A challenging year that has brought the death of my father, my best friend, the founder of Stewardship Farms, Prince and David Bowie, began with one of Hudson’s best chefs, and my personal favorite, checking out.

Dan was a self-driven perfectionist and it showed on every plate. His kitchen had a digital clock in it of a size one might expect in Times Square, large red numbers counting away the minutes as the orders rolled in. He always sent out a surprising Amuse Buche, often on a little white ceramic spoon. The server would put them in  front of me and then rattle off 4 or 5 tantalizing ingredients that filled my mind with anticipation and curiosity.

DA|BA started in Hudson before the influx of restaurateurs. In a town with no grocery stores and limited options for dining out, especially under $15, Danny was a God-send. His menu was two menus really — fantastic higher end seafood dishes inspired by his Scandanavian roots and a bar menu with 5 or 6 great options under $10. They had Brooklyn Lager on tap at $4 and the most perfectly cooked burger served up on thick cuts of bread was $8.  A perfectly satisfying BLT and a tempeh sandwich rounded out the every day offerings but Dan was better known for his more ambitious stalwarts like his amazingly rich and deep Chantrelle soup.

“DABA Dan,” as he was known here,  was very accepting of all us in Hudson despite, or perhaps because of, our eccentricities. As someone who has worked in a dozen restaurants, I was a bit jealous of Dan who had great reviews, great food and had managed to overcome one of the biggest challenges of this very time-demanding business — his family lived in the space directly above his restaurant and he could go upstairs during service to tuck his young children into bed every night.

I was walking Julia one morning in February when I saw his wife and children getting out of a van in front of the darkened restaurant. They all looked so numb and so weary. Hours later I heard the news that Dan Nilsson had committed suicide on a friend’s farm.  I was destroyed and within hours was thinking of leaving Hudson for a new home. It was as if a cloud had descended here and the streets and shops suddenly felt more empty and lifeless than ever before.  It was unfathomable to me how a young man with so much talent and so much love from this community could simply be gone forever. In order to avoid scaring my sweet dogs, I went out to my car and had a good cry.

I hadn’t cooked my own burger in about 4 years but did so after Danny died. Some grilled onions and dry mustard completed the satisfying trio. I have longed since that February day for a menu that serves two price points, two distinctly different appetites and I dedicate my first real restaurant menu to Dan.  Life is too short not to enjoy at least one great meal every day but we’ll all have to do it without DA|BA Dan who is 86’d.

God bless you Daniel Nilsson.  As I told you more than once, you were “rock solid consistently great!”

Working for a legacy feature film company on a studio lot is probably as close as I will come in this lifetime to attending Hogwarts. A time warp of art, magic and ideas, the Fox Lot in Century City was originally Movietone City. unto itself, with streets and avenues, a post office and a hospital. It has the time worn charm of the glory days of studio film and Los Angeles. In October of 1990 I got a job working on the Academy Awards campaign for 20th Century Fox Features. I had worked on the Fox lot in Century City before but not like this.

Each stage and each building holds a unique history as host to dozens of successive productions. Stage 9 was built in 1928 and since then has been home to  “Sherlock Holmes” (1939), to Otto Preminger for “Laura” (1944) and again for “River of No Return” (1954), “No Business Like Show Business” (1954), “The Fly” (1958). Then to television series including “Peyton Place” (1964-1969), “Batman!”(1966), “The Ghost and Mrs Muir” (1968-1970),  and then eleven years as home to “M*A*S*H” (1972-1983) including the “exterior” shots which were done there indoors instead of on the Fox Ranch. Then it was home to “Hooperman” (1987-1989) before hosting “NYPD Blue” from 1993 through 2005.  And that is ONE stage — they are all like that.  “Edward Scissorhands” was shot on Stages 14, 15 and 16 (see map section below) with some exteriors in Florida.

I was reporting to Booker McClay in Building 89.  Booker was a semi-retired veteran from the glory days of the studios and feature film. Booker was a fountain of knowledge about both the studio and life and a great guy to work with. He seemed to be very well connected to the old guard on the Lot and he got me a parking place right by Stage 11 so things were already much better than my prior gigs there when I had to park on Motor Ave and walk about 15 minutes to the Lot.  Booker, I soon found out, could get almost anything he wanted.

Booker took me aside early in the gig and told me ‘I am slowing down a bit and I have had a stroke but I would appreciate it if you don’t make me feel like an old man.’  I asked if I had said or done something that did that. ‘No, but don’t start.’

Continue reading Launching Edward Scissorhands →

It’s a great idea for a business. At least that’s what your friends say. Hurry do it before someone else does. What could go wrong?  I consult with new businesses and many of them know exactly how to screw it up…

  1. Being the First Business of Its Type

Many people think being the first to open or start a new kind of business is worth something. Some think they can copyright or trademark their new business idea and stop others from copying it. There are a couple problems with that thinking.

Being first isn’t worth anything, in fact it is the most expensive position to take. If you are the first you have recruit and educate customers to this new way of doing business. You have to explain the concept and convince people that it is worth changing the way they have always done something.  That is not only hard but expensive because you need to get people’s attention long enough to make your pitch.

Plenty of first movers have run out of money, made mistakes that competitors can learn from and paved the way for those who come later.

