Homage a Henri

Having grown up in Miami, it came as a surprise to me that the best Cuban sandwich I would ever taste was made in Cambridge, Massachusetts at a restaurant called Chez Henri. What was even more surprising was the unsurpassed quality of this simple-looking creation consisting mainly of meat and bread. It was
a quality that elevated this sandwich far beyond the category of "sandwich" or "Cuban food." It was, in fact, one of the best things you could eat anywhere. I'd wager it was better, in its own way, than the best filet mignon, sushi, BBQ or profiterole you could usually find. It was supremely delicious and satisfying.

The thing about Cuban food is that it's not subtle. It's many-layered, but it's usually many layers of really vibrant seasoning and ingredients made with no regard to counting calories. And the flavors hit you all at once in that "wham-bam thankyou ma'am" way that's so appropriate for Miami. The Cuban sandwich at Chez Henri shared some of those characteristics with its cousins that I had encountered in Miami.

But the main difference between the Cambridge Cuban and the Miami Cuban could be noticed right away: time. The chef at Chez Henri, Paul O'Connell (and I'm sorry I never thanked the man personally) took much more time to make this sandwich than any other Cuban I had ordered in the past. When my parents came up from Miami for a visit, I had to take them to this place so far north of Havana. My mom may have guessed at the secret that made the sandwich so good: the chef probably cured the meat himself. Aha, I thought. That's where the time was probably so well spent. (Will O'Connell ever let us know exactly how it was done?)

Taking this time to make the meat so flavorful was where, it seems to me, the chef brought a French influence into this otherwise completely Latin American dish. Chez Henri was known as a French-Cuban fusion place, and it was. But the Cuban sandwich sitting on a modest plate, garnished with wavy, thin, finger-length plantain chips, would give you no clue that any French influence had reached it ... and had made it any better than the sandwiches I had ordered at Versailles on SW 8th Street.

But one bite into that sandwich and any Miamian could tell you: this was something special. This was no ordinary sandwich, rushed together to appease impatient patrons sipping beers at the bar. This was a sandwich that, like the restaurant itself, carefully took the best aspects of two culinary cultures to create something special and unique. This is why the closing of Chez Henri in the fall of 2013 came as such a shock to me and to many others who came to Cambridge to enjoy O'Connell's creations. I heartily thank the chef for his contribution to Cambridge’s culture and nightlife … but I lament his leaving much, much more.

Raison's d'etre

(Please excuse the spelling and grammar errors, but I feel like French is
the best language that I can use for this feeling/thought)

Je me suis rendu compte
Que ma vie a ete dedie
(pour moi et pour des autres)
A la beute et a la decouverte
Qui, on peut dire, sont
Deux cotes de la meme chose
--la ouverture aux/des experiences nouvelles

C'est vrai qu'on peut faire trop de n'importe quoi
Et la vie doit etre quotidiane souvent
-- si non on mourrait trop tot

Mais on doit avoir peur que la vie de tous les jours
nous etouffe lentement, aussi.

La delice de la beaute me tente toujours
Et m'inspire de partager avec des autres
(comme quand je vois l'habitude de mon
fils de parteger des choses delicieuses avec
des autres -- comme une belle boule de glace)

La plus grand defit, il me semble, c'est de
trouver la beaute dans la vie de tous les jours

Quand j'apprends ca, je le partagerais avec vous.

The Hammock

Hammocks are a lovely piece of outdoor furniture. I know I'm not alone in my reaction to them. They inspire me with longing, knowing that, when I truly set into one, I have nothing better to do than to lounge in the open air.

For some reason, I've usually not let myself lounge in a hammock unless I was already care-free. Was that deferred gratification some sick method of spurring myself to be more productive? "Only after I finish that chapter of my book," perhaps I was saying to myself, "will I be worthy of the soft, swinging indulgence of an afternoon alone in a hammock?" Despite this attitude, I did manage to take advantage of hammocks now and then -- and they were fantastic.

$60 million (Obama) vs. $75 million (Romney) in May

I just heard for the sixth or seventh time that Obama raised $15 million less than Romney last month. With the new campaign finance laws (or lack of them), is that really surprising? Republicans have more rich people in their ranks -- not a surprise.

I might have been more concerned had I heard that Romney raised $15 million and Obama $0. That would be a true indication of electoral trends.

Of course, one might ask, how about the influence money buys? There's no denying the power of advertising and lobbying. But I wonder what the upper limit of effective campaign spending is. If, as I've heard in the media, the final total will be $1 billion (Obama) vs. $1.3 billion (Romney), will voters feel drowned (or just tune out) in reaction to the tsunami of messages from both campaigns? There has to be a saturation level at which more spending on advertising will have little or no effect. No?

Some neighborhood

The first thing that popped in my mind this morning was what a great time I had yesterday. Yes, I worked a ton, but in the middle of it I had a wonderful lunch with some friends. I'm not at all unique, but since I moved to Arlington I've become close to a lot of people who have kids in elementary school. We're parenting with kids at similar stages in school which means we have a LOT in common. And to move through life together with a bunch of people who share many experiences with you IS ALSO like being in school together.

