Restaurant Widow

My Life in Bistro Aprons::Trials of Being a Famous Waitress

I hesitated writing that, because there are certainly some people who will just instantly start whining and saying "you're so full of yourself," blah blah blah. So I'll just take the wind out of your sails by saying that I mean that in a non-arrogant, self-deprecating way. And if you do send me that email, it means you clearly didn't read beyond the title. so bite me. I'm in a bad mood this morning.

I am not the most naturally graceful person in the world.  This comes across both physically and personally.  I am extremely awkward.  

Physically, I have this theory (completely scientific) that my sense of spacial reasoning, as it pertains to my body in the world, stopped developing when I was about 12.  At the age of 12, I was about 5'5" tall and weighed somewhere around 87 pounds (I know, it's hard to believe, but I really was a knock-kneed thing). My brain doesn't seem to understand that I've grown both up and out significantly since then.  Add to that the fact that I flail my arms around spasmodically, and with a 70 inch wingspan, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Socially, I have always been incredibly awkward.  I have a habit of saying the most bizarre things that seemed to fit in my brain until they come out of my mouth and then they just sound completely absurd.  I was also a bullied child (I still hate you, Lara Vance, and I hope all of your kids cry every single day when they get home from school about how everyone is mean to them, just like I did when I wanted to be your friend and you wouldn't let me sit at your table at school lunch and I had to eat in the bathroom. Yes. Just like in Mean Girls. It happened to me too) and everyone called me ugly my whole life and barked at me and told me I was a dog.  So I pretty much grew up assuming everyone was making fun of me at all times.  

I also grew up in the country, and was basically alone for most of the time.  While this did wonders for my imagination (probably it was too good for my imagination, for I struggle with its overactivity to this day), it made me even more socially inept than nature made me.

Combine this with my 5 cats and it's a wonder I'm married, huh?

So there you have it: I am a completely clumsy, flailing, awkward, weird mess.  This would be perfectly fine if I never had to encounter people I've never met who know me from my online persona.

And so it is that inevitably, whenever I encounter a reader in real life, I will do something completely and ridiculously embarrassing.  Compounding all of this is the fact that the more I think about my clumsiness, the worse it becomes.  

It would naturally happen that every once in awhile, I meet a reader or twitter follower while I'm out and about or waiting tables.  Whenever this happens, an enormous feeling of dread washes over me, because it always means that something horribly humiliating is about to happen.

Here's an example:

- this follows in with a karmic reaction which happens whenever I yell at a coworker.  I used to have a coworker, a server assistant, who was a lot like me in the bull-in-a-china-shop department.  His contributing habit to clumsiness was that his head and body were never pointed in the same direction.  I frequently found myself saying "JOE!! Head and body in the same direction!!"  It was on this particular day when I discovered I should never say that, because it means that sometime in that shift I will fall down in grand fashion (I just re-proved it about 2 weeks ago).  So I had yelled at Joe.  It was a busy night and hot.  I was sweaty and looked precisely like an adolescent pig, what with my face all round and pink and sweaty (this was before having my thyroid treated. now i still get all sweaty and gross, but it's not quite as bad as it used to be). So already I'm looking fabulous.  Plus I am waiting on not one but two tables of readers I've only just met for the first time, plus an old coworker who I hadn't seen in awhile and since she had seen me, I had put on quite a bit of weight (because I've been mean, and gotten horribly cruel satisfaction out of seeing others put weight on, I know that I deserve the same derision), and I was already feeling embarrassed.  So here I am: plump, sweating, busy - seriously weeded, actually, because in addition to always doing something embarrassing, readers always seem to come on the busiest nights, just so that I can further humiliate myself by providing really crappy service.  I am standing at a table talking and see that a foodrunner is coming around the corner to drop food at the table.  In preparation to allow the foodrunner access to the table, I make the fatal error: I  back away from the table without looking behind me. It just so happens, at that exact moment, Joe the assistant is also walking behind me, in a hurry.  I back directly into him and somehow I fell onto him and we manage to fall in grand, and I mean grand fashion.  Huge fashion. Like, my shoes fell off.  Of course the entire dining room fell silent.  To add insult to injury, I was on the second floor of the restaurant, so the sound of my bulk succumbing to gravity was magnified by the fact that there was nothing to absorb the rumble.

