Dear Feastlings,
Here at Feast, today is dedicated first and foremost to packing. We’re packing up tastings for tomorrow’s virtual tasting of wines from El Dorado and the Sierra Foothills,
and we’re packing the food pairings for Sunday’s tasting of wines from the sweet little appellations within their larger, more general wine-producing regions.
And thirteen months into our hustling to accommodate the stressful strictures of the pandemic, in emailing back and forth with some of you who’ve said they’d love to attend our tastings but they come in the middle of the day, or people are busy, or have a different day off, it’s only just occurred to me to mention this: Everyone is welcome to log in at the beginning of the tasting, say hi to me in the chat and request permission to record the meeting, and then go on about their business. You can watch it whenever you’d like. Think of it as Wine Tivo.
In any case, we’d love to have you at the tastings, whether it’s live or at your convenience. But back to packing.
We’re also packing up specials today. I’m sad to say that the interest in deliveries to our outlying hubs has waned- people are feeling safer being out and about, and they’re less inclined to be stuck at home and relishing the opportunity to pop out to a location five minutes from home at a given time around which they plan their day.
That said, they do still seem quite happy to grab a meal now for later, and with that in mind, we’ve fired up the vacuum packer and we’re offering three specials suited to the cryovac format we’ve all come to appreciate during these frustrating times. You can drop these meals into simmering water for six or seven minutes and dinner’s ready, or lay them flat, stack them and freeze them for a later date. We’ve made a bunch, and it’s our intention to offer them all weekend, though we can only guess how many people will want- such is the nature of foodservice in even the most normal of times, and it’s even more of a guessing game now. You’ll find the cryovac specials here
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
but to sum up, we’ll be offering vegetarian green corn tamales, crawfish etouffee, and braised short ribs of beef. You’ll find descriptions listed under specials near the bottom of the menu.
And lastly, for those who’ve been packing and unpacking what bags they have, over and over during scary and difficult times, we’ll be going to Casas Alitas in two weeks, with food to feed their guests for anywhere from three days to a week, depending on how many people come through their doors.
Any contribution our friends make puts food on the table these people sit at fleetingly in their travels, and puts food on the tables of our own crew, who are taking a bit more of a hit lately as people leave town for the summer, or feel more comfortable dining out in restaurants who are serving in their dining rooms.
We’re feeling better and better about it, and working at reopening our own dining room with safety protocols in place, but now it’s a question of finding enough staff to run a restaurant the old way as we attempt beef our crew back up- it turns out restaurant people in general are either at home with their feet up and collecting unemployment, or they’ve left the industry altogether, so if you know anyone with a restaurant background, be they a cook or a server, we’d love to meet them and see whether they’d be a good fit for our little Feast family. We placed another ad for a line cook last week, and have literally received not one resume.
So fingers crossed. We’re already doing all the packing I’d care to do.
Love,
Doug