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Most days you can find Selma Miriam welcoming guests to her feminist restaurant and bookstore, Bloodroot in Bridgeport, though thread and needle are never far away.
“There”™s no place like us,” said Miriam. “I figure if you don”™t enjoy your work you”™re really in trouble, you better do what you like.”
Miriam grew up in Bridgeport, the daughter of a fabric store owner.
“What we”™ve tried to do at Bloodroot is to do something that we”™re proud of in terms of integrity in terms of doing something that”™s good for us, good for the community, and good for the animals we don”™t eat,” said Miriam.
Miriam went to college at Tufts University where she learned to knit.
“Tufts was a pre-med factory back in the ”™50s, when women weren”™t supposed to be in biology class because they were taking the A”™s from the boys,” said Miriam.
Miriam asked all of her professors if she could knit in class.
“Everyone was scribbling away madly,” said Miriam. “All the history teachers and English teachers said no but the science teachers told me to go right ahead. I took very careful selective notes.”
After college, Miriam went to graduate school for a short time before getting married.
Between then and the start of Bloodroot, Miriam worked as a landscape designer; she still is an avid gardener.
“I love design and it all carries over, whether you”™re figuring out which dishes go together or how to design a sweater, it”™s all the same thing,” said Miriam.
Miriam and her partner Noel Furie opened Bloodroot in 1977 in a former machine shop.
“I wanted to start a women”™s center and a bookstore, which is what a lot of feminists were doing in the ”™70s, and I wanted food with it,” said Miriam. “I had animals”™ rights friends who said it would have to be vegetarian food, and I said, OK, I”™d give it a try.”
Miriam was not at that time a vegetarian, but she believed that there was truth to the idea of vegetarianism.
“I”™ve discovered that with meat you can do very little to it,” said Miriam. “There”™s very little variation, the sauces are the variation. If you think of all the ways that poor people around the world have managed to make do with very little or no meat, it”™s really interesting with necessity being the mother of invention.”
“There”™s always work you have to do like chopping onions or washing floors that are not real thrilling or creative, but the rest of it, the great big chunk, should have a meaning and make you want to go to work,” said Miriam. “And I do.”
According to Miriam, who has a loom in the bookstore section of Bloodroot and a set of needles and yarn always on her desk when she welcomes guests, knitting didn”™t become an essential part of her life until Bloodroot began.
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“Knitting is a leveling thing,” said Miriam. “When we opened Bloodroot knitting became absolutely necessary.”
“I”™ve got enough scarves and sweaters forever,” said Miriam. “One minute it might be bustling and the next it might be quiet, and when it”™s quiet I could go crazy without something. It”™s not for the production of things. It”™s because the movement of those sticks seems to work for me.”
Miriam said that she honestly thinks that activity with the hands and the use of our unique opposable thumbs creates a physical euphoria.
“Knitting is very social,” said Miriam. “It allows me to sit and be. It”™s not quite meditation, but it levels my anxieties and lets me be patient.”
Miriam teaches weaving classes at night and some of her works can be found on display at Bloodroot.
Miriam”™s patience with her food has helped her to amass a menu that pulls from all over the world, with the ethnic communities and ethnic grocers of Bridgeport contributing to her repertoire. Bloodroot has released two cook books.
“It”™s ethnicity and culture that has always interested me and how that gets expressed in food and weaving and knitting,” said Miriam. “What I really try to do is find what”™s authentic. Those who need us find us, and those who don”™t, won”™t.”
