Dear Feastlings,
I’m not certain how to explain why the emails I sit down to write each week happen progressively later and later in the week without coming off as though I’m complaining. Truly, it’s not my intention- I think it’s fairly normal to be less and less able to accomplish as much as one ages, and I believe steadfastly that the restaurant industry ages one at a more substantial clip than other lines of work. It should come to no surprise to me, then, that I can’t get done what I once could. I do miss being able, if not to actually get it all done, to at least convince myself that I was getting it all done.
These days, I’m singularly aware of the trail of unfinished plans and the pavement of good intentions that spiral out behind me as I plug forward each day. This week’s plan was ambitious- Mark at the Tucson Community Food Bank set me up with GAP ministries, which is more non-sectarian than it sounds, and between meetings with food reps, wine reps, Heart Association folk, a guy who wants to sell us ice cubes (yes, ice cubes,) and Arielle DeSoucey, the woman who’s putting together a food and beverage-laden lecture and dinner experience with Alex La Pierre on the Basque Legacy in the Borderlands here at Feast in January, I was going to accomplish a great deal. Instead, I accomplished those meetings, which, while productive, weren’t my sole objective today. I’m still banging out this email at 5:30, and then working on a menu for a wine dinner with winemaker Joey Tensley on December 9th, between guests and a dinner rush that can somehow be described as both mercifully quiet and painfully slow.
Today’s email serves to remind me what I still aim to accomplish: getting food to GAP ministries, starting the ordering and prepwork for Thanksgiving,
letting you know about the upcoming wine tasting this Saturday,
and writing menus for the month of December and for the Joey Tensley dinner, whose menu you’ll see shortly after I’ve written it.
So I leave you reciting over and over to myself and to you the good intentions with which I continue to pave the road to Hell, but with any luck telling you all about it will help me get it all done.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
Love,
Doug