Union Square Portraits: Conversations about America – with JJ

On February 3, 2018, in Latest News, by The Somerville Times

Cusine en Locale and ONCE Ballroom creator, JJ.

By JT Thompson

JJ has created a thriving cultural center in an originally off-the-beaten-path area just outside Union Square, with Cusine en Locale, a locally sourced catering company, and ONCE Ballroom, a space for bands and events. We meet in the lounge above ONCE, which is a lovely, cheerfully cluttered area with a pool table, beaded curtains, and colorful 50s chairs salvaged from Lanes and Games.

JJ has long, dark hair streaked with blue and purple, and short bangs above intelligent eyes. A black, short sleeved shirt and a few tattoos on her upper arms. Her face lights up with a sweet, delighted smile about things she loves; for things she’s less pleased with, she has a knowing, sardonic smile – the kind of smile that comes with a raised eyebrow and a sense of grim amusement at the bullshit that people can get up to.

JJ is both playful and no nonsense. Her manner is relaxed, but there are strong currents of energy in her; curiosity, passion, a strong work ethic, civic engagement, mischievousness. This is a person who gets a lot done and, you get the sense, has fun doing it.

JJ grew up in Cambridge, in a family “that has similar beliefs as me, similar practices. Home cooking. Home growing. We always had a food garden. And they were very patriotic and proud of what can be accomplished here in the US. My father was a brilliant lawyer, a general counsel, so he handled lots of different kinds of cases.

“He’s very non-judgmental, good at looking at all sides of things. In the Reagan era, he told us, it’s our flag too. That the flag sometimes gets coopted as a conservative symbol. But it belongs to everybody. Including Puerto Rico, including the Virgin Islands.”

JJ went to school at Shady Hill, “which has a mandate for diversity. Lots of scholarships to keep it diverse. But I experienced more diversity from our travels to other countries. Never on tours or anything like that, we did house swaps, went and stayed.

“Greece, other countries with Latin based languages, where it was easy to travel with kids. I learned that everybody’s a stranger in someone else’s place. Americans need to go see what that’s like – see what’s not normal there. I’ve been in countries where people think I’m an idiot because I can’t communicate.”

JJ’s family was in the Brixton district of London during the riots in the early ‘80s. “Talk about racial tension. Those riots were provoked. Brixton burned for a long time.”

A lot of JJ’s musical sense developed during that time – “the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Beat, The Specials. Crass – who were super political. They were practically not even music, just spoken word with sound.”

Politics and music are still close allies for JJ; at ONCE, along with the many bands that come through, she hosts rallies and benefits. But her love of music also goes back to her earliest, pre-political childhood.

“I was obsessed with music from the time I was little. I slept with a radio, Top 40 radio was in my head all the time. I can sing the lyrics to songs that came out when I was three.”

From Shady Hill, JJ went on to college at Tufts’ Museum School program and afterward “I went on a walkabout basically. I think everyone should. Drove through the South, across the country, ultimately landed in Portland, Oregon and stayed there for nine years. Then wandered again for a couple years. Martha’s Vineyard for four years. Then went back to Cambridge, and started a personal chef company.”

“I had always loved to cook. And as a chef, nothing is more important than travel. Among my friends, I always made the food, always did an ‘orphan Thanksgiving.’”

After five or six years, JJ shifted the business toward catering.

“I needed a commercial kitchen. That brought me to Union Square. It was like coming home – I’d lived at 108 Central Street during college. I’ve been running Cuisine en Locale for 13 years now, since right at the beginning of 2005. And we’re still around. Do you know how unusual that is?”

“My father said about businesses that you should close early and often, but I’ve stuck with Cuisine through thick and thin. We have a mandate to do local food – even oil and salt! Somerville might be the only place we could do that.”

“When I moved to Union, the square was not really being developed yet, there wasn’t much activity. We’re part of the gentrification here, but also part of the new businesses that have made this a special, magical, artistic place. Somerville was already great, but we’ve added a lot. When Highland Kitchen opened, nobody knew what was going on up here. They blazed a trail. They were independent, they bucked the system. We didn’t go into the belly of the beast, didn’t try to open a place on Newbury Street.”