My coworker, who was downstairs at the time, was kind enough to inform me that my fall sounded like a herd of elephants running through the dining room (I miss you Crumpet, there's no one here to keep my on my toes!!)

And so, be aware that should we ever meet, I am certain to spill water on you, drop a plate of food in your lap, fall onto your table, snort milk from my nose, or spastically pour a drink on myself for no apparent reason other than my arms moved of their own free will. Because that is just the kind of girl I am. 

Full of grace.

(ps i love you babe, even when you call me princess grace)

My Life in Bistro Aprons at le Potemkin Cafe::Cost Benefit Analysis

(I've decided to use the South Park disclosure - wouldn't it be totally ironic if I received a copyright infringement notice for using a fiction disclosure? - "all characters, even those based upon real people, are fictional."  I think that should take care of it.)

People frequently ask me why le Potemkin Cafe closed.  I can, and perhaps will, one day, write a manifesto on how it was doomed from day one, and then back up the claim with at least 150 specific examples, but one huge component was the inability to control the most easily-controlled expenses.  Which are the easiest to control? the ones for items which don't bring you any money. The things you don't sell.  The things which you have to buy but get you basically nothing. Except praise at your exquisite taste in over-the-top expensive plateware.

 

The picture above features a cream pitcher used in le Potemkin Cafe. I forgot to include something to give scale, so please just trust me when I tell you this pitcher is about 4 inches high at its tallest point, and probably holds 3-4 ounces of cream. (just under half a cup). I borrowed it one day, and now it sits in my house as a reminder.

I'm unsure of how much education to offer here on the topic of restaurant economics.  Let's just say that after an eternity in the restaurant business, I know to ask "how much would it be to...." when I'm about to ask if we could possibly have enough water pitchers for every server in the building to have their very own.

Profit margins in restaurants are extremely thin. razer thin. This is why so many restaurants have failed in the recession.  It isn't just about getting butts in chairs, it's about making money on what those people buy.  You can only lower your prices so much, and then you have to reduce quality. And then there's nothing left you can do.  You can't lower prices, you can't reduce, you just have to close.  It's sad, but it's the reality.

One way to prevent this is to control costs very tightly.  When I worked at le Potemkin Cafe, we (the servers) used to compare how Chef Napoleon did things compared to our previous employers.  

An example: a restaurant I worked in when they opened 11 years ago opened with amazing food and wine and horrible, crappy, industrial-issue silverware.  But they couldn't afford nice silverware.  I think it was about 3 years ago when we went in to eat at this restaurant, and the entire staff was thrilled and buzzing over the purchase of their beautiful new silverware.  Imagine - waiting 8 years for new and pretty silverware. 

And that restaurant is still open.

On with this cream pitcher.  Now, just as a point of reference, there are loads of cream pitchers a restaurant can buy.  My personal favorite is something like this. It's simple, with clean, straight lines. No useless decoration, it's something which won't easily become dated.  As a matter of fact, this was the cream pitcher in a restaurant where I worked in the year 2000 (which, incidentally, is also still open), and I still think the pitcher looks nice after 10 years. 

This little pitcher costs about $3.35 each, purchased in a case of 36. I know for some restaurant mangers, even this will seem way too expensive, but I think it's worth it for that extra bit of charm. The least expensive cream pitcher, which you will certainly recognize instantly as the one used at many, many restaurants, costs around $1.10 at Wasserstrom.

Now, compare that to the cost of the cream pitcher at the top of this post, which cost $26 each.  yes, you read that correctly: twenty-six dollars.  Does that illustrate any point to you?  Every time a server breaks a pitcher, which trust me, is going to happen at least once a month, if not more, the person who was stupid enough to shell out $26 for a cream pitcher is going to have a small aneurysm. 

Why would anyone purchase a $26 cream pitcher for a restaurant before it's ever sold anything? I have no idea.  No realistic idea, anyway.

