The Lost Kitchen
So I’ve been reading the book Finding Freedom by Erin French. She owns the Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine. Population 722. As an old Mainer would say, you can’t get there from here.
I’ve been following French for a while. What caught my attention at first was her simple marketing approach. Every year on April 1, she opens up reservations. You mail a postcard to put your name in and hope for the best. That single postcard mail-in fills the restaurant for the entire season. As Arthur Guinness would say, brilliant.
What I didn’t know about was her long, hard fight to get where she is now. As a kid, all she ever wanted was to get the hell out of Freedom, Maine. And she did. For a while, anyway. She got into Northeastern in Boston but got pregnant sophomore year. That ended that.
So back to Freedom where she worked the line at her old man’s diner. He was a pretty nasty guy. Then she met a no-good bum and got married. Disaster. She got divorced. She got addicted to pills and booze. She got thrown into rehab and later a mental institution. She lost her kid to the ratbag ex-husband. Time to jump off the bridge.
But with grit and determination unlike any I’ve ever known, she fought her way back and triumphed against all odds. She survived it all and got her son back. Then she got The Lost Kitchen going and it went on to become one of the most recognized restaurants in the world. People come from all over the world to eat in this dink town in Maine. Another cool thing is she never went to culinary school—and neither did any of the all-women kitchen crew she describes as her "mom cooks."
So then COVID-19 comes along and shuts the whole damn thing down for a year and a half. Time to dig down deep again. She created an online farmer’s market that kept her crew working and supported local farmers, fishermen and bakers. She also built three cabins in the woods for small private dinners, which this summer will be used for overnight stays. Then she created an outdoor dining space, serving up fried chicken and wood-fired pizza. After all that, she’s finally ready to open the restaurant again for dining.
If you only pick up one book this summer, grab this one. Then pass it on to somebody else. I’ve never read anything more inspiring. Don’t quit, that’s the trick. Keep your dukes up.