Fire
A letter to the flames
Photo by Joline Cutrone
I do not blame the fire for burning. Today I kept a fire burning all day in my own home. I added logs, over and over again, knowing the other fire raged with all the fule it needed. The strange irony of two fires in an ice storm.
Photo by Joline Cutrone
Photo by Sam Milner
Memories up in smoke. I remember handing the bricks, that the wood fired oven was build out of, to my dad as he explained the cement to sand ratio he used for that oven. I do not cry for the building, I cry for the humans attached to it. To the stories they shared.
Photo by Joline Cutrone
The building was built out of memories. That time my buddy Hunter (of Grounded Works in Blowing Rock) and I found the secret hatch where they hid the booze during prohibition. The time I was under the porch in flip flops running an emergency ethernet cable, because I assured the guys they could cut it that extra cable in the basement, because I thought it was just an old phone line. The time we got hit by a hurricane and had nearly a foot of water coming through the front door. The time we only served to go food as the covid pandemic raged on.
Photo by Ryan Davis
Photo by Hunter Womble
A lot of those memories were mine. Throwing a ball of used painters tape on the roof and letting it roll off as the swarm of kids fought over who got to throw it next, that was on the opening night because we were bored waiting on our parents to finish talking to each other.
Photo by Joline Cutrone
The fire will burn as long as I keep it in my heart. As much as I keep calling it a building, it was a huge part of my life. Walking to the restaurant every day after school, I would hide in the bushes of Laurel Ln. watching cars drive by hoping not to be seen. I would sit at the bar waiting on my parents to finish work and take me home. While I sat at the bar, I would experiment with the soda gun and what other non-alcoholic mixers they had. Until I came up with the monstrosity that was Sam’s Mud. Diet Coke, Sprite, pineapple juice and grenadine. It started with every soda and mixer and was a process of elimination to get to something drinkable, really it was just so sweet it didn’t really have a flavor.
Photo By Ryan Davis
Photo by Joline Cutrone
We are the fire. It was fire that defined what Roca was, how we cooked, how we thought about the process of food. We were the wood fired place before it was cool. We were the original winners of Fire on the Rock. As I write this, the building is still burning, that oven isn’t cold just yet.
Photo by Ryan Davis
Roca is the people who made happen every day. To me Bistro Roca is the hundreds of people and friends I met there. Bistro Roca is a menu that can be made again. Bistro Roca is the hundreds of new dog picture that have yet to be taken, as well as the ones that now rest as ashes across Blowing Rock.
Sam Milner