hippie lou goes to w-land

W-LAND is really a metaphor for Wendy and the world that she’s created. But how did I stumble into it?

HOW I MET WENDY

I met Wendy through a guy I knew—a guy whose place I had stumbled into several years earlier. I had just started my consulting business and I was in downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is a god-forsaken place if you like good food.

I came out of my small office one day in search of good food and company, and walked across the street to a small restaurant called Pastaficio’s. I was immediately struck by the place: There was a hustle-bustle, everyone seemed to be enjoying the food and each others’ company, and there was a man behind the stove who was working six or seven saucepans at once. They had daily specials and incredible food, made with fresh ingredients and a lot of creativity and love and passion. You walked up to the cash register, ordered one of the specials, and it was prepared for you in the open kitchen. Within three or four minutes, you had hot, fresh, sexy, sensual Italian food sitting in front of you.

I took to the place like a duck to water and became friends with the proprietor, named Dave, who was also Pastaficio’s chef and chief creative officer. I think we shared a passion for good food and a good life—which was probably in his blood, given that he was Italian. And it was probably in my blood, too, but perhaps my current ran a little deeper and a little colder.

Anyway, we were both trying to create new ventures, and we had hopes and dreams and aspirations. So we would commiserate and share ideas and critique each other and provide support for each other. But one thing we always had in common was a love for and an interest in food, which grew into an interest in a better lifestyle—through food, but through other things, too.

Dave had traveled a lot of places and knew a lot about food and nutrition and different diets. After several years, he opened up another place, in South Bethlehem, and it was a real challenge to make that work. I ate there often, and during the warm weather I would ride my bicycle down there and have lunch and do work and help my daughter with her schoolwork and think of ideas, and so forth.

Toward the end of Dave’s tenure there, he gave me a book called Superfoods. I had started having some health problems that, unbeknownst to me, were related to my diet and my physical condition. I was just plain fat. So I read this book, which was by a guy from Scripps, which is apparently a venerable and highly esteemed medical institution, and he talked a lot about so-called superfoods, which contained nutrients that did all sorts of good things for you.

I looked at his list of superfoods and realized that I liked a fair number of them, like blueberries and spinach—and turkey, which I think was one of them. So I started talking to Dave about it and he helped me out with oatmeal, which was also on the list. I had never liked traditional oatmeal, but he talked to me about steel-cut oats, which I really liked. They were sort of snappy and poppy, and he gave me a really easy way to prepare them.

So I started changing my diet a little. I went to the store and I prepared the food myself. Being me, though, I was simply assembling these different ingredients—there was no aesthetic to it.

By the by, Dave shut down the restaurant in South Bethlehem, and he had sold the one in Allentown. So he was looking for a new life where he could express his passion for food and healthy lifestyles in a different way. And he met up with someone who was into macrobiotic diets and had taken him to a new restaurant in Emmaus (PA). He told me about it and said we should go to lunch there.

He gave me the address, and on the appointed day at the appointed hour, I showed up. And I’ll never forget that first day I walked up to the house. It was an old Victorian house and I didn’t know what I was walking into. It seemed like a house where someone lived, with a nice front porch and everything. But it was a bit out of character for the Lehigh Valley I had come to know, where pre-fab houses were going up at lightning speed for white-collar folks who wanted more house for less money, but still wanted to be close to New Jersey and the jobs and industries on the I-287 corridor.

I VENTURE INTO W-LAND

I walked in and it was like entering another world, or another land. The furniture was wooden and simple, but it had a powerful presence. And the smells coming out of the kitchen were incredible. We sat down and ordered the sweet-potato/peanut soup, which came in a white dish and was visually compelling. There were designs in the soup and some type of red spice sprinkled on it, and I think sunflower seeds were in it. It spoke to me. There was something mystical about it—something human in it that I couldn’t put my finger on.

At the time, I had just gotten a digital camera, and I was taking pictures of myself and everything around me. So I started taking pictures of the soup, and all of a sudden, Wendy appeared. She seemed a bit nervous about the fact that I was taking pictures. Of course, I didn’t think anything of it because my intentions are always loving. I had just found something so beautiful that I was trying to capture and preserve it. But I realize in retrospect that it was a futile effort, and I was being shown the futility of it.

Anyway, Wendy and I had a nice chat. And when I tasted the soup, it was unlike anything I had never tasted. It was utterly sexy and sensual, with a spiritual element and a human element. And although I didn’t know it at the time, I felt that Wendy was very present in the food there, which I had never experienced at any other place, nor have I since then. It was intoxicating—the sweet soup and the spicy-sweet bread were absolutely delicious. And, for lack of a better word, I scarfed it up—apologies for all the gourmands out there!

