Aside from an occasional bout of arthritis in my lower back, I’m a pretty healthy guy.

But a few weeks ago, I just felt out of sorts. Nothing specific…but a little off my feed, as dairy farmers would say about their cows.  My lifelong mantra has been that we are all responsible for our own salvation so I bought one of those 25-buck blood pressure meters from the drug store and decided to start there. Sure enough my numbers were higher than they should have been, hovering around 145 over 90. (Normal is 120 over 80.)

A call to my best friend and doctor, Michel, confirmed my conclusions and included some recommendations from him.  He put me on some medicine, but he also told me to get more exercise and to cut my sodium.

I already exercise about an hour per day so my prime target became salt.

BUT…. other than an occasional shake on popcorn and my egg-white omelets, I couldn’t recall adding salt to anything in years

I’ve always read food labels because keeping the fat out has been my longtime focus. Now that I’ve moved down a few lines on the nutrition labels, I’m astonished at how much sodium is in just about everything.

Now I know that 2,400 milligrams of sodium daily – the amount in one teaspoon of salt – is the recommended maximum for adults. Someone like me with high blood pressure should eat half that amount.

But I’ve also learned that the average American consumes twice the max! And most is attributable to processed and preserved foods – that is, the stuff in the middle aisles and the deli sections of grocery stores.

Once I recognized how widespread high blood pressure is in our culture, and how many millions of people suffer strokes or heart attacks or die too young because of it, it came to me like an epiphany that I needed to do something.

I called my Head Buyer Larry in the middle of the night – I woke him up – and declared: “We are on a mission! We must seek out sodium-free and low-sodium items in every category and visibly mark them. We must make it easy for people who have high blood pressure, or love someone who does, to cut out the salt.”

We had already done the same for gluten-free items. In fact, we offer more gluten-free products than any other grocery in the Midwest and they’re a breeze to find because of their unique tags.

I put every one of my buyers on a mission to find no- or low-sodium products and, to my amazement, we’ve found hundreds of them ! We’ve got whole lines of soups. We found things in every single category, including lunch meats, and all these hundreds of new products are being marked so shoppers can spot them.

Hiller’s is becoming a sea of low-sodium tags

Sure, I’ve read that some manufacturers are discretely cutting the sodium in their processed foods, like soup, and not telling anyone. They worry people won’t buy low-sodium things because they aren’t jazzed up by all the salt.

I say Horse Pucky ! Food manufacturers have oversalted us for decades. If your life depends on it, you’ll get accustomed to the taste of less salt

I’ve changed my diet and cut the salt.  It’s a gift to myself and those I love. And stocking all these new products – almost a thousand of them – is my gift to you or someone you love who should be cutting salt, too.

Look for the little tags with the slash mark through the salt shakers. All of our lives may depend on it

“We went into business to survive,” Milad Hallis said, his voice echoing against the pristine tile floor of his Redford storefront. “And for a business to survive, you need family to keep it going.”

It was the end of the day and the counters were clean, the falafel balls packed away, each container of salad lidded and shut for the morrow. In the kitchen, Milad’s wife Leila swept the floor clean of flour. A big metal bowl of chopped spinach sat on a cart, ready for the next day’s fresh-baked pies.

Beirut Bakery salads and hummos have been selling in my stores for a half-year but the people behind the brand are so familiar to me, it’s like I’ve known them all my life.

As a child, the Lebanese community was a big part of my extended family. Every Sunday night, my parents, my sister and I dined at The Sheik Restaurant in Detroit. Esther and Janet, the daughters of the owner whose face graced the menu in a caricature costume, were like cousins. Our fathers were old friends, and as we dragged our bread through garlicky hummos and bit into lemony grape leaves, they huddled together, sharing stories and strategies of a life in a family business, and a world where they were neither understood nor celebrated.

The food was delicious. The aromas familiar. The stories almost identical. Our ethnic and cultural heritages similarly emanated from a history of persecution to a future of anything-is-possible and we were all raised on the possibility of never-give-up. That stamina and drive, that stubbornness and refusal to concede, made both of our families shine and our businesses grew.

I hadn’t thought of Esther or Janet in years until Catherine Hallis walked into my office. It is not part of my daily routine to meet the many vendors who wish to sell their products at Hiller’s, but I overheard her pitch to my grocery buyer and something about her drive and passion drew my attention.

It helps that the food is fantastic. Melt-in-your-mouth good. Beirut Bakery was established in 1979 in Redford; countless cousins and in-laws come and go, to help with the business, to knead pita dough into something smooth and soothing, and this hard-won business is the thread that runs through everyone’s lives.

After the Civil War in Lebanon in 1978, Hallis emigrated to America. He and his brother-in-law, Alex Wakim, had no culinary training, only an expertise in blending the flavors of their heritage, and in the late 1970s, Middle Eastern food was hard to come by. The entire clan started this business – a team effort plus the dream of a better life fueled by familiarity and the warmth of a hard-working oven. Beirut Bakery was the first Middle Eastern eatery to open in Wayne County.

In a family business, a shared vision propels everyone forward. I know this at the core of my being, and the sentiment was echoed by 22-year-old Mark Hallis, who runs the business now with his sister Catherine. “We want to make things easier for our parents,” he says. “My father broke his back for us.”

“We’re returning the favor now,” echoes Catherine.

