Dear Feastlings,
I’m not saying this to complain, despite my penchant for making a sound complaint. Often. I’m saying it more to deal with one of my other neuroses, the need to explain when I fall short of my own expectations. We’re slammed over here, and while I wish it were the good kind of slammed, the kind where we’re firing on all cylinders and just plain busy with a full restaurant and catering and events, it’s the other kind, where we’re turning away the business we can’t handle and still not able to handle what we thought we’d be able to. We, like evidently the vast majority of small businesses in America, and likely everywhere else (except for Ukraine, where just hanging onto food, clothing and shelter is the most you can hope for, even if you’re not one of the more than 12 million people who’s been displaced from home now) are short-handed. And I feel us slipping deeper into the hole we create when we hire warm bodies out of desperation and then hope against hope that those of us who’ve been here for a while can keep enough of an eye on those who haven’t. It’s occasionally worked.
So here I am, slave to my neurosis, explaining to you why it’s already late on Wednesday and I’m only just now getting out an email about this weekend’s wine tastings, and worse, why I’m really only getting out an email about one of the two. that would be this Saturday’s tasting, a sampling of wines affected by the Mistral.
I’m not telling you about our Last Sunday of the Month tasting, because the universe has conspired to keep me from being ready for it by now. As it was, we were running late, what with the holiday weekend last week, and tonight’s wine dinner (feeling devil-may-care? We had a couple more seats open up and we’ve prepared enough for the original number, so if you’ve got a wild hair, call us up at (520) 326-9363 and tell us you want to jump into the wine dinner action at six this evening. Surprise the wine lover in your life.)
so we jumped in feet-first, and I started writing food pairings for a couple of our faves, only to discover that supply line issues- remember those- have left us with the inability to bring in the wines we thought we were bringing in. As luck would have it, those of us who oversee the wine program here at Feast have more than one favorite, so as soon as we hear back from our potential presenters, we’ll be putting together that page for the Sunday tasting and sending it out between meetings with wine reps tomorrow. But I’ll tell you the one thing that hasn’t changed: two of the four wines are from Piedmont. We’re that kind of wine nerd. More, I hope, tomorrow, in between meeting reps, bussing tables, taking phone calls, paying bills and stopping someone from oversalting the pork-and-goat meatballs.
But for now, thank you all for joining us, and for your patience with us, and for sending us someone you know who’s worked in a restaurant before and wants to do so again.
Your manic but still ever-so-slightly-optimistic friend,
Doug