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Chow On Soul Food and the Discomforts of Home

Posted by on April 16 at 11:10 AM

In additional must-reads: Angela Garbes, as others have noted, wrote an absolutely lovely review for the current Stranger. It’s about a local soul food restaurant, a nice night, and the mind-fuck of working from home.

There’s a lot in this piece to make you glad you read it, but as someone who’s spent a good bit of time working from home, I most enjoyed reading Garbes’s spot-on description of the bad times:

There’s a gradual, almost imperceptible shift that occurs when you work from home: You go a little crazy. Daily living gets skewed. Keeping up appearances becomes less of a priority. Sometimes it’s necessary to remind myself to shower before 4:00 p.m., put pants on, talk to other people, and sit at a desk (as opposed to pulling my laptop into bed with me). More difficult than all this, though, is the profound feeling that I’ve somehow lost touch with the comforts of my own home. At the end of a long work day, I don’t get to decompress with a coworker over impromptu drinks, walk up the hill, collapse on my couch, then do nothing besides enjoy being home. Instead, I shut down my computer and look around the room I’ve been sitting in all day. I’m less inclined to have friends over, something I’ve always loved doing, because I’m sick of being in my house, yet it’s harder to motivate myself to go out since, well, I’m already home.

What does all this have to do with soul food? Keep reading.

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1

True that.

Whenever I get down about working from home, I think back on the years I spent commuting across the bridge to a soul-crushing coorporation in a soul-crushing suburb, and I feel a little better. Then I spark up a joint and get back to work.

Another side effect of the home office - lots of comments on this and other blogs. (I imagine many of you are now thinking "Hmmm, how can we find this guy another soul-crushing corporate job...")

2

I lived in New Orleans and love/miss the food. I can't wait to try this place, but, where is it? Is it standard to leave out the address from the article?

In case others are curious:

JoAnna's Soul Cafe and Jazz Club (Central District)
2514 E Cherry St
Seattle, WA
568-6300

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