Milad and Leila are behind the scenes, letting their energetic offspring run the show. He makes sweets by hand, with the loving attention of someone who built a foundation of bricks. Leila crushes lentils for soup, rolls rice and ground lamb into softened cabbage leaves, combines chickpeas with that can’t-name-it-great dressing that makes it a must-have salad from our deli counter. Za’atar and smooth cheese, pita as creamy as you can find anywhere, baked in the back of their shop.

We are the same, the Hallis family and the Hillers. We trace our lineage to a journey across oceans and possibilities to do the best we could and build something of meaning. And just like I do, they prove their dedication and their fearlessness – and their talent – every single day with the products they make.

Like my own heritage, the recipes behind Beirut Bakery are a conglomeration of stories from their collective past. Flavors left behind by conquerors who trampled homelands then left for new frontiers. Mixtures and combinations becoming a veritable melting pot of identity, stewed into spice so unique, it is hard to pinpoint exact character. And impossible to replicate.

Just like groceries abound all around my stores, there is nothing like Hiller’s. Today, Middle Eastern food is everywhere – the latest craze, a healthy go-to and a familiar food even for babes. But there is only one Beirut Bakery. Literally. Metaphorically.

“We’re just making good food,” says Catherine Hallis. “We serve only what we eat at home.”

My employees are my family, I work alongside my eldest son, I listen to the heart-stories of my shoppers.

Catherine tells of her grandfather, who was a carpenter who built a series of wooden steps so his petite daughter could reach the top of the pita-making machine. From his hands, he fashioned tools to embolden the family business. In the corner of the bakeshop, an orange tree grows, nurtured over 30 years now.

“We got it for our grandfather,” says Mark, “to remind him of what grew in his backyard in the south of Lebanon. It is in perfect condition.” And orange trees do not typically bloom in Michigan.

The authenticity that I find at Beirut Bakery I know in my bones. “We do it the right way, the hard way, and we don’t mind it,” says Mark Hallis.

The most authentic thing about us, according to Nigerian author Ben Okri, is our ability to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform – to be greater than our suffering and to do whatever we can with love.

Beirut Bakery … taste it at Hiller’s.

I grew up believing bread came in a brightly-colored plastic package that delivered an important message about healthy bodies. The bread itself was a tasteless concoction that could easily be rolled into a mushy ball to throw at my sister Linda or lob in the air for my dog Chips to leap up and catch in his mouth.  Bread was a joyous toy and a 12 way body-builder all in one.

During college, I met Eileen, an émigré  from Eastern Europe who made her own bread. That was my introduction to the notion that bread wasn’t always heavily processed – it could be handmade, hearty, tasty and have character.

That was the time our nation was reawakening to natural breads, the pre-calcium propionate types that didn’t stay edible for weeks at a time.  – It was through those breads we learned about culture and flavor – dark Russian loaves, Italian crusts with soft flesh, French baguettes or my college favorite, Kalacs, a Hungarian sweet bread.

Bread became something to savor, to convey history, to tell stories over and best of all, to gather around the table with. I saw how complex bread truly is – well, not in the making, for bread is simple peasant food combining basic ingredients: flour, yeast, water, sugar and time.

The essence of bread is the complicated part. A sustaining force, a building block to stave off hunger, elevated from a minimum table requirement to something worth lingering over and which enhances the eating of a thick winter stew or the last bites of succulent saucy seafood. Bread is at the core of truly living.

And the thing about bread – it’s cheap.  A great loaf of bread doesn’t have to cost $10. It can and it does at neighboring stores, but that’s a ruse to make shoppers defy their better judgment. The breads of Tribeca Ovens will restore your faith and you’ll find them at Hiller’s.

A loaf of Tribeca warmed in the oven is soothing, a comfort at the end of the day or at the beginning. I stumbled upon this gem of a company in my unending quest to find unique products with unparalleled flavors that provide my shoppers experiences they can’t find anywhere else. At Hiller’s, we sell sustaining foods that we can enjoy.

Best of all, Tribeca is a bread with a story. Like my own history, Tribeca came from a family with a passion whose members made old, trusted recipes with their hands again and again. The recipes and processes were handed down by the family patriarch more than a half-century ago, as he recreated for Americans the flavors of his youth.

These loaves are made the ways our ancestors made their food – slowly, with time and care, in small batches with hours upon hours for the dough to rise. A leisurely pursuit emanating from passion and love, resulting in a product so delicious, so comforting, that eating it becomes as leisurely as the process of making it.

The crusts are hard, the inside of each slice whisper-soft, and the tang of flavors in each loaf – the garlic loaves contain whole hidden cloves, the olive loaf offers tangy bites of salty goodness, and there are many other flavors to enjoy. Of course, it’s a natural product, hand-shaped, hand-scored.

You know I’m dedicated to Michigan companies. Tribeca Ovens is not from these parts, and still I’m proud to sell their products in my stores. We support Michigan businesses as much as we can, showcasing the superior quality of local entrepreneurs. But when we find a uniquely good product from further away, we welcome it in because at Hiller’s, our dedication is to quality, taste and you.

Even though I never stood as a boy at the kitchen counter, helping my mother knead dough that would become a homemade loaf, I believe bread is the foundation of the family table. In most of the world, it is the staple, the elemental expectation of a meal. In our country, we love and are tormented by bread – whether because we believe it to be the source of our fattening or a soft, smooth indulgence to be ingested over a low-lit table with people we cherish.