“There’s not a lot of foot traffic up here, it’s not on the T. It was a real risk. I really tip my hat to Highland and other businesses that take that risk. They were pioneers.”

“And Union Square is my square. If I’m going into town, it’s Union – bloc 11, the post office. Grooves is a really important business. Workbar is investing in the community. I love Ricky’s, I buy a ton of plants and soil there, I really count on him. My most important distributer is Metro Pedal Power, Wenzday Jane is one of the most brilliant business owners I know.”

I ask JJ what she loves about her job, and she laughs.

“Which one! I love to cook. I love it. I love buying food from farmers. I write big checks to them, that makes me happy. I love employing people. I love people’s reaction to our upstairs lounge. I love cooking for weddings. I love feeding people. I love my farmers, I’ve been working with some of them since we started doing this 13 years ago.”

“I think of a meal as being like a band’s set. The dishes are like songs, you choose the order. A ten course production is like an opera.”

“And if you want to do a political action, join a CSA. They use that money to get seeds and buy equipment. It’s like a small business loan, and they’re paying you back in food. Farmer’s markets are important too, but it’s a different kind of support – they can’t count on it. The weather makes it uneven, people don’t go to farmer’s markets when it’s raining. Join a CSA!”

The other half of JJ’s professional life is ONCE Ballroom, a big open space with a stage and a low key bar off to the left. A few chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

“We don’t make a profit on the shows. That goes to the bands. What we do, I think of as making revenue, making enough to pay the bills and keep things going. The staff, rent, electric, the water bill, the licensing fees. We’re keeping it going, and I love doing it.”

“You described your father’s and your family’s patriotism. What do you love about America?”

“It’s a beautiful country. So many parts that I think of as being one of the most beautiful places in the world. Puerto Rico is heaven. The Badlands are magical. Oregon is in my soul. The fog in San Francisco. The way the houses are painted. The flat prairie of Minnesota. Kansas in the dark. I could go on. I’ve gone traveling so many times. I love the lights of Las Vegas as you fly in, going on for miles and miles in the desert. I could easily live in Truro on the Cape. I love our architecture – the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Illinois.”

“We’ve got bomb music. So much great music. I love the traditions of music – rock and roll. A lot of that came out of the plantations. Protest songs come out of the South.”

“I love our civil liberties. We do a lot of benefits for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. They’re upholding the Constitution. Which is pretty well written, and thought through, by smart people.

“You have to have some rules with so many people. The Constitution’s like an employee handbook for the population.”

“Are there things about America you think are great?”

JJ goes quiet for a moment.

“Ok. So. It depends on your definition of great. There’s big. Which is great. And we do things in broad gestures here. The go big or go home attitude. There are people here who are capable of greatness. But I don’t really like that word. My best definition of great is large. Large canyons. Great beaches.”

She gives me a serious look, and says one last thing, with a firm nod.

“We have some great trees.”

I think of JJ’s deep connection to Oregon, of her devotion to bringing the natural world to people’s tables, and of the ancient, massive trees of her beloved Pacific Northwest – trees that are older than the paper on which the Constitution was written.

 

4 Responses to “Union Square Portraits: Conversations about America – with JJ”

  1. Really? says:

    It’s quite a stretch to call this location Union Square. There must be businesses in Union Square you could highlight, certainly there must be some more deserving. I attended an event at Once and was shocked. Just a few short years ago it was a thriving, very nice function room, albeit with some problems and challenges. It is now a dump. It’s too bad because it seems like they almost wanted to create a dive. There’s no other explanation for how much it has deteriorated in such a short time. The drinks were awful, as was the furniture upstairs, and they didn’t serve food. Just looking at the awning out front tells the story.

  2. That is nowhere near Union Square!

  3. Jim G. says:

    The article is about a person, not their business. The person lives in Union, as stated in the article. You might consider paying attention before spouting off.

  4. Cooper says:

    I for one enjoy a good dive bar now and then. The slick hipster traps they’ve been putting up can get tiresome not to mention way too expensive and just plain boring.