Dear Feastlings,
There are those who are ringing in the new year today, and who could fault them? Last year, we rang in the Jewish New Year in hopes of putting the previous year far behind us. We did the same with the Gregorian New Year and the Chinese New Year- truthfully, we sought out every possible opportunity to get on with things and leave the previous year far behind us.
Here we are again, with another really rough year under our belt. I feel like we at Feast are the lucky ones- our livelihoods have been threatened, our collective and individual incomes slashed for just about eighteen months now, with glimpses of possibility flickering in our peripheral vision only to disappear when we turn toward them. We’re still searching, along with scores of other restaurants, for enough staff to handle half the business that we normally have at this time of year, only to watch potential coworkers buzz through our orbit and fly crazily away like the moths and butterflies that we’ve watched bounce and wobble across streets and sidewalks since the monsoons. And still, that makes us lucky.
I’m watching the people I love most in this world send their loved ones into hospitals with new infections- people who’ve refused the vaccine, but even people who’ve been fully vaccinated. I’m watching my closest friends hobbled by fear for their loved ones, or worse, grief for those who haven’t survived it.
Whether this is the day you celebrate a new year or not, every day can begin a new year, so I’m here to remind you that you’re dear to somebody. And that everybody is dear to somebody. So would you please, please take the best possible care of yourself for one, and of that person you don’t know- the one who’s dear to someone else you don’t know- because we all need to be cared for right now, as much as we have in the past eighteen months.
We’ll being by sending food out again, this Friday, to the residents and staff alike as St. Luke’s Home,
and since a New month goes hand in hand with a new year, it’s time on this first Tuesday of the month to show you our September menu.
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner/
There’ll be a wine tasting on Saturday, one where if I feel like I do today, I likely won’t spit a drop,
and more to come behind that, like our Primavera Cooks dinner, which is sold out, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a bunch of other restaurants still doing dinners to help raise money for the Primavera Foundation.
https://www.primavera.org/how-to-help-more/cook.html
I’d also suggest a field trip down to Callaghan Vineyards on September 24th to taste some library selections along with food that we’re sending down with Kent and Lisa Callaghan. There’s room for eight more guests, and it’s a Friday, so my humble suggestion is to turn into a getaway- have dinner at the winery and trundle back to a B & B so you can see what other wines Sonoita has to offer on Saturday, and it still leaves you Sunday to recover. For those who don’t head down, we’re still negotiating a date for a Tucson version of the dinner here at Feast. We’ll let you know when we find a date for that.
https://www.callaghanvineyards.com/home
And now, off to get the new menu items squared away, take a deep breath and make this day the first day of a far better year. Take good care, all of you.
Love,
Doug