A century ago, the Pillsbury Company issued A Book for a Cook with the following quote: “Good bread is the great need in poor homes, and oftentimes the best appreciated luxury in the homes of the very rich.”

Bread is the creation of something satisfying from absolutely nothing. In times like these, when we are at the edges of our comfort and hope for better times ahead, a small affordable indulgence is exactly what is needed to surmount difficulties.

Bread-making is a task that cannot be wholly automated; it requires tending by human eyes and guidance by human hands to reach perfection. It is a reminder that each of us is and will always be necessary.

This kitchen staple juxtaposes the all-important opposites of crumb and crust. It is a food we allow ourselves to eat animalistically, tearing it with our hands. It is one of the world’s oldest prepared foods and one of the few commonalities between cultures. In slang, bread or dough refers to money, something we need to get by.

In churches, the sacrament of the daily bread fuses holy and mundane. When it says in The Lord’s Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread,” it means more than food to eat – it means life itself. In Jewish homes, bread launches holiday meals and becomes the focal point of troubled times, as with the Passover holiday.

Bread has even been the focus of political campaigns: the Bolshevik platform – “Peace, Land and Bread”; the undercurrent of Indian lives – “roti, kapda aur makan” (bread, cloth and house). Bread was the central topic to free trade debates in 19th century Britain and it played a starring role in the Magna Carta.

And yet, it is a food and not even a decadent one! Bread – so basic, so inconsequential, so essential. It is basic chemistry and mere sustenance. It is art and endeavor, backbone and accessory.

The culinary expert M.F.K. Fisher once said, “The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.”

I see it in much the same way. In these unprecedented times, I believe we will persevere, if only we have the patience to let the yeast ferment and allow the dough enough space, time and warmth to rise.

Tribeca Ovens artisan breads. Of course you’ll find them at Hiller’s

I have been lucky to be owned at key points in my life by some very engaging dogs. Jingles the Bouvier, my junkyard dog from years ago, believed her only role was to protect me every minute of the day. Mr. Chips was my childhood companion from the age of 5 until I was 19. There have been others, too, but my Scottish Deerhound Lilly is truly one-of-a-kind.

Lilly is different. Scottish Deerhounds see themselves as far more than a mere servant or even a simple companion as one would expect between a man and his dog. Darling Lilly demands an equality – I’m not sure how – that requires give and take every single day and for some reason, I immediately succumb. Like our morning ritual, established by my dear Deerhound: she wakes me from the bedside whenever she is ready to begin the day by sticking her big snout in my face and licking my face or biting on my ear until I’m roused. And she is not to be denied. If I roll over, she growls and becomes even more petulant.

She’s not like other dogs, and I’m ok with that. In fact, I’m not sure why I find it so rewarding to be loved by, and have love for, a dog like Lilly. I wanted to begin this blog by reciting the many ways in which dog love is superior to romantic love between a man and a woman because I imagined it to be simpler, more basic, more rewarding. But the more I pondered that notion, the more I realized it is not in any way different – it is more of the same and possibly even more demanding on the human than a relationship of intellectual and emotional equals.

With Lilly, I embrace my servitude because it enhances my very core.

Since I was a boy, dogs have been my companions, my confidants, my best friends. In the dark of night, if I felt alone, I had only to reach beside me and feel the soft, warm body of my four-footed sidekick. I ran in the grass as a little boy, as an older boy, as an adolescent, dog at my side. It didn’t matter the day or the hour or the reason or the emotion. With a dog beside me, I could be myself without question – silly, strange, wild, and I was loved.

If you’ve never had a pet, you may not understand this complete and total immersion. And really, if you’ve had a pet but not a dog, you still may not relate fully. There are people who think they love you unconditionally but they will still speak their minds and let you know when synchronicity is lost. They will have complicated emotions of their own and you will care deeply but sometimes, the stars misalign when you need someone desperately and there is no one person to attend to you because they are wrapped up in their own needs and musings. It’s never that way with a dog.

It’s cliché, I know, to describe the way a dog awaits your return at the end of a long day. What is original is the way you anticipate that reunion, too. I can have days full of meetings or days of quiet contemplation or days tramping through my seven stores, speaking with customers, rearranging shelves, attending to the details of the meat counter.

Or I can spend a day at sea with total and utter abandon and be almost 100% happy, with someone I love at my side or with no one at all and still, I know that before long, I will return to familiar surroundings and there will be a soft, innocent creature so happy to see me, as if each time is the first time.

It’s not a new idea that a person should love another not for what they’ll get in return. There are a mighty few with whom I can do that. But a dog, a dog loves its owner completely because its entire being propels it to. And that total love, that innocent adoration, that utter devotion, well, it inspires the same overwhelming appreciation from my end.

I have two dogs today – Lilly, my 8-year-old Deerhound and Al, my 6-year-old Doberman. They each are singularities and decidedly dissimilar. I love them both; they are the children who will never leave home to build lives of their own.

I celebrate independence and ambition in my sons, but I covet my dogs’ continual devotion as a gift, the way they revel in my quirks and moods – when I am grumpy or snarky or fragile and want no other person to see, it is with dear Lilly and not-quite-ferocious Al that I maintain no façade, hide no emotion. My words are never misinterpreted and my playing is not misunderstood. It’s pure, simple love.

