Editor’s note: As part of the reporting for the magazine’s feature “The Exit Strategy,” author Elizabeth Foy Larsen emailed restaurateur Jason McLean. Mpls.St.Paul asked McLean about his career in restaurants, such as the Loring Café, the allegations and the lawsuits against him from his days as an instructor and performer in youth theater, and his surprising departure from the Twin Cities. Their email exchange appears here.
“The Exit Strategy” can be found in the May 2018 print edition of Mpls.St.Paul on local newsstands starting April 20, and appears digitally here.
From: Elizabeth Foy Larsen
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 2:33 PM
To: Jason McLean
Subject: Re: Interview request from Mpls. St. Paul Magazine
Hi Jason,
Here are a few questions.
1. What are your business plans in Mexico?
2. Why did you sell your properties in MN?
3. What drew you to the world of restaurants? What did you love about running them?
From: Jason McLean
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: Interview request from Mpls. St. Paul Magazine
To: Elizabeth Foy Larsen
Hello Elizabeth,
Let’s start with Q #3—
Why restaurants? —fate I suppose. Virtually all actors are destined to have to work a second job—the one that is “between jobs” acting.
I liked to cook. I still do. I just went looking for this photo of me as a kid, 8–9 years old, holding a mixing bowl and big spoon, wearing a nice smile, an apron and a classic chef’s hat, both had “Chef Boomer” embroidered in red thread. But the photo is missing, along with all sorts of nice memories. I am “boomer”—my nickname, and I so liked to cook, and garden, and make things out of nature’s resources.
For instance, around age ten years, I made a bow out of saplings, stripped the spring green bark which then was used as the bowstring, and straight-ish twigs were sharpened at the tip for the arrows, the nock cut with the knife I’d been trusted with; feathers for guidance shed by birds, found lying wherever they lay—I spent most years growing up nearby undeveloped land; nature was my playground—those feathers were trimmed and then glued—the only manufactured element other than the knife used to do the making—to the shaft of the arrows. I practiced a bit, and was happy that my sapling bow, green tree skin/bark bowstring; and the arrows were fairly accurate.
And that same day, as it was going to dusk, I spotted a lumpy toad in the grass of Marian’s side yard. And I shot true and surely killed the poor thing…and as I picked it up by the arrow which had shish-kebob-ed it, his or her throat puffing out and in like a balloon, bug-eyed, both the toad and me, I felt horrible; tossed the arrow/toad/and bow into the woods and was then done with the making of weapons.
Years later, long after I’d outgrown my chef’s hat and toque, I was working at the Children’s Theatre. Mr. Donahue, the artistic director was/is? A phenomenal talent in so many areas. He, too liked to cook. And he often made comparison of cooking food and the ritual of breaking bread, as a metaphor for an artistic way of living. As I came to understand it, the qualities that make a meal superb, (or not), share the same essential procedures as does the making of great story-telling that makes the live theater so, well…lively.
The theater is a ritual of performance and attention, immediate in nature. I’ve come to understand it as a recipe or concoction for the telling of a story—which, if crafted well, with its multiple ingredients and deft techniques of preparation applied to those elements, it will, perhaps, be a success; be more than mere diversion or entertainment; it will be greater than the sum of the parts/ingredients. This, as I understand it, is the definition of “Art,” and art is my preferred modality of instigating personal and social change.
And I took that lesson to heart. And by sheer coincidence, I was introduced to a trio of restaurant owners in Manhattan back in 1980 or so and worked for them some—washing dishes, running errands, and tending their other store at times. I was inspired by what they were doing with their 25-seat restaurant on 93rd Between Madison and Park—a converted dry-cleaners storefront. I had a birthday coming up which fell on a Sunday—when they were not open for biz. I asked and they OK’d me to host my own birthday party 0and I would cook dinner for my invitees in their tiny little kitchen. I prepared a trout for each guest according to a recipe by French kitchen legend, Jacques Pépin and the “Queen-Mother’s Cake” according to another, Maida Heatter.
