The Clumsy Interloper

I took a month off to adjust the dials – delicately feathering the bass and treble until I get it just right but I’m still not there. I’m no savant but sometimes I pretend to be. I have this bursting energy that I’m finally ready to discuss. Something deeply held and personal. I seek to become unencumbered. This summer I’ve become fixated on deep dish pizza (that iconic food curio from my hometown). While I walked the Rivanna Trail this June my mind swooped around a possible deep dish Ikigai like a moth to a flame. The seeds were planted on that day and now the tending begins.

For the past few months, I’ve been kneading and stirring and tweaking and tasting. I want to get it perfect. But why obsess over such a trivial thing? Well, up until now it was a pastime, something I picked up during COVID that brought me closer to my Chicago roots. Now in the wake of an uncertain 2024 a new thing has grown, and like the rising dough during its first prove, I am just beginning to see my vision take shape.

Up until now I have written about fleeting concepts that float across my awareness, from Wim Hoff to Parental Guilt, however this post constitutes the Dorothy moment after the storm. I am now walking into Technicolor. I would like to announce that I will be starting a food service venture with plans to offer parbaked authentic Chicago style deep dish pizzas at the IX Farmers Market beginning in January 2025.

I will chronicle the startup journey here on these humble pages of The Clumsy Interloper. My intention to detail this process toward an unknown end is my accountability backstop. This is something that I’ve struggled with in my life – following through. Please visit back here throughout the autumn months to see the inevitable road bumps, tasty cheese pulls and entrepreneurial angst.

I’m naming this venture Hawk City Pizza after the bone chilling Hawk Wind that blows off Lake Michigan during the long Chicago winters. “In Chicago, the Hawk not only socks it to you, he socks it through you, like a giant razor blade blowing down the street,” Mr. Lou Rawls explains.

“I was born in a city the called the Windy City
And they called it the Windy City because of the Hawk
The Hawk. The All-Mighty Hawk
Mr. Wind
Takes care of plenty business around winter time.”