Every morning, I walk the quiet streets with Lilly prancing beside me. When she tires, soon after we leave the house, I take her back to rest, and that is how she spends most hours of her days. Then, Al and I head out for a more vigorous walk. Al has energy and emotion and always we meet other breeds along our trails and there is conversation and opposition.

We see deer and even coyotes on the edge of the wood, we remark on the changing nature of the trees. We wave hello to other owners and we marvel at the details of our surroundings.

And when Al has tired, and I am invigorated, we return home to start the formal part of the day. I leave my dogs and go into the world and try to accomplish. I make connections, I make deals, I make a difference if I can and always, I return to the sanctity of these two creatures at the end of my journeys, short and long, and they are a comfort.

When I look into Lilly’s eyes, I see a wisdom that comes from time. It’s no surprise that most written words about Deerhounds over the past five centuries came in the form of praiseful poetry, for these creatures have a silent valor. No matter that my Deerhound is more comfortable asleep on my bed than she is running down the Red Stag of ancient Gaelic legend. I don’t pretend that my dogs will protect me; it is their love that offers a protection I can carry with me.

The love of a dog returns a man to a state of courageous innocence known only by the very young. The love of a parent for his child imbues the child with confidence and courage because he is loved so completely and without question or rule. He goes into the world with the feeling that everything will be all right because he comes from a foundation of total love. As we grow older, we lose that seminal connection – we shed it on purpose as we attempt to conquer our own strengths. A good dog can bring it all back.

Many times in love, you feel as though you’re putting in with a shovel and taking out with a spoon. In the morning, I look forward to walking up a great hill – raising my heart rate, invigorating the flow of blood and at the end, I know innately how alive I am. Some days, Lilly slows to such a crawl, veritably dragging her feet until she refuses another step. I know I must turn my back on my great hill and carry my Deerhound back to let her off the leash and collapse on the bed as she wishes. If Lilly doesn’t enjoy it, I certainly won’t.

I don’t lament this turn of fortune. I can always walk the hill. And no doubt, Al will be there with head high and tail wagging at squirrels and deer so that my challenge and my love can exist in the same space. And we are all happy.

Everyone has something that gets him through the day. My constant is my dogs. They are my North Star, my beacons, my comfort, and I am a lucky, lucky man.

A father can hope. But he never knows if his son will follow in his footsteps until it actually happens. And now that’s where I sit.

Justin returned to Michigan in June, sprightly and eager to step into the role created expressly for him of Vice-President of my family company. And when he did, I stepped back, leaning on my hands to watch my son whom I remember in so many incarnations, behave as the man I dreamed he would become.

My son is preparing to take over my company so that one day, I will sail in the sun and marvel at all the possibilities. But first, we will work together, filling in the nuances of detail that vary between personalities. He brings characteristics that I lack and I bring a lifetime of experience and insight that he is too young yet to own. For a while, we will be like the team we once were when he was small and I was a new father, both of us delighting in his leaps in rain puddles after a storm.

Justin is the eldest of my three boys and the most like his late grandfather. My father, Sid Hiller, had his hands in everything. His favorite days were spent in the stores, touching products, positioning muffins into veritable sculptures, adjusting and securing and overseeing until every single item and display met his satisfaction. I see my father in my son – his genuine interest in the details, a visible joy in immersing himself in every step of this company. Justin is as much a part of the process as any other person in the company. As was my father. And so the circle closes.

Where I am right now, it’s a glorious place to be. I came into the grocery business after nearly 20 years of practicing law. Finding the perfect food products for shoppers was my father’s dream and he built this business to a certain point, guided by vision and very specific goals.

And then I stepped in, careful not to trample on the dreams of the man I revered but infusing my perspective, philosophy and approach to the tasks at hand. In time, my father handed the reins to me – though he never stopped greeting customers, shaking hands, rearranging fruit.

Like chess, I am strategic in business, deliberate, applying careful thought and whole attention. I concern myself with macro as much as micro – answering shopper emails at 3 a.m. and then at dawn welcoming each of my departmental experts to run his own fiefdom. I have truly gathered eagles.

Every businessman has his way. It is a path and a perspective merged, a way of doing things built over time and inspired by that individual’s personality. The way I approach the grocery business is 180 degrees different from my father and probably from the way my son will run it. And it’s all good.

We are a unique family, the Hillers. The men in my family have always had a passion for unusual and bizarre foods – we search out new flavors, seeking to share experiences and discover the world through food. It is over and about food that we connect, that we lead, that we set pace.

One spring many years ago, with the Passover holiday approaching, we sold whitefish for $3.99 per pound. A woman approached my father and said, “Why is your whitefish so expensive? At Farmer Jack, it costs $2.99 a pound.”

“So go there and buy it,” my father said.

“They’re out of it,” the shopper replied.

“Well, when we’re out of it, I only charge $1.99 a pound,” my father retorted.

In so many ways, my son reminds me of my father. Justin loves the buzz and draw of the stores, he loves the organic part of the action. He follows the shoppers’ pace, the employees’ drive, the amalgam of talents and tastes.

The similarities between Justin and my father are uncanny. Justin is exactly the same size and demeanor of my father and like his grandfather, my son cuts a wide swath with a compelling presence and authoritative glance. There is a gravitational pull when Justin walks into a room; he is easy to be around but clearly confident. He is physical in every step: fingers touching texture and grain of every item we sell. It’s as if he takes each detail into himself through all five senses, making the business part of his being. And it is readily apparent that he loves this business to the core of his being.