The next dish was also astounding. All of the dishes had a visual, sensual component, and were incredibly well-crafted—their architecture was amazing. And the more I learned about what was in front of me, the better it got. It was vegan, it was very healthy, and much of it came from farmers who were within twenty or twenty-five miles of where we were eating.

The more I realized all these things, the more I wanted to keep having this experience. So I started coming almost every day—every day I could. Wendy is closed on Mondays, but she’s open Tuesday through Friday for lunch, and I like lunch.

Now, Dave’s restaurant was eighteen miles from my house, round-trip. But Emmaus, where Wendy is, is actually nineteen miles each way. So it was thirty-eight miles, and I had to go over a huge hill to get there and back. But I rode happily, and I ate there almost every day for a period of six months.

I CHANGE

My body started to change, and so did my mind. But the changes in my body were the most dramatic. I hadn’t gone there to get healthy or lose weight. So I had an epiphany when I started to get more interested in what Wendy was creating, and I thought about why there weren’t more places like Balasia—her restaurant—in the Lehigh Valley or elsewhere. My focus was not on having a better diet, although I was tangentially interested in it, per my earlier remarks about the food. But the amazing thing was that my body just started to change, and I had not intended that.

Now that I think about it, my physical change coincided with a time in my life when I had come to the realization that who I was and how I felt as a young boy—my dreams, passions, interests, and the curiosity that I had—were expressions of my true self, and as close as I’ve ever been to myself. And they were very positive forces in my life.

I also realized that, in my transition from being that young boy to becoming an adult, many of the forces in my life and many of the choices I made had taken me away from my true essence and had transformed that boy—in all his exuberance and curiosity and passion for life—into something that I didn’t like very much. And this manifested itself in my body: I weighed about two hundred pounds, which is about sixty more than I should carry. It also affected my emotional state, so it wasn’t just a physical thing.

Being in Balasia every day made me feel like I was being nourished—like I was existentially feeding that boy and bringing him to life—and the part of me that I had layered onto myself was melting away. The boy who had been covered up for so long was becoming uncovered.

It was a gradual process—it didn’t happen in a week or two—it happened over five or six months. But by then, I was completely different, not only in a physical sense, but also in the sense that I had begun a journey of mental and spiritual transformation.

So I can talk about the food and what’s in front of me when I go to Balasia. But as my friend Tony said, when he came up from Washington DC and walked into Balasia: “This is not a restaurant.” He’s much more perceptive than I am, and he understood in an hour what it had taken me several months to realize. I was amazed by his wisdom, and his remark is a pure testament to what Wendy has created.

OUR RELATIONSHIP

One thing I immediately loved about Wendy was that she did not succumb to the mentality I had seen among other food purveyors in the Lehigh Valley, which is that people don’t like to spend a lot when they go out to eat, so providers were afraid to charge more than seven or eight dollars for an entrée. Wendy’s entrees were priced significantly higher than that. And I loved that, because she was bringing fresh and exotic ingredients straight off the farm and she supported local health stores, but she also had incredible things in her food—things that I didn’t even know, that she taught me about—different sorts of peapods and seeds and sprouts and seedlings and exotic spices and nuts and flowers and all sorts of things. And she was giving much of herself to put these things together in an aesthetic way. She was not afraid to charge for it. I really admired that courage, and it reflected her fundamental belief in the value of what she provides.  

It’s impossible to separate the creation from the creator. And part of my awakening and what’s brought me to where I am today is my interaction with Wendy from being in her restaurant several days a week for an extended period of time.

She gave me many things, which I’ve tried to return. But I have not compensated her for one-tenth of what she has given me—either through what I paid for the meals or the assistance I’ve provided her, or by my attempts to be a waiter when her wait staff didn’t show up. That was fairly humorous, but I had a great time doing it, and I think the patrons sometimes enjoyed it too.

There was another experience I went through that was related to Wendy’s notebook computer. She used it to print her menus, and because she tried to take advantage of organic produce that was local and fresh and vegan (i.e., vegetable/plant), she changed her menu on a daily basis. Typically, lunch started at noon, but at 11:50 there was always a frantic rush to edit the previous day’s menu and print it out before the first guests arrived.

