Dear Feastlings,
Under normal circumstances, I regard the biggest slice of my Responsibility Pie to be the putting out of figurative fires- the mussels that show up open and dry; the dishwasher that doesn’t show up, or doesn’t show up dry; the guest with a fly in her soup or a chip on his shoulder. These are my daily tasks, and I miss them. Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs over twenty restaurants, plus catering and a thousand other things, refers to himself as the guy whose job it is to pick up olive pits off the floor, and I miss scurrying around here with a couple of wine bottles tucked under my elbow, or scrambling to a table with a dish that WASN’T dropped on the floor in the kitchen to replace the one that was.
This morning on my bike ride, it got hazier and hazier as I climbed into the foothills, and as I turned the corner looking forward to getting back down into town where it was clear, I saw that it wasn’t remotely, and that a thick column of smoke was billowing from the east side and filling every part of Tucson that wasn’t thick with forest fire smoke with landfill smoke.
That fire appears to be out now- thanks yet again, first responders- and although I was ready to put my hear to the ground this morning to listen for the thunderous hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I can turn my ear toward projects that, while they’re still bigger than the olive-pit conundrum, are far more manageable than either fire that’s plaguing us (alongside our actual plague.) The projects are simple and you already know about some of them:
There’s this week’s wine tasting, the Father’s Day menu, and a menu of Spanish specials for the Bonfires (I know, too soon) of San Juan.
There’s also one that you didn’t know about, unless you happened to be here at Feast while Mary Ann and I were discussing it, which is a delivery run to the east and northeast, and also to the west, that will happen a week from today.
All small issues, none of them an emergency, and all likely to help you relax the tiniest bit in the face of whatever thundering hoofbeats you’ve been listening to. We look forward to feeding you something good- today we’re serving comfort food again (gnocchi and sausage with fennel, spinach and Parmesan cream sauce) to help soothe your pysche- and I look forward to picking up an olive pit off the floor.
Your friend,
Doug