Other examples: enormous, old-fashioned, bulky menu covers were ordered for the restaurant.  We had three different varieties - a large wine list cover, a multi-page cocktail cover, and a regular dinner menu cover.  These menu covers were ordered to the tune of $30,000 from what we were told.  In under a year, the faux leather covering of the menu began to wear away from the cardboard underneath. Just the action of ordering these menu covers before opening shows a lack of understanding about the restaurant business, because you can usually get a liquor company to pay for most of all of your menu covers if you mention liquors by brand name.  

Each dinner plate, and we used about 4 different styles, depending on the dish, cost an average of $38. EACH. I don't know how many of each plate we owned, but I can tell you that in the back room were stacks and stacks and stacks of extra plates that we would never need no matter how busy we would ever become.  By the time the restaurant had re-branded itself and purchased an entirely new and different run of plateware, we calculated there might be as much as $100,000 in un-used plateware sitting in storage, wrapped in plastic wrap.

We used sugar cubes instead of packets, and of course, not the plain old square cubes, but the rustic-looking ones that fetch a higher price.  The Winds Cafe has used these sorts of sugar cubes forever - I remember going there in high school and being completely charmed by how cool the sugar looked, white and raw rough sugar cubes, sitting in a glass jar (this was years before raw sugar become de rigueur in restaurants and coffee shops. Every so often, our CdC (Chef du Cuisine) would trot off to Whole Foods, where he would pay $8 for a 7 ounce box of rough-cut sugar sugar cubes.  Now, these same cubes can because purchased for as little as $2/pound if bought in bulk.  CdC was paying $18/pound by going to Whole Foods.  That is nine times as expensive.  Bear in mind also that this is something for which we don't charge - it just comes with coffee, and the price should be built into the coffee, but when you are talking about paying $18 a pound for sugar cubes, if you want to maintain a 30% food cost, you have to calculate somewhere that you need to recover $54 from your sugar cubes.  And of course, you have to factor in that for every 10 people who plop a cube into their coffee or tea, there is one child who eats all of the cubes or a little old lady who folds them all into a napkin and stashes them in her purse.

My Life in Bistro Aprons::the Detritus

There are a few strange things about restaurants that those of use who have worked in them forever know, and probably no one else does. I am sure there are things like this in every profession; in fact, I'm probably one of those cliches and don't even know it. Tonight I walked into a bar where I had never been and felt some strange need to announce this fact to the bartender when I realized I was being pointlessly precious, a quality I absolutely loathe in everyone else, and was ashamed of myself.

Some not so great things happens in restaurants. Weird things happen.  Okay. I'm going to stop trying to explain and just list some facts.  Proceed with caution, some of the following might be a bit mature for some of you.  Don't say I didn't warn you. I know there are two ones. It's late. What do you want from me?

1. The employee bathrooms in restaurants are a strange and horrifying place. You probably don't even realized they exist.  Here are a few facts about these tiny chambers of hell: 

• there is never adequate lighting.  I'm not quite sure why this is - I have never been able to figure it out, but there you have it. They are always dim. Either there is no mirror or the mirror is clouded and the only light is behind you so you always end up looking ghostly and hollow and strange.  
• Many restaurant employees come from parts of the world where they don't have things like sewer systems.  When you grow up in a country with no sewer systems, you develop of habit of keeping everything possible out of the toilet, so as not to take down whatever septic system is in place.  So everything man-made - wait, that doesn't make sense - everything man made but not including human waste - goes in the trash. it can be horrifying.  I will spare you any further details.  
• There is always a box of cornstarch on the back of the toilet.  This is because there is a very specific condition restaurant workers get when they have to move in ill-fitting polyester clothing in the blistering heat and humidity for hours and hours on end.  The only treatment for this condition or set of conditions is cornstarch. and even that is pushing it in August.  
• The toilet paper will never, under any circumstances, be on a holder.  There probably won't even be a roll holder in the bathroom.  Really picky chefs and managers keep secret stashes of toilet paper in their filing cabinets for emergency usage.

