Dear Feastlings,
For those of you who don’t work in the restaurant and hospitality industry, even though I’m sure you have work-related difficulties and misery of your own, there are things that happen on any holiday. It’s always a guessing game, to be sure, and we have to take a stab four or five weeks in advance of St. Patrick’s Day, even just to guess how many briskets we’ll require. When they come in, there’s the brining for a few weeks, and when they come out of the brine, there’s another guessing game as to how much weight will be lost to cooking. That’s followed by guessing how much we’ll lose when we trim the fat and that layer of collagen in the middle. So we guess at how many servings there’ll be the night before, then again the morning of, and then periodically throughout the day. This is where it gets complicated- the guesses happen throughout the day, but now they’re based in part on how many are spoken for, how many have already gone out, how many have been burnt or
dropped or otherwise compromised, and it changes as the orders go out. It also changes as some orders go out correctly, and some- invariably- go out incorrectly. Some a guest orders a whole cake but it’s rung in to the kitchen as a slice. An order placed days ago doesn’t get collated with the orders from yesterday, or it’s written on a slip of scrap paper and found only at the last minute. Someone comes to pick up their food only to discover that both halves of the couple have called to order the same thing, independently of one another.
In the end, we find ourselves awash in a dish that we’d turned people away asking for, or we come up painfully short for a dish that we’ve promised a dozen guests. And yesterday was no different. How could it be? We made about 270 servings of corned beef and cabbage, but the number that we actually ended up with rose and fell like- take your pick: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars? The Roman Empire? The Third Reich? Babylon? Beanie
Babies? In the end, we found ourselves with a dozen or so servings of corned beef and cabbage, which we offer to you, partly proudly, and partly abashedly and with apologies to those we turned away just in case.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were a few of you who were promised Guinness chocolate cake who had to take some sad substitution or worse, be sent to bed with nothing at all, and to make it up to you, we’re making another batch of Guinness chocolate cakes, which will be available come tomorrow. And we offer it with our sincere apologies. So find the menu here, and discover whether the dishes are still available, which they may or may not be, depending on when you click this link:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
And then we’ll start all over with Passover
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/passover-specials-2/
and Easter
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/easter-treats/
and we’ll hope for the best.
There is also, of course,
our Saturday wine tasting to consider
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/barbera-at-its-best/
and the various and sundry things we’re doing to help people in the community during this still-difficult time. We’ll be doing a couple of donation runs, and if you’re feeling philanthropic and you’ve gotten a stimulus check, it turns out that it feels pretty good to do a kindness for someone
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/hot-meals-for-those-experiencing-cold-nights/
and if you want to do something for yourself AND for others at the same time, there’s this upcoming event for Child and Family Resources:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/6443/
Least, but by no means least, I submit to you the opportunity for those of you who live a fur piece from Feast to get a little something delivered to you this weekend. We’ll be going to the east and west tomorrow,
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/east-west/
to the north and northwest on Saturday,
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/north-by-northwest-3/
and the south and southeast on Sunday.
https://www.eatatfeast.com/events/2021/03/south-and-southeast/
And if that’s not enough links for you, I don’t rightly know what is. Thanks everyone.
Your buddy,
Doug