The particular delight yesterday was having lunch hosted by a neighbor who's a good cook and a perfectionist. I could tell that we could never live in the same place for very long (I'm much too messy and laid-back), but the occasional visit is quite wonderful. It was a bit of a special lunch: my neighbor Angela was saying goodbye to an older Indian woman, Bah, the mother of a another parent of school-age kids in the neighborhood. Bah, who was retuning to her home in Colorado, had ingratiated herself with many in the neighborhood by her easy-going style and her great Indian cooking. Angela responded in kind with a lovely asparagus risotto, home-made bread and a great little green salad. Bah's daughter in law (another friend of mine) was the fourth person to share in the meal.

At that meal, I witnessed love and caring between friends, participated in an open and lively conversation, and enjoyed a really nice meal -- with a strawberry shortcake dessert. "Oh, it was easy," Angela protested when I threw her a compliment. But like many gifts in this neighborhood, the execution might have been easy, but the thought, the generous intentions, the uplifting atmosphere . . . that was truly special. And not easily duplicated.

Short biography, 1987-2012

Mark Rennella short biography for Amherst College 25th Reunion

After graduating from Amherst, I lived in France for two years – the first year on a Rotary International scholarship and the second teaching English at the University of Tours. It was the best time of my life up to that point! I also fell in love with a French woman whom I eventually married at the tender age of 25.

After France, I moved to Miami (my home town) where I received a M.A. in English. I was thinking about getting a Ph.D. in English, but the state of things in grad school for a lover of literature was grim. Literature wasn’t literature any more, I learned – it was philosophy. That was not for me. So, I decided to get a Ph.D. in American Intellectual History (at Brandeis) where I could study texts in their historical context (without making excuses), which I loved doing as an American Studies major at Amherst (inspired by Bob Gross).

The Ph.D. took a while – ten years until I eventually finished the dissertation. In the meantime, my French wife left the marriage for greener pastures. Two years later, I married a woman from Massachusetts who had studied at Northeastern. While I was earning the Ph.D., I lived in Lowell, Massachusetts (my wife’s home town), where rent was cheap! I taught as an adjunct here and there until getting the best adjunct job I could think of – as a lecturer at the History and Literature Program at Harvard. I spent six years there, earning my Ph.D. in the middle of my stint there in 2001. That was also the year my first boy, Davis Henry Rennella, was born. My second boy, Benjamin Emmanuel Rennella, arrived on August 19, 2004 (see photos).

In the early 2000s, seeing that prospects for teaching in the humanities were not too promising, I searched for a career change. I credit one of my dissertation readers from Brandeis, the very prolific and insightful Morton Keller, with giving me a nudge in the right direction. Keller was a business historian and knew that Harvard Business School employed all kinds of people as Research Associates – which was a way to shift towards the business world. I was wary at first having learned about how evil business was in my previous education in the humanities. But, I got over that fear and began working for a marketing professor who was interested in cultural history. It was a good match. I eventually worked for four years at HBS. During that time, I published my dissertation (The Boston Cosmopolitans) and became a co-author of a business book on leadership called Entrepreneurs, Managers and Leaders. (Soon after the second book was published, one of my co-authors became Dean of HBS, a stroke of good fortune I’m still trying to exploit!)

Life being full of surprises, my second wife left our marriage for her own set of greener pastures in 2007. In 2008, I moved from Chelmsford, Massachusetts, to Arlington, where I live with my sons today. After HBS, I stayed in business and worked for an executive education firm starting in 2007 for about three years. Most recently, I went back to Harvard where I now work for Harvard Business Publishing, which is a great combination of the academic and business worlds.

Looking to the future, I’m hoping to write some fiction – just for fun, and maybe for profit. I’m also thinking about combining the work of my two books to write about the emerging field of “Global Leadership.” I’ll also be following the progress of my two sons whose loving natures and open minds have brought so much joy to my life (see photos). Lately, they’ve become creative collaborators, working together on a series of comics called “Adventures of the Snuggle Buddies.” It’s sort of like Star Wars meets SpongeBob. Ask me about how they’ve progressed at our 30th reunion!

Writing, writing

I went to my college's 25th reunion this last weekend. It was strangely and truly gratifying to see people from 25 years ago. I connected with some old classmates that I hope to stay in touch with, which was the best takeaway from this meeting.

One surprising result of the reunion was getting good feedback about my writing. Everybody from the class of 1987 was asked to write a biographical statement of sorts. Some wrote a lot, some wrote a little, but it ended up being a pretty big and beautifully put-together book (kudos to Keith Laezza for putting it together!). To my surprise, about a half dozen people said something nice about my six paragraph piece. They either said it was the best written biography in the book (some especially liked its humor)or enjoyed its refreshing honesty. This spontaneous response reminded me: "I need to write." I put off writing because of big goals (I want to write a pseudo-memoir or historical novel) or because of the time required to realize those big goals. In the end, I end up not writing at all. But, as a writer, if you don't write, you're not doing anything. So, I'm going to use this blog again to get started with writing. I hope to develop my voice this way as well as open up some possible avenues for bigger projects. But I hope to write -- more.

It's funny how this blog supplies a backdrop for this chapter in my life. The earlier entries come from the nadir of my separation from my now ex-wife Karen. I stopped writing when I could finally see some progress towards some happier times. I credit my family, my beautiful Arlington neighborhood and friends, and my dogged perseverance. I may be a lot of things, but not a quitter. Seeing my old classmates recently gives me hope for a bright future (perhaps it reminds me of the dreams I had for a rich life ahead in 1987) and inspires me to use writing to cultivate that life.

So here we go. See my next post for the short biography.