1. Somewhere in the kitchen, there are at least 2 completely secret and creative places for hiding towels.  This is a well-honed skill that clever line cooks learn on about their third night on the job, when the supply of clean kitchen towels runs out at 8:15 on a Saturday night and you get your first steam burn because you're trying to eak out the last bit of use out of your last towel, which unfortunately you just used to toss the spaghetti from the steamer into the saute pan and now it's damp and you've just used it to pull a pan out of a 500 degree oven, and, well, you make a mental note that when the linen order comes in Tuesday morning, you will casually hide a few kitchen towels away for times such as these, in a place so secret that if another cook should ever discover your trove, well, let's just say they better bring a buddy when it's cigarette time.
2. No one will ever, ever read your resume, no matter what you say.  If you have a job in a good restaurant, it's because you know someone.  The only time your resume will be read is by the staff of that good restaurant when some poor sap comes in all hopeful and smiley because they've passed the first level of the sommelier certification and they know everything. The staff will read and critique every spelling error and stupid sentence and laugh at you. They will be laughing at you even as you walk out of the building and across the street.  This is because we restaurant people are mean, and horrible, and cruel. And we have wicked tongues which it would be a complete shame to waste.
3. It is possible to be a functioning alcoholic for a long, long time.  Possibly one of the saddest things during my restaurant tenure has been the number of alcoholics I have worked with over the years. A bar or restaurant is a really dangerous place for someone with substance abuse problems, which lots of people in the restaurant industry have.  You are constantly surrounded by enormous amounts of alcohol. You constantly have cash. You constantly have access.  It can spell the end pretty fast for some people.  I remember a manager I worked with who, every 20 minutes or so, would walk into the bar to the soda machine, where we kept a stock of 4 ounce cone cups for the staff to drink out of.  This manager would grab a cone cup, fill it to the brim with the swill vodka from the well, and down it.  He would crush the cone cup and fancy-toss it into the trash can as he walked back out of the bar.  Managers work like 15 hour days. You do the math.
4. It's not quite so easy to be a functioning drug addict.  I worked with one manager who, aside from being a quite entertaining pathological liar, developed something of a serious prescription painkiller problem during his tenure.  At first he would just take a few Vicodins ever so often and at first, even seemed a little mellowed out.  He was in way over his head with the job he had taken, and took it out on the staff a lot.  At some point I started to suspect something when the manager began to lose a lot of weight and had a giant stock of candy in his office.  He also started to spend a lot of his time in the office with the door locked - something typically frowned upon in a restaurant, because the manager should never really be in the office, he should be out on the floor.  The office was for the hours before and after the restaurant was open.  If he wasn't in the office, he could sometimes be found smoking weed in his car. This would be amusing, more than anything, because this manager thought he was really smart and that none of us knew what he was doing out there.  This was coupled with the fact that he wasn't really used to smoking a lot of weed, so he because incredibly nonsensical.  As weeks and months went by, he began begging various members of the staff who had prescription painkillers (legitimately - one had been in a car accident, another had donated a kidney) to sell their remaining pills to him.  He was shopping doctors, driving out of state on his days off to pick up more pills.  We kept track once, and the best we could figure he was consuming at least 18 Vicodin a day, plus he was usually able to purchase Oxy.  One day, he arrived at work to announce he had been put on morphine.  We all thought this was very strange, being conscious and all.  At any rate, the manager kept going down and down. There were suspicions he was stealing - small amounts - from the servers; he was always messing up the accounting, he accepted tips from guests intended for the servers; it all became very sketchy.  It culminated when one day, after having been asleep on the banquette for the better part of the day, that he actually fell asleep, standing up, mid sentence one day while standing up against an ibeam.  He casually asked the bartender later if he had noticed anything weird about him. 
5. You will associate with, and befriend, and grow to love, people you never thought you would even know.  Over my years, I have known a beaten alcoholic housewife, well, a few of those, actually, several transgendered persons, people who have been in prison for selling crack, people who have lost all of their teeth due to meth addiction, a very nice woman who ended up being a fugitive after having killed her husband 20 years earlier, a person whose parents were cult leaders, several people who had really successful careers as musicians and actors and artists, a guy who became an exotic dancer and killed a drag queen with a samurai sword, and actually a ton of other people and things and events so crazy that I feel like I really can't even say them for fear of giving a secret away!
6. Because restaurant work is so popular among the creative class, I have always been amazed by the people I've worked with over the years.  I have worked with so many interesting and amazing people that in almost every job, we have joked about how we should have a TV reality show based upon our lives.  I have met so many artists, photographers, sculptures, glass blowers, raconteurs, cowboys, bodybuilders, writers, painters, actors, dancers, scholars, yogis - you name it, there are just so many amazing people who work in restaurants.  I've frequently wanted to do a series on RW about Getting to Know the People Who Wait on You.  "this is Joe. Joe is a really amazing graphic designer who designed the advertising campaigns for like half of the liquors we sell. But he got laid off, so now he just freelances and waits tables."  "this is Jane. Jane is the artist whose art is showing at the gallery four doors down. Unfortunately, this Saturday is our busiest night of the month, so she can't be at the gallery enjoying the opening night of her first show, she has to work. and you were going to tip her 12 percent. tsk, tsk." "This is Pierre.  Pierre is a fashion designer.  You don't know this yet, because it's top secret, but he's going to be on Project Runway. Hopefully he'll do well, because who knows if this job will be here when he gets back."
7. You can never leave your restaurant voice behind you. Cruising through Anthropologie at Easton on a Monday afternoon, you find yourself muttering "behind you" to every person you dodge around. You jump every time you hear the word "runner" when dining out.

