Wednesday Walk: Rural Jerky
Wednesday Walk: Rural Jerky
The internet is always listening, an update on a shuttered chain, and Amish meats
Welcome to Willoughby Hills!
If you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider a free subscribtion to receive emails every Wednesday and Sunday plus podcast episodes every two weeks. There are also paid options, which unlock even more features.
As is typical every Wednesday, I’m bring you a smattering of topics that I hope will make you a bit more curious about the world around you and give you something to think about later. I call these Wednesday Walks, as it’s the type of conversation we might have walking down a path in the woods. Shall we take a stroll?
Who’s Listening?
I’ve been writing recently about my trip to Canada, where we stayed in the Toronto exurb of Orangeville for a wedding. The wedding service started in the late afternoon and we had a morning to fill. On a whim, I decided to look up the filming locations for Schitt’s Creek, and it turns out that the motel that eventually became the Rosebud Motel was only about 15 minutes from us. I had to check it out!
Spoiler alert: when I got there, it was a rundown motel. I don’t know what I was expecting, but there was almost no evidence that Schitt’s Creek was ever here, save for another fan writing “Ew, David” into the dust on one of the windows.
The motel was listed for sale for $2 million CAD back in 2021, though it doesn’t seem to have sold and is not on the market anymore as far as I can tell. It actually doesn’t even appear to be used for anything at this point. There was no signage, no cars, and no evidence that anybody had been there recently. There was a piece of fascia board that had come loose, but it was otherwise well maintained- just empty.
I’ve written before about the strangeness of people who flock to filming locations. I am guilty of doing this too, although it’s not something I plan trips around.
Seeing the building stripped down like this really made me appreciate the work of set decorators and the art department. It was fun to realize that the iconic “Motel” sign was likely rigged through the windows on the top floor, rather than mounted to the building directly. I also noticed how little details like the soda machine, neon “office” and “vacancy” signs, and window air conditioner make the building feel lived in, real, and tell a story. The real thing, by contrast, felt surprisingly fake without any of those details in tact.
I don't bring up visiting the motel only for bragging rights though. I observed soon after visiting the motel that my Instagram was suddenly populated by Schitt’s Creek memes, posts from cast members like Dan Levy, and clips of the show.
I’m not sure whether it was Googling “Rosebud Motel Schitt’s Creek,” my phone’s GPS tagging me at this location, the microphone on my phone hearing me discuss Schitt’s Creek, or some combination of all of that, but at any rate, the Instagram algorithm decided that I needed some more of the Rose family in my life.
The disconcerting thing about it was that I didn’t mind being fed Schitt’s Creek content and frankly didn’t even notice it at first. I would find myself pausing the scroll of my timeline to watch the short clips and laugh along. It was only after having this happen several times that I realized I was being targeted.
I’m sure we’ve all had similar experiences of having something mundane from our personal life suddenly appear as an ad or a suggested account on social media. It’s oddly convenient when it happens, but it also makes me really, really uneasy.
Ghosts Are Moving In
One of the things that I love about writing this newsletter is that it’s an ongoing conversation with all of you. Sometimes I write a little blurb and then expand on that idea later when I learn more. Other times, a reader shares information with me that’s relevant to something I’ve discussed in the past.
I’ve written a few times now about the bankruptcy and closure of the Christmas Tree Shops chain of stores. I was never a big fan of shopping there (most of the merchandise seemed to be low quality imports), although I was a fan of their eye catching architecture.
I was in Cape Cod last week and it was a little strange crossing the Sagamore Bridge only to find the former “English cottage” Christmas Tree Shop closed up and with an empty parking lot.
But it won’t be that way for long. As reader Sandy made me aware of, the iconic Cape Cod Christmas Tree Shop will soon make way for another holiday: Halloween. Yes, the Sagamore location will be reopening temporarily as a Spirit Halloween store.
Spirit has a habit of taking over vacant retail properties of all sizes, from small drug stores to large big box stores. With Bed Bath & Beyond also closing this year, there are ample opportunities for costume shopping. As an aside, the first Toys R Us store where I worked in Mentor, Ohio will again serve as a Spirit Halloween store this season.
I have mixed feelings about these pop up costume stores. On the one hand, they make use of empty big box retail, even if only for a few months. On the other, their ubiquity seems to be a sign that we’ve really overbuilt our retail environment. Do we need so many empty big boxes that a store which thrives on retail vacancies is able to thrive? And how might we control growth and sprawl going forward so that our malls and shopping centers are “right sized” rather than abundant?
It’s a bigger issue than I can dive into here and one that will take the will of local governments, retailers, and consumers to solve, but it’s worthy to begin considering.
Slow Meats
You may have picked up on the theme of a fascination with the Amish in the pages of this newsletter. I’ve written about what I’ve learned about the Amish faith and culture and even toured the inside of an Amish run grocery store in Lancaster County.
Today, I wanted to share a profile of Matthew Secich from Atlas Obscura. Secich was a chef working in Michelin starred restaurants who decided to leave it all behind. He adopted the Amish faith and opened a speciality meat store simply known as “Charcuterie” in rural Maine. According to Reina Gattuso’s profile on Atlas Obscura:
“Secich came up amid the frenetic rush of high-end kitchens such as Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, but at Charcuterie, time is all he has. In line with his faith, Secich’s small shop is lit by oil lamps and heated by a wood stove. His meat is kept cool in a pine room stocked with 80 tons of ice that’s hand-cut each winter after being harvested from a local lake. The low-tech kitchen produces high-quality meats, from andouille and kielbasa sausage to cured meat sticks, the artisan answer to gas-station jerky.”
It’s unclear to me if Secich was raised Amish, left, and returned, or if he came from the outside and converted. If it’s the latter, that’s quite rare.
I have visited Lancaster, PA several times now and have read up on the Amish lifestyle (What the Amish Teach Us by Donald Kraybill is an excellent resource). While many of us may romanticize the simplicity of Amish life and could probably forgo some modern conveniences in our daily life, the challenging part for outsiders is the practice of the faith.
Amish simplicity is driven by and informed by their faith, and to truly be Amish, one must truly believe in the religion as the underpinning of every other part of their life. This can be made more difficult for outsiders because Amish churches are completely decentralized. Nearby families meet in each other’s homes to worship and make rules to govern their own small groups. There is no church building to visit and no church administration or bureaucracy.
While there are people that come from the outside and join the faith, their success rate is incredibly low. Most people who convert to an Amish lifestyle ultimately leave the faith after a few years. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to learn or apply to our lives from the Amish.
Charcuterie sounds like exactly the kind of business that appeals to me. It doesn’t have a website. It’s only open certain days and times. The exterior looks like a log cabin with only a simple carved sign out front. And the reviews all sound amazing, like this little excerpt from a longer Yelp review by Kelly:
“I have eaten innumerable sausages all over the world… these are some of the best that I have ever tasted. Fresh, smoky, chunky, intense, primeval, like the force of nature Amish giant who turns them out.”
It’s nice to know that if I need a fix of fresh Amish food, I can stay here in New England and don’t have to make the trek to Pennsylvania. Check out the full profile in Atlas Obscura for more details.
What filming locations have you visited while on vacation? Do you have experience where technology is always listening? Is there a Spirit Halloween store near you in the place of a former big box store? And what about Amish charcuterie? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
I publish new issues every Wednesday and Sunday. Sign up to always receive the latest issue and support my work:
Other Wednesday Walks
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.