Dear Feastlings,
With a car, it’s the tires. With a house, it’s the roof. And in a restaurant, the thing for which you perpetually find yourself spending money but feel no particular pleasure or reward for spending money on is the trifecta of china, flatware and glassware. I can hear a crash from the dining room and tell you whether it’s an eight-dollar plate, a twelve-dollar wine stem or a stack of four-dollar soup cups. A couple of years ago, I got a text saying that $700 was just spent on the company credit card with Southwest Glassware and I could immediately hear in my mind the accompanying slide off the shelf of china and glassware, even though I was a thousand miles away.
Granted, the thunk of a piece of flatware into the trash can is a hard one to distinguish- was that a butter knife or a soup spoon?- but whatever it was, I can tell you this: there’s no joy in re-upping.
This week, the shopping list is a big one- everything that cracked or chipped, everything that was completely demolished or carelessly dropped, napkin, silverware and all, into the trash- a day of reckoning comes. If it’s the tail end of season, you can often skate by with what salad forks you have, maybe a hand-wash between dishwasher loads, and in the summer? You’ll never need more than a couple dozen of anything besides water glasses, dinner forks and butter knives. But next Wednesday, August 12th, Primavera Cooks returns, and I can tell you this: there’s no way I have enough soup cups for everyone to eat their soup simultaneously. So we’ve drawn up a list of the various china and flatware we need, and when I call to place my order I’ll find out- the thing I need two dozen of, does that come in a case of two dozen, or only in a case of four dozen? Are the soup cups in stock? Does the flatware match in size, or only in pattern?
Whatever the case, if you’re thinking about joining us for the benefit for the Primavera Foundation, you need to buy your tickets through them rather than through Feast, and the place to do that is here:
It’s a great event, rife with the spirit of community and kindness, and whether you come to the one at Feast or one of the other participating restaurants, you’ll leave feeling glad you participated.
Mind you, we have events of our own to mention as well- there’s the August menu that’s only just begun,
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
the wine tasting this Saturday afternoon,
Of Ferragosto, the Italian celebration we’ve expanded to two days, both the 14th and the 15th of August.
With any luck, we’ll have all the china you need to enjoy a few courses’ worth of traditional Italian treats, plus a deeply discounted bottle of Italian wine.
Whichever event you decide to attend, we and our table settings hope to be ready to accommodate you and yours, and we look forward to it.
Yours,
Doug