I never had this kind of fun when I worked in a cubicle.  When we had potlucks at our corporate offices, there wasn't even an off chance someone would try to sneak in a flask of stingers or cook weed into the meatballs.  These things just didn't happen.  When I was in the corporate world, we would stand around giggling about the really really strong bourbon balls so-and-so had made at made at Christmas "oh, i'll be at work and my breath will smell boozy!" we'd twitter. We'd always joke about how we only wish there were booze in the eggnog. there was never a chance that your boss had equal parts Bailey's, coffee, and brandy in her thermos every morning.  There wasn't a chance your coworker slept in her car in the parking lot of the bar across the street last night and rummaged through her trunk for a different blouse to wear to work this morning so no one would notice. No one is going to pinch your rear end with tongs when you walk past. No one is going to sneak shots of jagermeister to you an hour before closing time. No one is going to be caught doing anything untoward in the walkin cooler. No one will be caught trying to sneak a bottle of vodka out of the boardroom. No one will honestly try to call off because they're 1.in jail. 2.still drunk. 3.still doing a walk of shame 4.lost 5.waiting to get car out of impound 6.decided to drive to michigan last night. 7.nursing a facial laceration where your girlfriend tried to stab you 8.can't imagine trying to be nice to anyone tonight without eventually cracking and stabbing someone with your corkscrew. 9.I can't list this one, but Joe, it was still be best call-in to work I have ever heard in my life. 

As much of a mad crazy world as it is, I still wouldn't have given it up.  At least once a week I find myself laughing to a coworker and saying "i'm going to put that in my book." I just can't imagine anything different.

My Life in Bistro Aprons::the Staff

The funny thing about restaurant life is the number of slackers it employs. I myself have 2 degrees(English and "religious" Studies), and yet I still wait tables because it provides lots of free time for me to write, which is what I really want to do for a living.  Until that happens, I am usually content waiting tables.  Other people wait tables because it gives them free time and a lot of cash to blow up their nose or shoot up their arm.  Others are in between jobs.  But the funny general rule, at least in my experience in my past few jobs, most of the servers have college degrees and make around $40K a year waiting tables and working just over part time. To be honest, I find it to be a pretty sweet gig.  

Last year, I probably worked an average of 3 1/2 5-hour shifts over the year and made something very close to that average *.  Which still didn't add up to full time. *this was written in 2009; 2008 was the last great year for fine dining, which you probably know if you are in a similar field.

