Dear Feastlings,
I’ve got plenty of the normal weekly events at Feast to mention today, as I didn’t get to it yesterday: there’s an upcoming wine tasting- two of them, actually- and despite the fact that we’re still unable to reopen on Sundays, I’ll be coming in to plunk myself down between a laptop and an oven so that we might offer our customary tastings to you this week, especially given that today is somehow National Wine Day.
https://nationaltoday.com/national-wine-day/
Saturday, we’ll be tasting Cabernet Sauvignon, four of them (is it Cabernet Sauvignons, or Cabernets Sauvignon?) and you’re welcome and encouraged to join us, either in person or on Zoom.
Sunday, our being closed in the dining room, you’ll be relegated to screen time again, and I know the significant majority of you who voiced an opinion when I last sought it out voted in favor of a return to in-person Last Sunday tastings, but until we can re-open, which mercifully may not be too far out, it’ll be a remote tasting again. We’re hustling to get the food pairings prepared a bit ahead of time this week so you can pick them up on Saturday rather than Sunday, and we apologize for the inconvenience. The wines are tasty, though, and with any luck, you’ll feel it was worth it in the end:
Friday, we’ll head to two shelters with your contributions and ours to have fed donated meals to a grand total of ten thousand, two hundred forty-three people since the pandemic began,
It took us a little longer than we’d expected, but May 27th will be a day we’re proud of.
and we can’t thank you enough for the two years’ worth of contributions you’ve made toward feeding health care workers, first responders, people experiencing homelessness and people transitioning out of it, and hundreds of other members of this community in need of a good meal or the recognition and morale boost that a good meal provides, not to mention keeping a few dozen people here at Feast gainfully employed during trying times.
We’re happy and excited about it, but then there’s the rest of the day, and the rest of the world. Our new saute cook is about forty minutes late so far, and not answering his phone, presumably a karmic smackdown for the hubris demonstrated two paragraphs back (yes, I’m often interrupted multiple times while I write these emails and two paragraphs ago was over half an hour ago.) So maybe we won’t reopen on Sundays as quickly as I’d heretofore believed.
I’m grateful it’s National Wine Day, because I intend to drink some wine tonight, partly to anesthetize myself. As it happens, one grows weary of a business that wonders daily whether it will be open on any given day, and one grows weary of seeing the thoughts-and-prayers template used so often it no longer even needs to be dusted off between uses, or outright war and the displacement of literally millions of human beings. I have a laundry list of the things I’ve grown weary of, including growing weary of having that list and venting about it to all of you.
So I’ll do my level best to focus my efforts on the other reason I’ll drink wine tonight: I’ll raise my glass to all of you who’ve gotten us to the ten-thousand-meal mark, who’ve demonstrated that in my own little corner of the world, there’s a warm and caring chunk of human kindness that makes me grateful to be a part of this little community. Thanks, all of you, for showing me that people are basically good despite my inclination to believe otherwise. I love you people.
Your teeter-tottering friend,
Doug