Dear friends, loved ones,
As another year draws to a close, we hope that this letter finds you full of joy and peace. Personally, I am “recovering” from three straight days of holiday festivities. On Saturday night, we celebrated my birthday with our annual “Barryaoke” karaoke party, which featured lots of bourbon, Elvis, and 80s music. The Gastronaut company holiday party was on Sunday, complete with a goofy photo booth, white elephant gift exchange, and yet more karaoke. Finally, last night, we went out with Mirit’s business partner Nate, his wife Jeannie, and our buddies Tim and Erin for a holiday dinner that was pretty much entirely fried: fried pickles, fried okra, French fries, fried chicken, fried catfish, hush puppies – oh, and some Brussels sprouts. With bacon. So, I turn my attention to this holiday letter with a grumbling stomach and a happy heart.
Although there is much news to relate from our professional lives, our biggest highlight has to be our February trip to Israel. Thanks to a generous anniversary gift of plane tickets from Mirit’s parents, we were thrilled to be able to take two full weeks for my first ever trip to the Holy Land, and Mirit’s first return visit in many years. Tel Aviv served as our base, where we spent wonderful time with Mirit’s great aunt and uncle, Rivka and Avraham, their son Shai, his wife Aliza, and their children Chen and Shir. The first week, Mirit and I visited the Dead Sea and hiked up Massada, then drove north to the Sea of Galilee to tour notable Christian sites like Capernaum, the Church of the Multiplication, and Nazareth. The second week, Mirit’s folks joined us, and we spent three beautiful days together in Jerusalem and the rest of the week in Tel Aviv. Full of stunning sites, delicious meals, and precious time with family, this was truly a trip of a lifetime. (In case you’re interested in knowing more, I wrote a full travelogue about our time there, which you can find here.)
My work building a more aligned and strategic progressive movement took some significant leaps forward this year. In January, my organization, the Progressive Ideas Network, sponsored the first-ever Policy Summit for the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). Over 20 Members of Congress, their senior staffers, and stakeholders from across the progressive community participated in this interactive two-day retreat. The outcome was a strategic plan for 2011 that empowered Members and allies to have a greater impact on the public debate and policies concerning fiscal responsibility, tax fairness, public investment, and job creation. We still have much work to do, of course, which is why I’m excited to be organizing the second annual Summit right now. Also, after years of working mostly behind the scenes, I’ve started to increase my public profile with speeches and interviews. One highlight: in June, I led a session about economic inequality before an audience of 2,000 activists at the annual Netroots Nation convention. Look for more of that in the days ahead.
Although most of my work continues to be national in focus, I’m also bringing some of my skills back closer to home. Partnering with my dear friend and colleague Anat Shenker-Osorio, we are developing and testing new language for talking about the economy and inequality for California organizations. I also enjoyed doing policy research and fundraising for a couple of candidates in our recent citywide elections: David Chiu for Mayor, and David Onek for District Attorney. Sadly, neither won, but the campaigns were well fought, and I was proud to be part of them.
Mirit and Nate are proud of what they’ve accomplished in the last year at Gastronaut. In addition to their business and social catering services, they developed an innovative product line called “Playa Provisions,” heat-and-serve meals designed for attendees of the annual Burning Man festival. (This weeklong event takes place on a dried lakebed called “playa,” hence the name.) Buoyed by a full page spread in the San Francisco Chronicle and other favorable press, sales were brisk! For the first time in a few years, Mirit and I actually made a last-minute decision to visit Burning Man ourselves – let’s call it, um, “market research.” The festival was great, as always, but the food was really extraordinary. Just heat a vacuum-sealed bag in a pot of boiling water, and before long you’re feasting on beef bourguignon, pork posole, potato and cauliflower curry, French toast, and more. Now that’s my kind of cooking, especially in the Nevada desert!
Mirit and Nate also attended a weekend camp for leaders in the national food community called “Eat Retreat.” (Uninvited, I stayed home and pouted severely.) At an idyllic ranch in northern Sonoma County, they met cookbook authors, supper club founders, coffee roasters, beer brewers, and more. This crew spent three days leading and participating in workshops like jam making, butchering, and yogurt making (led by Mirit), and cooking and eating for one another with delicious abandon. Mirit came home exhausted but creatively recharged and thrilled to have found a new community.
Despite our hectic professional lives, we made sure to take time for short breaks and time with family and friends. The annual Passover celebration in Massachusetts was raucous as always, highlighted by Mirit’s fabulous meals and the youngsters’ reenactment of the Passover story (directed by yours truly). We also traveled to Arkansas for Thanksgiving, where our annual gingerbread house project with my niece and nephews got more elaborate than ever: a two-story house with melted butterscotch windows, a chicken coop, garden, and red beater truck in the yard. We visited our dear friends Doug and Bijal in their new home in Atlanta, where they were kind enough to throw a party in our honor. We spent a hot summer night camping between rows of fig trees at the Capay Tomato Festival. Finally, we made our first trips to a couple of very popular nearby vacation spots: Lake Tahoe, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
I continue to sing baritone with my beloved choir, the International Orange Chorale. I am very excited that in February, we will be recording Milton Babbitt’s sumptuous and fiendishly tricky Music for the Mass. Although the piece was written 60 years ago, we were the first choir to sing it as the composer intended, and now we will be the first to record it exactly as written.
Finally, those of you with keen memories may recall that last December our dog Grace was in declining health, and indeed a few days after sending our holiday letter, we said goodbye to our beloved little queen. The loss was difficult for all of us, perhaps none moreso than Jasmine, who had to learn how to be a solo dog for the first time in her life. Neither Mirit nor I have a great deal of experience with loss so far in our lives, so we’ve learned a little bit about grief as we’ve gone through this. Sometimes a specific event will trigger the memory of Grace, but more often it’s just a dim awareness that something about an everyday experience is vaguely off-kilter. Old habits gradually emptied out but still hung around, sometimes leaving me disoriented or even panicked. One day I ran halfway back to the park, convinced that I had left Grace roaming there off-leash, before I remembered that she was just gone. We all still miss her, more than I honestly expected to. Still, we celebrate her life, and all the love she brought to ours.
We hope this holiday season brings you many celebrations of life and love, and that your fondest wishes come true in the New Year!
All our love,
Barry & Mirit