On our staff of 6 servers, we held about 9 degrees; 5 of us shared these degrees, the last working on their first degree, and 1 or 2 with degrees and/or doing the cash for drugs thing.  We have degrees in political science, religious studies, fashion design, english, biology, ancient classics, biology, hospitality, and one is working on a nursing degree.  Out of the 6 servers, 5 have performed some sort of management in the past.  Curiously, our General Manager had not managed people before his tenure at this restaurant.

The Potemkin Cafe is located in a very trendy neighborhood which is extremely competitive as far as restaurants go.  It's clear that Chef, who is from another state, did his research about the best neighborhoods in Our Fair City in which to open his restaurant.  He seemed to not have researched the type of neighborhood, which has a very large gay population.  So does our staff, of course, but these gays are under his control, so there seems to be some kind of alternate law for them. They pretended to laugh at the insensitive jokes of the manager.

The owner of the restaurant brought with him a nearly-complete staff from the Southern Blue Blood Country Club where he had been working.  These staff members didn't have very much interaction with gay people, and of course the first time a lesbian couple entered the restaurant, there was lots of whispering and joking going on.  We native servers just rolled our eyes at their ignorance.  That lesbian couple became one of our best regulars because they ordered a wine which interested the Bar Manager, and they struck up a friendship. If not for the great Bar Manager and Server who waited on this table, this couple probably would have left feeling very uncomfortable.

When Bar Manager went to his interview, he asked the Owner if he was at all concerned that he didn't have any locals on his management team.  No, said the owner. Should I be?  it might be helpful to have someone who has managed a bar or restaurant in this neighborhood, said the Manager, who had spent the last 4 years managing wine & tapas bar.

So began a long list of suggestions shot down by the Owner, one by one, over the weeks and the months.

le Potemkin has a host of Chefs.  Everyone in the kitchen is to be called "chef" and then their name (so I would be "Chef Lisa," hahahahaha). This is awkward to me because in my past, only the Chef has been called "Chef."  It seems perfectly reasonable because "Chef" means "boss," in French, and there's only one.  The kitchen isn't a socialist environment.  When every person in the kitchen is a Chef, they each have their own tiny little dictatorship, in which they are the Supreme Leader. This doesn't produce a cohesive environment for the diner, because what does the fish guy care if he's finished with his dish 7 minutes before the meat guy? we have heat lamps, and after all, he's done his job. This it why a piece of sea bass might sit on the presentation table, staring up into the bright sun of the heat lamp, gradually turning into dried piece of salty fish jerky, waiting for the pork chop to finish cooking to well done.  There has to be a captain of the ship, who gives everyone their queue upon which to perform their action.

So everyone in the kitchen is to be called "chef," and they all attended pricey culinary schools.  Some of them have entered international cooking competitions.  None of them has attended any sort of university, and very few them have worked in a true full-service restaurant setting, not within the confines of a club of some sort.

So, we have Executive Chef, aka Owner, Chef du Cuisine, 2 Sous Chefs, Pastry Chef, and then we have 3 hourly workers.  All of these are chefs and are to be called Chef, and they get extremely offended when called "boys" or "cooks." Which means that I call them that whenever possible.

One of the first things we did together as a service staff was begin calling each other Chef So-and-So, very loud and exaggerated voices.  This, of course, drove the real Chefs crazy because they had gone to school for their degrees, and earned the right and the title of "Chef," while we had not. We didn't know anything about world of the bright lights beyond the swinging doors, and it was nothing to joke about, at any rate.  

My Life in Bistro Aprons::the Return

So I just haven't felt like cooking lately! Nothing horrible is going on, in fact I am totally loving the summer and am having an awesome time of life.

But between the heat and the rain, who wants to cook? ugh!

And then I started thinking about writing the Life in Aprons series, and how, well, I used to keep a secret, password-protected blog called le Potemkin Cafe when working in a previous restaurant.  Now that they've proved they can cause their own demise, I'm going to edit those posts and start to post them here. 

Of course, all names have been changed to protect the delusionally psychopathic, so let's all hope I don't get sued!