And so I launched myself into a fascination for the entertaining of guests and the symbiosis of cooking/entertaining/gathering/and storytelling that theaters and restaurant share in common came to a bright life, a spontaneous combustion took place in my chest that Sunday evening in April on the upper East Side.
That was after I had been taken in by the Guthrie Theater for about 1 ½ seasons; and I was, as mentioned, “Between jobs.” And when I went home to see family and figure out what the hell to do with the rest of my life, a life that was proving very difficult in NYC, I made a point to stop in to the CTC and pay my respects. That led to my joining the CTC as a hired staff member. As such I was included into the company culture of CTC.
JCD’s [John Clark Donohue’s] comparison of theater and culinary arts was a constant, and I noticed it was taken to heart by some of the elite company—Wendy and Carl—both were stunning cooks and talked food all the time. Even George, Ollie, and Bain. To this moment, I still recall the bacon-wrapped trout that Wendy made—I think it was for another of my birthdays.
Carl’s husband, Jim’s grandmother’s potato salad with turmeric, mustard and God-knows-what southern opioid; John Donahue even made a chicken liver mousse that I tasted tentatively—out of duty/respect, but then, actually, unbelievably, almost enjoyed. His Italian sausage braise with sweet peppers, garlic, cabbage, and salt pork—which now goes by the more chi-chi term, pork belly—to die for. And, as always, I stand by, quietly, for the most part, and soak up the lessons being revealed, though not formally taught. I have always had that technique—to absorb as much as possible of the practice of those that I notice/can appreciate as superb, brilliant, in possession of skills and information of great worth.
And 5 years passed. And I was drummed out of the corps of CTC, which had been so devastated by the Donahue scandal. It was no longer a job I’d fight to keep. The art of theater had been lost. I don’t know if anyone has excavated my resignation letter, but what I wrote in early 1986 was true. It was absolutely not worth it—the heat of libidos-in-training; close encounters of the third kind, INITIATED by those now claiming harms and damage, was too much and so I decided to leave that swelter, and I did.
Erecting personal defense boundaries, and contending with the paranoid atmosphere of the beleaguered CTC was not something that I, as a recently admitted cadet to the 30s decade, cared to wrangle. So, I quit. And then, after a few months of house painting, I was shown an opportunity to cook my way into the future; for the next 33 years.
Q #2—
I sold my properties because I had been defamed by Mr. Anderson and his client by widespread broadcasted media. In that instant I was perfectly aware that my future work in the Twin Cities was a goner—doomed to a hardship that even I could not withstand. The allegations against me were riding a tsunami of righteous-appearing assumptions, heavily biased in favor of any female who alleges victimization. I did engage blue chip legal counsel. I explained the situation and counsel explained that the fees would be billed at $550/hr. Counsel also offered the services of the in-firm real estate veteran attorney to “help” me assess my wealth, who also billed at the same or similar astonishing wage. $50,000 or so into their debt, and not a thing to show for it, I decided to fire ’em.
By that point I had no liquid wealth to hire an alternate counsel, and some attempts to call for favors proved futile. The case was already so broadly advertised and hopelessly prejudiced, no attorney of stature was going to pick up my banner. So, as I wrote earlier, the only legal and logical strategy was to sell my real properties and assets, (now devastated to around 50 percent of market value, due to the forced selling circumstances), and salvage that fraction of what I’d spent 30 years building.
Q #1—
My business plans in the future, locations not yet known, are to contribute positive visions of life and styles of living that enrich, refresh and provoke imaginations in similar directions. Eat, drink, and be merry. Oh, and work as effectively as I know how to repay my fiscal debts and give thanks by showing my true mettle to those few that have stood up as genuine friends during this difficult time.
###
If you and/or your editors choose to include my comments in your article, I'd greatly appreciate that you use it all, or use none of it.
