Karen Ponzio Photos
Saul Fussiner.
“Why do we tell stories involving food?” asked Saul Fussiner, storyteller and host of Songs and Stories, at Best Video on Saturday evening. It was the opening to treat himself and a group of others to a show titled “Food for Thought,” which would answer his question and more.
Songs and Stories is an ongoing series that began one year ago at the recently closed Next Door on Humphrey Street. It went online when the pandemic hit — until this weekend, when Fussiner decided to take advantage of Best Video’s newly opened deck to put on his first outdoor event. Saturday night lineup included four storytellers — including Fussiner himself — each sharing their own words, framed by singer, songwriter and guitarist Joe Flood sharing two short sets of music at the beginning and end of the show.
The stage was set at the end of the deck, where the traffic — both on the road and on foot — passed behind the performers. Audience members made their places at a few well-spaced tables and chairs, as well as at a variety of seats spread out beyond and around the deck in the Best Video parking lot.
Fussiner noted that Songs and Stories was “always intended to be a live event,” but had readily become an internet-based show thanks to Kevin “RevKev” Ewing, who also happened to be one of the story tellers on this night. When Fussiner saw that Best Video had opened its new outdoor stage, he was eager to return to a live performance in “a tentative and safe manner.”
“I love the ephemeral quality of live performances,” added Fussiner. ‘They have that ‘you had to be there’ quality to them.” He went on to talk about the theme of the show — that food, like storytelling, brings people together.
“I hope we will experience human closeness and connection, and the universality of being human by telling stories,” Fussiner said. “Each will reveal themselves to you. Each also reveals how self connects to other.”
But first, Joe Flood started the show with a song that was not about food per se, but mentioned both hot sauce and salt.
“I don’t have a lot of food songs,” joked Flood, who also said he is often told his songs are more “cerebral.” His fun and bluesy two-song set included a call and response with the audience, who readily obliged. Flood got a good number of the audience tapping their toes and swaying along, appetites whetted for what was ahead.
Mike Isko.
The first story was delivered courtesy of Mike Isko, with whom Fussiner has performed at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown as well as at a previous Songs and Stories event. Isko’s funny and heartwarming tale spanned his life, from his first childhood meeting of grandparents who introduced him to all kinds of new-to-him Italian foods, to his family’s melding of Jewish and Italian traditions over the years that involved many other wondrous culinary creations.
Isko elaborated most memorably upon the Italian cookies known as “bricks,” which he eventually learned to make in his own way. His story was as much about the creation of familial bonds as it was about memory and making new traditions. His telling highlighted the magic of acceptance and renewal through the sharing of food, allowing the audience to experience along with him “that moment when the sunshine came back into my life.”
Cynthia Rojas.
The next storyteller, Cynthia Rojas, had also performed previously at a Songs and Stories event as well as a variety of storytelling events throughout the state, including The Mouth-Off in Hartford. During his introduction, Fussiner quoted her as saying she believed storytelling was “rooted in the idea that we all experience extraordinary moments we can share with others.”
Rojas did just that as she warmly and joyfully conveyed the tale of a variety of dining experiences over the years that affected how she came to view the traditional family holiday dinner. The story built upon a series of stories about her years of trying to establish “the perfect family dinner,” which found her dining out at a restaurant on Thanksgiving one year while traveling. During her observations at this restaurant, she came to wonder if others there were also “in search of their own perfect family dinner.” She eventually realized that holiday dinners are about “love, conversation, dancing, and laughing” — and “in giving up the search for perfection,” she found “the best holiday ever.”
Fussiner took to the stage next for his own tale, titled “Tomek,” which he had previously told at a Songs and Stories event. The story involved the sharing of Turkish coffee with the man the story is named for — “the perfect security guard,” with whom Fussiner formed a bond while visiting Lodz, Poland. More than just a story of a shared drink, under Fussiner’s thoughtful guidance it becomes a story of gratitude, curiosity, fear, and of that “human closeness and connection” Fussiner described earlier — especially when he described their visit to a Jewish gravesite, and the moment when “you are looking at something and someone else is looking at it. It’s like you’re looking directly at one another.”
Kevin “RevKev” Ewing.
Kevin Ewing told the final story, titled “Breakfast Money,” with a spark and a grace that brought its own kind of light to the stage as the sun began to set. In the interest of not giving too much away, as this is a story that is best left (as Fussiner put it earlier) to being there, this reporter will leave you with the following: the story of how Ewing confronted an ethical dilemma and evaluated choices made and given in the interest of friendship, brotherhood, and community was an apt final chapter in how connections made under difficult circumstances can often bring about the most promising of changes.
Flood returned for two more songs. He broke a string on his guitar during the first song and had to play his second song without it. But he played with a smile and proceeded to still wow the crowd. He chose his final song — one he sang in French — based on that string being gone. The song, he said, had been written by a friend that he had not seen in 35 years. Perhaps one day someone will tell the story of the performer who played a five-string guitar and sang in French, giving them hope that they too can adapt and change if they need to.
For information on future Songs and Stories events please see their Facebook page. To view past Songs and Stories filmed events please see the series YouTube channel here.