Then her computer got a virus. I wasn’t good at anything else, like washing dishes, but I did know a thing or two about computers, so I tried to restore her computer and her printer. During a three-to-four-week process, I installed different software and tried different things, but one problem arose after another. It was like sticking your finger into a hole in the dike just to have another one pop up. I finally said, “Why don’t we just get a new computer?” So I got her a new computer and gave her a printer that I had at home.

I felt great about it because it was something I could do to help the cause. I’m sure Wendy would have found another way to print her menus without a new computer, but it just seemed like the right thing for me to do. So I tried to help out when I could, and through that experience, I came to have a different perspective on what Wendy was building and creating.

THE GIFT OF WENDY’S EXAMPLE

At that time, I had started a consulting business that was doing fairly well by society’s standards. I was making good money and I had clients who seemed to like what we were doing for them and asked us back to do more. At times, I enjoyed the work, but at other times, I was deeply troubled by some of the things that the companies we worked for were doing, and how they approached things, and by some of the people that I had to work with. And many times, I did not enjoy the work. There were and people at these companies that I liked, and there were times when I really enjoyed what I was doing, and felt that we were creating something new and better that might have an impact both on the company and on the world.

But those times were getting fewer and further between. And there was a discord between many of the things I saw the companies doing and what I perceived as beneficial. I was deeply troubled by that, and I was struggling to reconcile being able to send my daughter to school and pay the mortgage and the car insurance and keep a going financial concern, and also buy things that I could actually afford for the first time, like a sports car and a motorcycle.

But I was having a really hard time with the business and the life I’d created. And I talked to Wendy about it at length and many times, over the course of several months. And what was so compelling about her, and so inspiring, was not always what she said, although that was powerful. Rather, she showed through example—through Balasia, through her presence every day at the restaurant and what she created—that you could build a business and a community and a place and a restaurant and a value system and relationships with local farmers and a consciousness and sensitivity to the environment and Mother Earth. You could do it all, you could have it all, you didn’t have to compromise—and you could live. You could live; you could make it work.

Up to that point, I and other people around me who were influential at the time had always presented life’s options as a choice between making a deal with the devil and living somewhat comfortably, at least from a material standpoint; or doing what you loved and being predestined to starvation and suffering and destitution.

Through her example, Wendy gave me the courage to do something I loved, to be myself, to pursue my dreams and try to build a world that I want to live in and that I think will be good for others. And everything would take care of itself. Would it be easy? Would it be without financial struggle? Would it be all cake and ice cream? Certainly not.

And that was another element about Wendy and Balasia that I grew to respect. In Wendy’s personal life and her operation of the restaurant, I witnessed the tremendous sacrifices she made. It was not easy, it was not without sacrifice, and it was an extremely difficult thing. I think it exhausted Wendy at times—it took a physical toll, and a mental and spiritual toll.

But it seemed that every day, when I showed up, that world—W-LAND—was still there, and Wendy was still standing in the middle of it with her Tibetan flag planted and flags fluttering in the breeze off the front porch of Balasia. She was there to offer her love—through her food, her refreshments, her ideas, the music she played, and through all the interesting people that she attracted to this interesting and wonderful land. It was always there. And no matter how hard it was or how short-staffed she was or what had happened that day, she was there, making the best of what she had and giving love.

It was an incredible thing to witness and experience, and it took me to a lot of new places. On the personal front, it inspired me to reconstitute my life and put into place new efforts and initiatives, such as this one, to celebrate and try to help people like Wendy create and become successful in their own terms—and pour water on the seed they’ve planted to help it grow and flourish, and nurture it in whatever way possible.

THINGS I’D HELD DEAR

It certainly changed my life on that front. But it also changed a lot of the things that I formerly held dear. One of those things is that I was trained as an economist at the University of Chicago, where they have a particular idea of the world. In economics, a prevalent and generally accepted idea is that doing things on a large scale usually benefits consumers, because they get more and better-quality things at a lower cost. Through my experience with Wendy and her concept of supporting local agriculture and foregoing large-scale food manufacturers or importers, however, I learned that there are all sorts of intangible benefits that are difficult to measure and don’t show up.

In essence, Wendy changed an idea that, as a scientist, I had thought was a pretty good model of the world and evoked a pretty good standard to be held to. But watching Wendy and seeing her interact with the local farmer, Michael, and his son Benjamin, who came in every Sunday with the local produce, I began to understand how a different type of exchange and economic structure might actually yield greater benefits. If one did a full cost-and-benefit accounting, one might come to a different conclusion than the calculus I had previously believed. Wendy really opened my mind to that and injected a number of new ideas that might ultimately lead to great things and great new ideas—not only for her and for Balasia, but for many other areas of inquiry.