If you are looking at your business idea and thinking “No one has ever done this before” be sure to ask yourself why not?

2. Not Knowing Your Customer

It is tempting to think that people who like X will like this business but if you aren’t one of those people then you are at a big disadvantage.  A good new business fills a need. You should understand that need as well as possible. If the need is/was so big then how come no one fill it before?

Better to stick with businesses that you DO understand the need for and have been a customer of.  Imagine for example starting a cat sitting business when you have never used  cat sitter or worse, have never owned a cat.

3. Opening a Restaurant

Don’t do it. Just don’t.  It may sound good and your friends have always said ‘You’re a great cook…you should open a restaurant’ but if you have never worked in a restaurant you have no idea what you are getting into. And if you have worked in a restaurant and are still thinking about opening one consider other options.

You raised or have or inherited $200,000 so you want to open a restaurant…. why? You hate money?  You want to die broke? You don’t like having free time, normal blood pressure or a credit score above 400?

If you can’t resist the siren song, at least start with something survivable — a catering business or a pop-up.  Give yourself time to come to your senses, hopefully before your money runs out.

4. Not Researching the Competition

Had a client tell me they didn’t do a feasibility study because “feasibility studies tell you all the reasons NOT to just do it.”   Um, yes. You’re going to find out those reasons sooner or later.  Sooner is MUCH cheaper.

Go look at the competition and learn as much as you can. How many employees do they have? How many customers? When are they busy? When slow? Who is their supplier(s) (look in their trash)? How much rent do they pay?  How deep are their pockets and what are they likely to do if you start to see some success?

Learn from their mistakes and their successes.

5. Starting with Angel Money

Maybe this is not a complete mistake but it easily leads to mistakes including mistakes in the overall design of the business model. Many people think about how much it will cost to start a business but not how much they will need to keep it running.  There is a mental hole in the big picture of their business and it sneaks out in statements like “I want to open a business that does ___X___”  rather than “I want to run a business…”

This problem is worse with non-profits.  Some people believe that non-profits don’t need to make money or that they don’t need to have the same business accounting and structures that for-profit business do.  These people are wrong.

When you get grants to start a non-profit your customer is the grantor entity, not the people coming in the door.  The grantor wants prestige and credit for doing something good in the community but that is sometimes at odds with what the community allegedly being served actually wants.  Then you have two masters to serve… good luck.

Six steps that will transform your space on a budget.

Declutter your living space.  “Less is more” and that it often true in design.  You might start with the closets. Get rid of anything you have used in 2 years. Make some space for the things that you use, albeit infrequently and then move those things into your closets and cabinets. They will be handy but out of sight.

What’s Not There matters as much as what is there. Take a little mental inventory of your living space, noting anything with a plastic surface or overtly shabby appearance. Think of things which could be swapped for the plastic. For example, many of us have plastic trash cans that could easily be replaced by something more pleasing to the eye. A small plastic trash can could be replaced by that seldom used wine bucket. You can still use it for wine when the need arises but the rest of the time it can function as a stylish trash can.

Dishwashing liquids can go into pump containers or those glass bottles that include their own stopper and gasket.

Picking a wall paint color can be a real challenge in designing interior spaces but there are some basic methods that nearly guarantee your space will look magazine ready:
– Use lightly tinted paints, earth tones and the off-whites look great and set off whatever you put in the room. A very limited and light palette for the walls is more flexible, less dominant than walls that are saturated colors.
– There is a temptation to paint the walls your favorite color — don’t do it. Use a background color that will showcase the things you have that ARE your favorite color.

Paint wall surfaces that need it. Start with a touch up for door and floor trim, probably that means a quart of white semi gloss latex and a decent $10+ paint brush. Great value and quick way to refresh the space as you start transitioning to your new design.

Collect Swatches and Pictures. As you pick your paint, fabrics and other surfaces, collect samples of them in a form that you can take with you when shopping for subsequent items.  When you have your paint open for the touch ups, paint on a sheet of paper or the cover of the swatch binder itself. Do the real paint in your can, not the chip on the little cards in the store.

Add pieces of any fabrics you already have or close accurate pictures of them. With a smartphone, check to see that your shot on screen matches whatever you just took a picture of.  Put the phone screen right next to the item, if it isn’t accurate color matching, try different lightsources — direct sunlight, indirect, flash, no flash, etc.

Wall Hangings. Look among your personal treasures for things that could be wall hangings. Replace or expand from framed art to include items that both look interesting and relate to you and your journey.  If you plan to hang items in clusters lay them out on the floor first. Try different spacing and configurations. Shoot pictures of the ones that seem to work then pick from the pictures.
Personal treasures would include anything that is not a frame-able item. Long items work well — canes, golf clubs, skis, boat oars, kayaks, reclaimed boards, and rope.  Collections can used to invigorate forgotten spaces but you have to create a pattern with them and mount them to the wall minimally so that your eye goes to the pieces and not the mounting, for example shelves would invalidate the concept. It has to be a collection of similarly sized things — Matchbox cars, lunch boxes, Pez dispensers, — or you risk re-cluttering what you uncluttered 5 steps ago.

This year’s Chili fest will be held on Saturday Oct 10th from Noon to 4pm. Admission is $10. Cider and Cheese are part of the mix this year.

http://www.hudsonvalleybounty.com/