I’ve watched him walk through our stores. He saunters and glides along the aisles, whisking into back rooms, his glance skirting roof lines and shelf tops for misplaced miscellany. He is authoritatively collegial, establishing his position with firm kindness but an easy-to-see mastery over the littlest and most important details. People like to talk to him, they warm to him but are cautious in his presence. I think he likes that – the mystery, the uncertainty, knowing he could lower the boom but is selective in choosing when. That is how he leads. In his hands, my company will walk the line with ease.

In time, I will proudly hand my mantle to a new generation, although I feel as if I am handing the task BACK to someone who already knows it well. Every generation exists beyond its ending – my father may have died in 2005, but he remains here – in memory and in my son. I have not felt so close to my father in a long, long time.

It is the responsibility of one generation to pave the path for the next so that they can walk a less arduous route, reaching farther into the jungle that is life. Every night now, Justin and I pour glasses of red wine and sit outside, discussing the details of our shared days. I listen more than I speak, as my son reveals how my company appears to him, taking in his assessment of people I have known well and long. He is astute beyond his years. And in some ways, he is exactly his age.

Things are not easy and the future is far from clear in these tough times. But I feel a sort of satisfaction about where we’re headed now that Justin’s here. We have more talent at the helm of this company than ever before and at least I know that all the stops will be pulled during the march ahead.

Like John Wayne said: “We do exactly what we started out to do.”

It’s always a surprise, though it shouldn’t be. The smoothness, the mountain stream clarity , the way it slips past my lips like a lover’s tongue on its way down my throat to ignite a furnace of everything-will-be-alright.

I love sake. That’s why my stores carry 28 different kinds of this Japanese national drink which has been brewed since at least the 3rd century by fermenting rice until it’s as smooth as the purest stream in a mountain valley. (We also sell 11 kinds of Shochu – Japanese vodka, some made with rice, some with buckwheat, some with sweet potato.)

When I think of sake, I can almost taste bite-size pieces of fresh raw fish and crisp vegetables with just the right amount of wasabi-zing.  And it doesn’t hurt that the alcohol content (15-18%) is higher than beer or grape-wine. I sip sake like I’m actually tasting the moments. Clear, sweet, cool, a long swallow to a crisp awakening. For me, drinking good sake approaches perfection.

The story of sake is a perfect metaphor for my business in these times. Grounded in history, improved with technology but returning often to traditional processes to ensure perfection, this is a drink with meaning, symbolic of culture and celebration and solid identity.

The earliest mention of alcohol as a drink in Japan comes from the Book of Wei, a Chinese 3rd century record that illustrates Japanese celebration through drinking and dancing. In the first documents from Japan, the Kojiki, compiled 500 years later in 712, sake is mentioned by name as a significant element in the Japanese way of life.

The first incarnation of this famed beverage was unlike the smooth swallow of today. Called kuchikami no sake, or mouth-chewed sake, it was created by people crunching nuts or grains, spitting them into a pot and allowing fermentation to occur through saliva enzymes. (A great example of time creating an improved product.)

For 500 years beginning in the 10th century, houses of worship were the main centers for sake brewing. A detail that I love is that today, most of the 2,300 sake breweries in Japan are returning to old-fashioned methods of production.

This is a pure drink, with low acidity and no sulfites to mess with your equilibrium, made by the passion of generations and the crystalline water of mountain streams and snow melt. I am heartened to ingest a product protected by the pollutant-free air of the Niigata Mountains, where more than 30 feet of annual snowfall wards off the invasion of impurities.

And in fact, while I almost love all sake the same, as if the different incarnations were individual children of mine, it is the blue bottle from Niigata – Kikusui – that I love most. It’s almost impossible to describe its clarity and hint of sweetness, how it stands apart from the rest just enough to win my heart. The taste is so smooth it instantly becomes part of me and then there is no separation between a sip and a sentiment.

Perhaps this version of sake is so good because it is made according to the natural order of the seasons. Think about what it would be like if we lived dedicated to the local harvest, imbued by our natural environs. If the very climate of our home locale dictated industry and quality. If the mere process of creation demanded only a few wholesome ingredients. If natural air purifiers like a constant winter blanket almost guaranteed that nothing would impinge on the purity of process.

What strikes me most, though, is that despite centuries of change and adjustment and alleged improvement, for the sake of perceived quality or to save a few dimes, the original processes have reappeared time and again as the best true way to create a fine drink. Saving a dollar can sometimes mean sacrifice of meaning.

It’s ok to switch from cedar tanks to ceramic-lined or stainless steel holdings. It’s the way the ingredients are generated, especially the koji, that makes such a difference to sake’s ultimate flavor. Traditionally, koji was made by hand in wood-paneled rooms kept warm and humid, and for the best bottles today, I’m thrilled to know that it’s still hand-pressed.

Koji is this drink’s magic ingredient, steamed rice with koji-kin, or mold spores, added in. Change the way you polish the rice or make the koji and you affect everything.

The art of sake-making is so subtle. Each bottle has its own characteristics, its own saving graces, its own details that make it my preference at that very moment of sipping. I like the clearest. I like the cloudy unfiltered Kuromatsu Hakashika Nigori. I like it all. It is indeed an art to make this fine drink and an art to taste it on a mellow night, in good company, with nowhere more important to be.

