coming in the door, including offering half-off coupons and blue-plate specials. Although he draws the line at Brunch with Santa, Braverman has continued to cut prices and staff when necessary. On several occasions when I've been there with other people, we've been waited on by Braverman, cooked for by Braverman and given our coats by Braverman. He's done just about everything in the restaurant except play keyboard on wine nights. But he has a dream and now is the time to put it into play.
"Before I got here, I wanted to be a cookie mogul," says Braverman, who is slim and darts about like a crow. "This place just came along and I had a family to feed. I mean me in a place like this!" he says, gesturing around the restaurant with its purple drapes, palm fronds and oil paintings. In the evening, the lighting is soft and being there is like sitting inside a chocolate box. Braverman has decided to make the most of the holiday season by resting on his cookie laurels, earned while cooking at Mulino's.
"I'm just a regular guy trying to make a living like everybody else," he says. He is adamant about keeping in touch with, and celebrating, the locals. He has offered a half-price lunch for area teachers, whom he describes as the hardest working people in the universe. As for the competition, Wolfie's Restaurant, Braverman hopes his Caesar Salad for $7 ("same as Wolfie's") will provide a much better value because of his ingredients.
Few chefs are as vocal as Braverman about how expensive local can be. "I mean, I like to buy local, but why is everything $9 a pound all of a sudden?" he demands. Although onions and potatoes certainly are not $9 a pound, artisanal commodities such as cheeses and baby lettuce cost the same for Sienna as they do for Harvest in Cambridge. And don't even get him started on the touchy topic of mushrooms. "What is up with these foragers&?" he exclaims. "I mean, are they kidding?&Twelve dollars a pound? They're foragers, they get the stuff for free!
"Forget the food," he says careening into new territory. "Local business is the real issue. We have got to support local business also." This is true of hardware stores, bookstores and restaurants alike and there is a bit of awareness of that out there, although, like rich kids, expensive restaurants don't get much sympathy even if they are local. (Other restaurant owners cite return business but not as much of it. Perhaps this will be an era of less is more?)
"Why does everybody have to be a millionaire all of a sudden?" says Braverman. "Capitalism is out of control."
The cookie mogul's cookies are macaroons—an anachronistic confection if there ever was one. They are made of coconut and egg white whipped into a froth of heaven, if heaven were bite-sized. To spread the love around in these trying times, Braverman is going door to door in South Deerfield with samples of the cookies, like a real mogul.
