Writer Reborn

INTRODUCTION
Miss Ruby’s Café: Ruth Reborn

Just before Christmas 1977 in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a pale moon cast its light over the frozen New England town, but inside the firelit storefront on Main Street, the room was warmed by blinking votives and the spice and sweetness of good home cooking. Her cinnamon hair pulled loosely in a bun, oval face turned toward her work, Ruth prepped vegetables, made sauces, started soups, fried tostadas and hushpuppies, boiled beans. For thirty-seven year-old Ruth Adams Bronz, this was the smell of new beginnings.

In a cutthroat business she was opening a restaurant from scratch with little more than a few thousand dollars and good kitchen sense. But she was as sure of success as if she’d already made it; for her, it was the most natural thing in the world. For a moment, the past was behind her--the death of her young husband and the shadow of infidelity, the sting of her father’s disapproval and indifference, the fear that she’d never find her calling--all of these things were neutralized, if only for a time, by Miss Ruby’s Café.

The next fifteen years would be the sweetest of her life. Miss Ruby’s saw immediate success, even in the slow winter months when there were no tourists and it was so cold even the locals were tempted to stay in. The restaurant was dubbed the focal point for the “cultured counterculture” and in its peak summer months drew around 600 customers a day.

Her customers called her “Miss Ruby,” and she liked it that way. The new name was apt. The “Miss” lent a southern lilt, a feminine dignity without associations of marriage or matronhood; “Ruby,” suggested things red and fiery, full of warmth and spice, passion and blood. The nickname, coined by an old lover, conveyed Ruth’s inviting familiarity that disarmed and delighted her customers. She didn’t have to bother with fussy feedback forms; customers told her--often hollered over the partition--while she cooked.

“Too spicy, Miss Ruby. Ease up on us Yankees” or “there’s bones in my soup!" She’d take it or leave it, depending on how fussy the customer, how crucial the ingredient, but was always gracious, reassuringly maternal. This was, at last, her kitchen, unapologetically her domain.

Ruth, after all, had had no formal training as a chef, only as a cook in a bistro flipping hamburgers and grilling fish. With little knowledge or concern as to what would be commercially wise or market savvy, she cooked what she herself would eat and serve to people she loved. Knowing that biscuits are best eaten piping hot and straight out of the oven, she had her waiters serve them from the pan they were baked in instead of wasting precious time transferring them to lined baskets. Because she wanted to expose people to new foods and pique their interest, she changed the menu every week, something unheard of by the townspeople, and rarely practiced then by anyone in the food business. Drawing inspiration from Junior League cookbooks, community cookbooks, and family recipes, she created meals out of a fascination with the food people made in their homes all over the country.

What seemed very natural to Ruth was largely unacknowledged in the food world maybe even today--that the United States has a diverse and worthy regional cuisine from border to border, coast to coast. Countries like France and Italy have long been recognized for their regional specialties, but Ruth’s appreciation was much more specific. She gave credence to recipes from home cooks all over the country, from the smallest towns in the Midwest to California’s northern coast. Many restaurants might recognize Creole cooking or deep southern cooking, New England or Tex-Mex, but Miss Ruby’s featured a different regional cuisine every week, sometimes repeating a region, but never a menu.

Though she owned the place and could have left the sweltering kitchen and long hours on her feet to the employees, Ruth insisted upon prepping and cooking the food she served. It wasn’t a chore, it was what she did--the feel of the sharp knife slipping through crisp vegetables, the crackle and earthy caramel of onions sautéing, the fresh perfume of a tossed salad--these were her unalloyed delights, this was her happiness.

In 1991, 13 years after she first opened her restaurant, Ruth would suffer successive, crippling setbacks. But on that cold December night in 1977, Ruth was free, solitary and strong, her past behind her and the present as rich as a good chicken stock. As the guests trudged through the snow that night towards the amber windows of Miss Ruby’s Café, they could smell pumpkin and biscuits, pork chops and gravy, and through the window they saw Ruth, aproned, smiling, and ready to cook.