Because the best sake comes from pure water, perfect rice and expert koji. Nothing more, nothing less, no added elements to muddy the outcome. I remember that as I stroll the aisles of my stores. Nothing more, nothing less, no added elements to muddy the outcome. Simply the perfection of time and thought, of attention to detail and processes put in place carefully, with concern and care and the notion that every step matters along with the purity of every ingredient.

Every week, eager food entrepreneurs traipse through my office with samples of the best-food-product-ever. My departmental buyers hold court at their desks and in our two conference rooms and office kitchen, and my office staff members eat their way through the day, sampling and tasting the next-best-thing to cross the threshold of Hiller’s Markets.

It was an innocuous day in February when Laura Garelik quietly entered my office with an earnest package of gluten-free baked goods. I am never optimistic about these demos; everyone and their brother wants to launch a food company with a heretofore unknown edible that’s going to solve all the problems of the world. We sell thousands upon thousands of food items in our seven stores – who needs another?

Of course that’s a rhetorical question. We all know that success lies in the belief that new is good and around the corner and within our reach. In these difficult economic days, especially, I am of the belief that innovation trumps tried-and-true –I’ve always lived that as a personal truth. Being the best, producing the best, giving others what they didn’t know they needed – that, my friends, is the secret.

Laura Garelik. She filled my rectangular conference table with gluten-free baked goods – slices of banana and carrot cake, thick fudgy brownies, chocolate chip and sugar cookies, flaky-moist biscuits. In her quiet voice, Laura told us how she began baking and remaking recipes in an effort to find something to satisfy the palate of her courageous husband Phil, who has battled gluten-intolerance for at least 17 years, when he was diagnosed with Celiac Disease 17 years ago this fall.

When they married 38 years ago, Phil was already enduring Crohn’s Disease, with repeat surgeries and an inability to gain weight. Doctors urged Phil to consume pasta, ice cream, bread and muffins but the more he took their advice, the sicker he became.

One day, after the urging of a friend and a holistic doctor, Phil eliminated wheat from his diet altogether and the metaphorical sun shone on his face.

Seventeen years ago, a diagnosis of gluten intolerance signaled a culinary death knell. Not even my stores stocked enough items to support a Celiac’s yearnings. Today, since we’re the Midwest leader in gluten-free grocery items, you can find many delectable frozen and packaged products to suit a Celiac. But there’s nothing better than homemade.

Tired of running up and down the grocery aisles, reading package labels and searching for gluten-free goodies that would taste better than cardboard, Laura took to her kitchen to create desserts Phil would love and which wouldn’t make him sick. She started with a family favorite – her grandmother’s banana cake – and modified the recipe until she had created a gluten-free delight without the dreadful taste of nothing.

“I wanted it to be healthy – not just throw in gluten-free ingredients,” says Laura. “I wanted something of substance – organic ingredients, wholesome, not processed or bleached. Instead of just gluten-free, I wanted it to be nutritious and low-fat, too. I always loved baking but never found the time for it until it was a necessity.”

As a handful of us sat around the conference room, sampling Laura’s Delicate Desserts, as she has named them for consumers, I was impressed with the taste, the consistency, the moistness – I couldn’t discern anything different, really, from standard baked treats. And I listened to Laura’s narrative: Food is so important in our society, she said. Everything is based upon eating. We connect over food, we are separated by food, food sustains us and repels us. I never found the time for cooking until it was a necessity.

Food is our lifeblood, people. We cannot go forward another day without it. Doesn’t that make it imperative that each of us find the right combination of ingredients to nourish our bodies and simultaneously satisfy our souls?

I’ve been selling gluten-free grocery items for years, and proudly so. I troll the aisles during our frequent gluten-free fairs and listen to stories from customers who drove long distances to stock up on many items. In this time, when there are so many delicious products available, I still hear tales of denial of life’s basic pleasures and flavors – at least until they found salvation of a sort in my stores.

After I tasted Laura’s cakes, I began to ponder what, exactly, the meaning could be in a food intolerance like the one Phil faces – when the very foods you eat attack your immune system. That musing led me to a favorite famed movie, D.W. Griffith’s silent film, Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Through the Ages.

Lavish sets, exquisite period costumes, more than 3,000 extras went into this film, which chronicled four historical downfalls driven by human intolerances. This well-regarded film was ahead of its time in magnitude, scope and cost and of course, when it was current, it was a total flop. But it brought to light a universal truth: that intolerance at its most basic level tears apart every working thing until we are left desolate and despair, in ruins and amid chaos.

For a body to repel the very building blocks that lead to its endurance – foods from the basic elements of nature, the substance in wheat and rye that makes bread crumbly and which satisfies carb cravings late into the night – it’s almost a cruel joke. To turn the body against itself, as happens with Celiac Disease, to crumble the immune system and render the eater as sick as the sewer, to pass from generation to generation, like the storyline in that old film, well, it has to mean more than a simple illness.

It takes an average of 12 years to figure out that one suffers from Celiac Disease. Nearly 3 million Americans have it but many don’t know. They eat and agonize in pain.

To succeed in beating the beast, you can’t do it alone. “My husband is the epitome of health now,” says Laura. “I wanted to create a delicious product for other people so they wouldn’t feel denied like he did.”

She did more than that. She took the love of a devoted wife and poured it into the bowl with the gluten-free goodness of organic ingredients and created magic. I always loved to cook but didn’t have the time for it until it was a necessity. Driven by the love of another, Laura was transformed from begrudging home cook to gluten-free baker extraordinaire, pleasing not only her husband but an unknown number of consumers. It takes that passion, that love, that sincere form of devotion, to create something worthwhile.

