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"Don't be intimidated by foreign cookery. Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good." ~ Alice May Brock
 
               
           Photo of Alice by Howell Conant, Source: NPR.org.


During the holidays, I like listening to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree."

The "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat" makes me happy, along with Officer Obie, the Group W bench, and of course, those "twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us."

      
         photo of Alice and Arlo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis.

Dang fine example of the talkin' blues, a classic 60's counterculture, anti-war/anti-draft satirical ballad that still rings true 42 years after its release. I've been lucky enough to hear Arlo sing it in person a couple of times, and admit to having a crush on him when I was sixteen. Sigh. I wore out the A-Side of my album (some of the best 18-minute interludes I've ever had). When the movie came out with Arlo starring in it, I really really wanted to become a hippie, celebrate Thanksgiving with all those people, and help dump the garbage.

But this year, with my interest curiosity obsession with restaurants, I've been wondering about Alice. Hers was/is the most famous "restaurant" in pop culture and she's a beloved 60's hippie icon. But where is she now and what has she been up to?


Church in Great Barrington, MA, where Alice once lived with her husband Ray, and where the Thanksgiving dinners of the song took place (Now the Guthrie Center.)
(photo by Luvzdollz)

Lucky for me, I found a wonderful, in-depth interview from 2007 conducted by Alan Chartock, President and CEO of WAMC/Northest Public Radio. Alice, an artist who currently owns a studio and gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, lays it all out on the line. She opened the restaurant at her mother's suggestion, mainly to "give yourself something to do in the afternoon," to have a creative outlet. She had no chef training or any experience running a restaurant. She's the perfect example of "learn as you go," a free spirit who remained open to possibilities, and who, above all, didn't forget the importance