Dear Feastlings,
I had grand plans. I was going to write a witty and charming email on Sunday that encouraged everyone who hadn’t yet made plans to join us for Bastille Day to get themselves into a French frame of mind and reserve a spot today. As it happened, we had no internet for the latter half of our day on Saturday, so I spent a chunk of Sunday getting our Saturday credit card sales to go through, doing all the end-of-day stuff I’d been unable to do without access to The Cloud, and resetting our point-of-sales terminals back to their normal processing modes. I was in no mood to be witty or charming. Monday required a few last-minute trips to pick up the items I couldn’t source from the hit-and-miss nonsense we’re still dealing with from suppliers (Really? Two produce companies that can’t manage to stock bananas? I get not having squash blossoms on hand, but I hadn’t heretofore regarded bananas as so esoteric that they’d only be attainable by special order.) As such, once again, I found myself neither witty nor charming.
Today, after an hour or so of getting the last of the mise en place put together for the Bastille Day menu,
I didn’t feel up to the task, but I’ve been off the line for a bit now, and the sweat seeping through my hat has dried, and the wine tasting for this Saturday has been posted,
the mussels in the Bouillabaisse are shiny, and the duck in the cassoulet is rich and unctuous. Maybe it lacks wit, maybe it lacks charm, but ultimately, here’s an email doing the job it’s meant to do: remind you that we’ve got a special menu tonight, that we’re likely even to have some more of these dishes tomorrow based on what we’ve prepped for today, but that you won’t be assured of a Francophilic good time, with all French wines at retail pricing rather than their restaurant price, unless you join us today to celebrate the storming of the Bastille, and with any luck, a little bit of storming and drizzling throughout the valley. Nothing would make me happier than to need a paraplouie tonight.
Allons, enfants de la patrie.
Doug