I’ve decided gluten is a metaphor for all forms of intolerance, lurking as it does in salad dressings, yogurt drinks, cold cuts and egg substitutes. It requires exploration and embarking upon a whole new regime, getting to know amaranth, quinoa and tapioca, speaking a new language, befriending others who can ride the waves with you.

If we are to gather over food, build our communities on the basis of collecting around the table and sharing our stories as we eat, then we must make our meals accessible for every single soul. I’ve watched Laura as she demos her cakes and cookies – she listens intently to stories and shares hers. She builds community over food and eliminates the very nature of denial that defines so many. She rends apart the cliquishness that lies in cracks and crevices, eliminates barriers between people.

She’s a great example of the Hiller Way. And of course, you can find Laura’s Delicate Desserts at Hiller’s, $4.99-$5.99 per package.

It was in the middle of the night in the dead of winter when I awoke with a vision of myself in a small engineless boat in rough seas. Suddenly I was handed an oar by a faceless person. I put every ounce of my strength and energy into each swipe through water and wave. I paddled and paddled against the current, the skies stormy and dark, heavy clouds screaming their thunder in the black night.

And somehow, because it was a dream, or maybe a nightmare, or maybe a vision of these times we’re living in, people kept appearing in my boat and each had a small paddle. And though the boat was small, there was always room for more souls onboard. Together, we rowed our way through the storms, through the rising seas, until somehow we came out on dry land and the dark clouds disappeared.

When I awoke from that dream, I knew it was significant. It was a metaphor for these turbulent economic times and I interpreted the row boat as a lifeboat of sorts that I was somehow intended to create and steer toward a safe harbor. The next day, I created the Hiller’s Hometown First program, to promote local businesses and give my shoppers extra value when they do what they need to do: buy groceries to feed their families.

As with all good and true things, we started small. I launched this program in February with 10 restaurants on board. Today, there are nearly 100 various businesses and the list continues to grow.

I realized the merit of coming together in a community of sorts, of dedicated Michigan residents who live here, work here and all want to see our hometown thrive. The only way to build anything lasting and good is to do it one brick at a time so that the foundation won’t collapse.

The Hiller’s Michigan Initiative was a slow-growing awareness campaign to highlight all of the good things about our home state. Our circular front page became a newspaper proclaiming the many Michigan companies whose products we sell. I printed company name, number of employees and location so that every single one of us would focus not only on the  price or flavor of a food, but rather how many jobs each company ensures for Michigan residents.

We indicated Michigan products throughout all of our seven stores with little shelf tags featuring a smiling mitten-state icon. And we hosted Michigan food fairs, where we filled stores with as many vendors as we could pack in, all presenting tastes of their locally-created, produced and disseminated products.

Every day, another idea blossomed like the first daffodils in spring. Because the clarion call of working together in the interest of building a stable community and rebuilding, if you will, was louder than any other noise, the background din of fear was reduced to a whisper.

I knew we could focus on how many jobs are being lost, how many houses foreclosed, how many empty shopping malls we drive past.

Or we could focus on the innate knowledge that things go in cycles, that this too shall pass, that there are many steps WE can take to help it go away sooner, rather than later.

I choose to remain optimistic. I’m a bloody realist though. I’ve never lived through a time like this. I never believed our core industry could crumble.

But the key to success is recognizing the times in which we live, embracing them even if they are studded with thorns, and evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of life-as-we-know-it.

Recently, one of my favorite local restaurateurs, Jim Lark, mentioned Hiller’s in his monthly newsletter. It’s unusual, first, that an elegant and refined restaurant with such an established local history would produce a monthly newsletter directed at the community. That’s The Lark, and that’s the signature of a creative and inspiring entrepreneur.

This West Bloomfield fine-fare mainstay devoted a page and a half to the Buy Local craze sweeping through our state. He began by commending Hiller’s for our Michigan Initiative, “during all the years, through every glitch in the economy.”

He mentioned our circulars and our in-store promotions and then went on to name so many fine products – Garden Fresh Salsa, Better Made Potato Chips, Kowalski sausages, Guernsey Dairy and others.

Jim and Mary Lark had a fortuitous vision in 1981 when they opened The Lark, after successful careers – he in law and building, she in art. They had a vision and a dream and they turned those into an experience for the rest of us to savor and which operates now solely by the hard work of their daughter Adrian.

The Larks and their restaurant exemplify what Michigan has always offered – taste, elegance, unusual ambience and vision beyond existing and familiar boundaries.  We are not a small-potatoes place but rather a community with a vision and a desire to surmount any challenge.

Without talent and drive, without the willingness to not only take risks, but to lead the way toward exhilarating discovery, we would not be the city that drove the world for so many years. I know, any mention of the automotives today makes each of us cringe with exasperation and sadness.

But even as I drive my American car, I recognize that the company that built it would have benefited from thinking beyond life-as-it-was-known years back. We all would.

Hindsight is perfect, of course, and I have made my share of mistakes. What I’ve learned through these tumultuous years is that it’s not too late, it’s never too late for a new start.

Walk with me toward our collective salvation. Become a part of the Hiller’s Hometown First and focus on rebuilding this place we call home. Bring your businesses and your neighbors on board so that our awareness can build and our economy can once again thrive.

