Dear Feastlings,
As much as my senses have been dulled by the relentless shellacking of the news of the world, the running of a restaurant through the summer months and the heat that radiates from the ground even early in the morning, I can invariably find solace in the food and drink of Italy. Today is a crazily busy day, as we host Primavera Cooks tonight as we have for 24 years now, and while we’re booked for the event, you can attend, or possibly even cook, at one of the others in the series over the next couple of months. The information, if you’d like to participate in this fund-raising event for the Primavera Foundation, is here:
So while tonight’s menu isn’t Italian, once we’ve all recovered from the stress of feeding 80 people simultaneously some passed hors d’oeuvres and a four-course meal with wine pairings, I’ll comfort myself with Italian food and wine this weekend. And if the world’s got you down, you can do the same. Saturday the 15th is Ferragosto, the Italian holiday celebrating alternately the Assumption of the Virgin Mary or the workers of Mussolini’s era, and to spread things out for us in hopes that we can gauge what food to prepare without running out but without being left with heaps of Italian goodness beyond what we sell.
With this in mind, we’ll be offering the Ferragosto menu on both Friday and Saturday, the 14th and the 15th. There’s more space on the 14th than on the 15th, but there’s still room for more of you on either night.The menu is below, and there’ll be discounts on the entire Italian selection of our wine list throughout both days.
Saturday in the daytime will also afford you the opportunity to attend our weekly wine tasting, which, as long as we’re at it with all the Italian stuff this week, features even more Italian wine:
There’ll be more to discuss, but our apprentice chefs have just arrived for the home stretch of prepwork for the Primavera Cooks dinner, so I’m hitting “send” and getting straight to work.
See you all soon, I hope.
Your pal,
Doug