by Kim Green
In the fall of 2023, as we were ramping up plans for book launch week in February 2024, Clara and I had what seemed like a fabulous idea: a Slow Noodles pop-up dinner. This sounded extremely doable when the date was still many months off, and for some wild reason, our dear friend Josh, chef-owner of Bastion, agreed to let us take over his kitchen on a Sunday night and make a Cambodian feast.
As launch week got closer, Clara & I began to sense how huge and unchewable this bite was that we’d bitten off.
We would have crashed and burned without frequent injections of realism and advice from Josh and our [late and beloved] friend Meg Giuffrida, also a chef. Meg took Clara's big idea and helped us nail down the details and follow through on this enormous, overwhelming task, including adapting the recipes to pre-cook and serve at scale, lining up a commercial kitchen for prep, and ordering supplies. She and I test-drove every dish at a big house party a few weeks before the popup, and thank god we did.
By the night before, things felt somewhat under control. Our crew of allies headed to Citizen Kitchens on Main Street and spent 4-5 hours busting our ***es doing prep work. My husband Hal and our friend John Aho cut up and marinated 400 ribs; my college bestie Merrilyn flew in from San Diego (HERO!) to celebrate with us and got recruited to prep giant piles of trakuon (aka "morning glory"); Meg and Clara sliced a ton of tiny bananas, marinated tofu & shrimp for the amok, simmered untold gallons of coconut milk, and generally oversaw everything; and I fried massive quantities of garlic and ran the dishwashing station.
That whole night, I was elated, floating, in love with these hero-friends who volunteered to work beside us and be a part of this mad endeavor. It reminded me that the purest joy is in the doing (not the accolades, although those are fun), especially when you get to do the thing with your favorite humans. We can never thank them enough, and we are so glad that we got to do this project with our dear Meg.
2.25.24: For me, the real terror descended on Sunday morning: I was sure that no one was going to show up. Or everyone was going to show up, and we wouldn’t be able to handle the onslaught. One or more dishes would fail. WE would fail, and we would somehow embarrass Josh, who’d spent years building one of the best restaurants in the country. Here we were, poised to bring it all down around our ears, I figured.
When Josh let us in mid-morning to let us in and get started, he did not seem concerned. Not that he ever does. Josh Habiger utterly dispels any notion that a brilliant chef needs to be tantrumy and unhinged to produce culinary masterpieces. I have never seen him lose his cool, not once. But he sensed our unease that morning and, to my immense relief, promised to stay for service. His calm soothed and reassured us.
John, Clara, and Meg took charge of the kitchen, Hal started grilling ribs on the patio, and I made shop runs to grab things we’d forgotten. But by late afternoon, my brain was spinning out again, ajitter with worst-case ruminations.
And then the doors opened.
People who’d been lined up on the sidewalk started streaming in, and they just kept coming. Josh and his wife Lauren, a front-of-house veteran, made a snap decision to create an order station instead of doing table/bar service, which was just one of the slick moves that saved us that night.
Lauren and I stood ready with our iPads, and the first person placed an order: "I’ll have seven of everything.” There were five menu items.
When that order hit the kitchen, Josh and Clara stared at it. “Is that a ‘seven’?” Josh said. It was ON.
For the next two hours, they came, they saw, and they ordered. The line wound far down the sidewalk, and the kitchen somehow kept it together. We had a few struggles: our numbered place settings for finding orders by number were too small and got lost in the madhouse. The heroes Julia Martin and Adam Binder somehow matched orders with humans amidst the chaos. And Josh Habiger, whom we already loved beyond measure, went into god mode and worked his genius-magic in the kitchen, materializing at the exact right place and right moment to prevent a series of near-certain implosions.
There would have been tears. Instead, there was triumph.
By the time we ran out of rice and 86ed ourselves, the mood in front of house was wild celebration, and in back of house, was also wild celebration. We had survived! Josh and Lauren, and Julia and Adam, had saved us, and made us look like we'd known what we were doing all along.
The bar was rocking, and folks from API Middle Tennessee came streaming into the back bar and kitchen to find Chantha, who had fled there.
The night reached peak dance-party energy there in the kitchen/restaurant (sorry, Josh!), with folks surrounding Chantha for a festival of love and gratitude, as Clara and I cleaned the kitchen and packed bobor (congee) leftovers for people to take home. They said it tasted like their grandmother’s recipe. They said they'd never dreamed that Cambodian food would be ever served in an exquisite restaurant in Nashville. And they said, through tears, that in writing her story in SLOW NOODLES, Chantha was telling the stories of their own refugee families, the stories their parents and grandparents could not bear to speak out loud.
In that moment, I could see Chantha understanding, perhaps for the first time, what her story could mean to people in refugee diaspora communities — and to the refugees themselves. It was a beautiful thing to see. Amidst it all, somebody texted us to say they’d seen the review in the SF Chronicle, and someone else texted us a photo of a SN mention in the NYTimes. In a highlights reel of great life moments, this will feature prominently until my final day.
We can never thank our friends enough for backing our play that night: to Hal, John, and Meg in the kitchen; to Julia and Adam for running food through the melee; to Lauren for standing by me as we faced an endless queue; to everyone at Bastion for letting us do this crazy thing; to API and our allies for showing up; and most of all, to the great Josh Habiger, for trusting us with his baby for the night and calmly bailing us out as we flailed — all the while making it look like he was barely breaking a sweat. People know him for his success on Nashville's culinary scene, but I'm not sure whether folks at large truly appreciate what a generous, solid, excellent human he really is.
We do. He's our hero and our friend.
This night was epic: from terror to triumph in a five-hour period. I smile whenever I think of it. Thank you eternally, Josh, And thank you, our beloved Meg. This incredibly generous act was just one of so many in a lifetime legacy of kindnesses, and we think of you every day.
There are lots of allies beyond this list who deserve our thanks: people who helped with beta reading and pub-industry advice, recipe testing and events. People who wrote articles about SN and interviewed Chantha and Clara, and people who helped spread the word by posting, telling friends, and giving the book as a gift. People who listened and supported Chantha through the years of painful conversations and then, helped us see beyond the rejections to a possible future that looked a lot like this beautiful, celebratory night at Bastion.
It's so hard to see a long project through, especially when the work is emotionally wrenching and the outcome is extremely uncertain. There is no way to do it without a cadre of friends and allies who sign on in different ways to be part of your story. We have such a cadre — they know who they are. And the best part is: after all the moral and practical support, it's the best thing in the world to share your celebration with the people who helped you get there.
We like to call this cadre the Slow Noodles Allies Club (SNAC). It's easy to join. All you have to do is care about Chantha, her story, and her life's work. It's the simplest thing in the world, and yet, the most vital thing of all.
API Mid TN at Bastion (photo: Lannae Long)