Some communities are borne of faith and others are created around geography. Communities arise around lifestyles and they sprout around causes. A community is a group of people finding familiarity, friendship and a sense of being true to your heart and your soul.

When communities are centered upon ethnic similarity or religious observance, they are places we go home to because it’s where we are automatically accepted. To gain acceptance in some communities, we pay membership fees or follow rules or wear a sort of uniform or flare as proof that we belong, that we speak the same language. And sometimes, a community is ours simply because we say it is, with nothing to show for it and no place to gather.

Hiller’s is as genuine a community as any or all of these , yet we demand no sameness from our members. Individuality and uniqueness are the tickets in our door and the only requirement to remaining a member is the recognition that quality, choice and flavor are absolute rights.

Since 1941, the Hiller name has meant a lot of things. What has endured as our stores have grown, changed, expanded and moved location is the hallmark meaning behind our signs. We are a place where you walk in the door and receive a smile just for showing up. We are a place for living out your choices, for finding flavors to match your preferences, for experiencing journey and destination all in a selection of foods.

In every aisle and department, we lovingly select items for your discovery. Each department is led by an authentic expert, and we go to the source again and again to find exactly what you’re looking for, what we’re looking for, to satisfy needs we didn’t even know were lurking.

We invite you in for special events and write you newsletters of explanation. We offer programs for greater value and band together with like-minded Michigan businesses because it’s the right thing to do. We live where we work. We integrate and meld with our community. We respect the history beneath our foundations. We tell the stories that continue to unfold. And we adapt as circumstances change, we evolve because to do anything else is to ensure certain demise.

At Hiller’s, we enjoy every step of the journey with you, because we are a part of the community. We are a community.

Like my father before me and my sons to come, I believe in the ability to adapt, to make smooth butter out of curdled cream. Times are tough now. We are seemingly in free fall, and the bottom has yet to appear. Yet I know from the histories I’ve read and the ones that I’ve lived that communities that stick together are the ones that survive the worst of storms and the ones who splinter, cease to exist.

When I walk with my Scottish Deerhound Lilly on soft dirt paths, I breathe in the ever-present scent of evergreens. The other day, it occurred to me that their endurance through all seasons is significant and a perfect metaphor for my blog.

But I also recognize the springtime beckoning and the call of Cormorants winging over water. We live in a beautiful place brimming with potential. In our tough times, we are not just defined by one anchor industry; we forget how many different talents live here.

As the poet Carl Sandberg wrote, “The shimmer of lights across a bitter night, the birds singing to their mates in peace, war, peace, hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, the spring grass showing itself where least expected…”

Hiller’s is different because we  fervently believe we’re in it together. We aren’t here merely to take; we feel kinship every time you choose to walk through our doors. That’s real; it’s the kind of community that will bring us through these dark times with our souls intact.

(Photos courtesy of Hiller’s customer Madison Christopher www.madisonchristopher.com)

It was thrilling it was so good. The taste – a medley of flavors I already knew but which, when spun together in a soft bite, were new to me – banana, chermoya, vanilla, strawberry. There isn’t much I find that is unobtainium. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve conquered. I’ve achieved. I’ve found success in many measures. I’ve even found love.

But when my produce buyer Fabrizio Casini walked into my office with a long green scaly plant and flicked off the ripe-as-ever scales with a fork, I had no idea what I was in for.

The first kiss. The anticipation of what comes next. The explosion of flavors and the realization that there is a whole world of which I am not a part.

Soon, my stores will sell monstera deliciosa, a tropical fruit whose peculiar look insists that it must be as delicious as it is weird.

It is not often that I encounter something I’ve never known before in the kingdom of produce. Having faced foes on battlefields and in boardrooms, I am a man steeled for situations, always carrying the hope of peaceful discovery and true exploration but ready to face the worst at a moment’s notice.

This fruit comes from a mundane house plant found in the lobbies of hotels in warm-weather destinations. Its flat smooth green leaves decorate the yards of homes near the Equator. It is not a plant that will garner your attention or even call to you as you walk past.

It takes monstera three years to flower and then another year for its fruit to ripen. The plant creeps toward the rainforest canopy, on a masterful vine that can reach more than 70 feet in length if it is allowed to grow untended.

Long like a cucumber and green as the forest, the fruit is aromatic and sweet, with hints of banana, pineapple, mango. I don’t troll the jungles of Central and South America so it’s not a plant I would encounter on my own – and if I did, I would be unwise to eat it. Before it’s ripe, monstera is as poisonous as the wind from a volcano. The plant contains oxalic acid, which, if ingested, causes painful blistering, immediate irritation, swelling, itching, even loss of voice.

It takes a full year after flowering for the fruit to ripen. This fact is worthy of repetition. How can a plant be omnipresent and yet pose great danger? Toxic and also luscious?

If you pass a monstera fruit on the street, fallen from its creeping vine, you would not take notice. It is odd-shaped and phallic, green and scaly like a pine cone. When the scales fall away, it is no prettier – it is a secret how tasty its flesh will be upon eating at the absolute right moment, if you can pinpoint when that will be. Otherwise, its sweet gift of flavors remains hidden along the concrete paths of development, a secret pleasure for discovering only at the right time, with enough knowledge and wisdom to endure its inherent dangers.

Of course, you can find it at Hiller’s.

Monstera will be available at Hiller’s at the end of May.