THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED: PART 2

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SECOND CHOPS

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A few years after I graduated from West Liberty, I found myself looking for a job in Thomas, West Virginia. I'd just spent two very intense years as a wilderness instructor, paid off my school loans, spent six weeks in Europe, and gotten back from a month in the Dominican Republic. I was out of money, living out of my car, and hungry. That hunger led me straight into another job in food service, this time at the Purple Fiddle.

The Fiddle was only a couple of years old then, and I'm happy to say you've probably heard of it these days. It's become a real destination and stayed true to its roots the whole way. The town of Thomas and the whole Canaan Valley area have come a long way since I lived there. There were stretches in the early 2000s when it felt about as close to the frontier as you could get on the East Coast in the 21st century.

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The Fiddle was, or at least was back then, one of those places where you could pretty much always get a job. People came and went depending on the weather and a hundred other things, so it wasn't hard getting my foot in the door, especially since I'd already been living in town and frequenting the place for a couple years by then. I started twisting wraps, doing dishes, serving beer, making coffee. Everyone does everything at the Fiddle.

The best nights went late and got rowdy. Sometimes we'd end up clear on the other side of town at the Sportsman's Club after close. We were ski bums and river rats, former guides, aspiring yogis. I couch surfed and slept in vacant houses, which after two years sleeping in the woods felt like a perfectly decent trade.

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The times we had were, honestly, insane. I still think about doing a series of short stories someday, something in the vein of Northern Exposure, based on that stretch of my life. Some nights I'd be too drunk on shift to actually mop the floor, and the next morning the owners would ask if I had, and I'd say, oh yeah, sure, course I mopped. I remember make-out sessions in frozen cars, streaking through the snow after hours, total inebriation, total chaos, total mad fun.

It wasn't too long, in fact far too short, before I started feeling the jaws of routine close around me. I threw what I owned into the car and moved to Chicago.

I was living with a girl in an efficiency apartment in Andersonville. The closest coffee shop was right at the Brown Line stop for the El, a place called Beans N Bagels. I walked in and met three lifelong friends before I knew what hit me. One of those friends owns the shop now. It's called Spoken Café these days, and you should check it out if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Anyway, I walked in, walked up to the counter, and asked for an application, which I turned back in the next day. I gave it a day, then I followed up.

"Look, I put the application in the day before yesterday, and I'd really like to train tomorrow so I can work the weekend. So what the hell?"

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The next day I went back, and one of the girls had me run an expensive espresso machine part to their other shop two stops down the line, near Lincoln Square. That's how I met the owner, Darren. I started that same day, after telling him up front I'd only be around for a month or so before heading off to Utah for the summer, but promising I'd be back. For some reason, he hired me anyway.

I did go to Utah, and I did come back. In fact, right after I got back, my girlfriend kicked me out of the apartment, and I actually slept in the coffee shop for a couple of months during the week, heading down to a friend's place in Ukrainian Village on the weekends. After a year and a half, I left Beans to learn cabinetmaking, and about six months later, I left Chicago altogether.

I ended up going back to West Virginia for a little while before heading off to Japan.

-- Chef Matt