IF THIS IS SO GREAT, WHY AREN’T THERE MORE?

One of my other long-held tenets relates to the fact that Wendy has something great—a great experience and a great product—so why aren’t people lining up outside her door? And why aren’t there more Balasias in the Lehigh Valley, instead of there being just one, or one place like that? It was an oasis. And since I’ve started spending more and more time in Manhattan, where every type of food on earth is supposed to be available, I still have not found any place like Balasia.

Instead, there are fast-food restaurants. And in the Lehigh Valley, folks’ idea of a good meal is deep-fried cheesecake at Applebee’s. So this situation has caused me to start wondering about some things.

The first is what I said: If this is such a great product, why isn’t it taking over the market, or the world? Why, when I go to different cities, is it hard to find vegan restaurants? And why, if I do find them, are they often disappointing? Why aren’t there places like Balasia all over the Valley, so that I don’t have to ride forty miles round-trip? I haven’t found anyplace else—vegan or non-vegan—that has that sensuality and food and love and caring and sense of community. Why isn’t something so good more widespread?

I knew it wasn’t something about the product. And I use the word “product” in the best sense of the word, because Wendy’s product is not a product in the usual way one thinks of it. But whatever she was creating and offering was so compelling that it made me wonder why it wasn’t more widespread. And it made me question whether the market really works in the way that I’ve been taught and the way that it’s supposedly been scientifically proven to do.

I started thinking about different explanations and different models of the world. Maybe the market didn’t work as well or as perfectly as I thought it did, or perhaps there were a lot of entrenched interests that wanted to preserve the status quo around restaurant and lifestyle and diet and food and entertainment, or hospitality experience; and consumers were habitual and didn’t have access to a lot of information.

I CAME TO REALIZE

So I began to try to think about that, specifically in relation to two aspects: (1) What is it about the existing market that makes it difficult for any new product or idea or service to get established and become successful and spread—particularly with respect to food, which is such an important part of our health? And (2) Why aren’t there more people who are as skilled and talented in the preparation and presentation of the food as Wendy is?

I realized that one of the biggest ways I could impact my health and my physical, mental, and spiritual outlook was by what I put in my mouth every day. And I’m a guy who had already heard the public service announcements from the Centers for Disease Control and had read studies about the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables.

So this was an important discovery for me. And through discussion with Wendy and others, I realized that the vegan diet and lifestyle are positioned in a totally unappealing way. That’s what makes people either scared to try it or resistant to it in the first place. For starters, the word itself—“vegan”—is not an appealing or sexual or sensual word. It sounds a bit alien and has a hard edge to it.

Wendy and I talked about how vegan food is typically not well-prepared. It’s bland and it’s not sexy or sensual, so people who try it get turned off to it. Ultimately, though, it’s positioned as punishment—and as, de facto, worse food than the standard American diet, which includes meat and dairy products. So the only reason you would change to a vegan diet is if you’re about to die from a heart attack and your choice is between death and eating vegan food. It’s never anything you would want to do unless you were facing the ultimate fate.

It’s always positioned in terms of health and prevention of disease. And disease is not something that makes you want to jump up out of your chair and do something. It’s not compelling in a positive way—the way that something sensual with a visual aesthetic might pull you in and draw you to it.

And I came to realize that vegan food and this new type of diet and lifestyle were positioned as completely unappealing, and that’s why folks like Wendy and places like Balasia have such a difficult time gaining a foothold and a following. It’s ironic, because you never met a guy who loves food more than I do—and who loved meat and dairy more than I did. I grew up putting Half-&-Half in my cereal, and loving every spoonful; and I ate rare roast beef and really enjoyed meat. Nowadays, I’m not even interested in meat or dairy because of my experience with Balasia. It’s better and sexier, and more sensual and fulfilling and nutritious, than any food I’ve ever had.

And it was substantial—not like a French meal where you get a small portion of a couple of things. Wendy is a big believer in healthy portions and you’d eat a plateful of food that you thought would absolutely stagger you. But after you’d eaten all that colorful and flavorful food, and you were completely satisfied psychologically and felt like you had been around the world and your stomach was full, you felt like you could eat another plate of it. You were utterly satiated, but your stomach wasn’t heavy. You’d had a meal, but you really hadn’t had a meal. It’s the strangest sensation I’ve ever had, and it’s completely changed my life.

spring, 2008.

story produced in collaboration with Corinna Fales.