Reading back on some of the entries, even I can't believe some of the crazy things which happened, but I can assure you. Everything that resembles reality is simply a figment of my imagination (does that cover all my legal bases? I seem to remember reading some bizarre law wherein you can legally say something like "this whole story is complete fiction" and not mean it, and everyone knows it, but you're still legally covered? does that make any kind of sense? I suppose if I reread it in 12 hours and it doesn't make any sense, then that will be extra special for those of you reading me in your feed reader...

The principal characters, assuming that they are real people which of course they aren't, they are totally made up, but if they ever did exist - in this story no longer live, work, or own businesses in Columbus or even Ohio. Only in our imaginations.

I hope readers will take the story together for what it is: a morality tale.  It's really just the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, retold in real life.  The bottom line is that lots of different people have lots of different amazing talents, and when they are put to good use they can do amazing things. When squashed by a dictatorship, they'll all just end up leaving you to look like the idiot. If they make it that long.

Also, the story might be inappropriate for those under 18. I have tried to mellow everything out, but it is a restaurant, after all, and restaurants are just full of bad behavior. 

so, without further ado, here's a little taste....

i should have paid attention to the creepy feeling i got from Chef Napoleon the first time I met him, when we were scheduled to have an interview. Actually, now I think of it, I had met him a few months before that, when a friend brought Chef and his wife, the vacant-eyed whisp wearing a giant black Italian housewife circa 1962 hairpiece, to the bar where husband was working.  

so this story was the second time i'd met him. I was interviewing him for an article for the local business newspaper as a freelance gig.  It was winter but i seem to remember it being a decent and sunny day. i was surprised to see that he had driven to the coffee shop which was our meeting place, as it was only about 3 blocks from where his restaurant was undergoing its last few weeks of construction.  we shook hands and i felt a weird feeling looking down at him - his smile seemed bizarrely rehearsed, as though his dimples were painted on and stapled in.  we talked for a few moments and I asked him my final few stupid questions, the ones I had to ask - what did he like to cook at home, what was his favorite junk comfort guilty pleasure food, and what cookbook would he most recommend for the boergening gourmet cook?  His first answer was standard: Sunday red sauce. He was completely stumped at a guilty pleasure food, which I found rather bizarre.  most chefs I've known in life will at least admit to drinking far too many boilermakers after work and coughing up $35 to choke down bags and bags of Castillo Blanco on their very own.  Or maybe it's a joint followed by a box of honeynut cherrios covered in chocolate milk? 

oreos? Chef Nap said - side-eying me as though trying to decide if i'd bought it. "yeah," he said, more confidently this time - "Oreos.  That's it!" he slapped his hands lightly on the thighs of his dark washed jeans and rubbed them up and down.  "Oreos are my guilty pleasure!"

And what about a cookbook? Most chefs talk about Escoffier or Blumenthal or the church cookbook they grew up with at first baptist of podunksville ohio, or ancient artifacts depicting Roman feasts of cows stuffed with lambs and rabbits and sausages and being roasted on an open spit in the middle of the town.  But of course, as you might have guessed, not our little guy!

"Well, I was just in the Culinary All Stars and we came out with a cookbook and that's a really great one."

"oh, really?" said i, "does it cover basics and the like? techniques?"

"no, it's all the recipes we used in the competition. and a few of our signature dishes from our restaurants."

hm. note to self that i will certainly leave this out of finished article. 

When the Restaurant opened, this article hung all the way at the end of the hallway.  All along the hallway hung the accolades Chef Napoleon and his mighty band of dimwitted bandits had received, and their pictures, degrees and the like.  Past the ladies room and the hostess's closet, past even the men's room, right as you turn into the back hallway that leads to the back back hallway where the bartenders nip out with regulars to do lines off the extra glass stacked against the wall, just before that hallway was my article, and i used to stand and look at it, so irritated at myself for starting the article off "luckily for the city of Cbus, Chef Napoleon has chosen to open his first restaurant in our fair city." I didn't even believe it when I wrote it! what was wrong with me? 

I was kind of trying to get a job, I suppose, even then. It's my own fault because I should have listened to the prickly feeling the whole time but I didn't. 

Video Cooking Podcasts!

I am super stoked to announce that finally, after years and years of wanting to, I have recorded a few video cooking podcasts!  With the help of some Twitter acquaintances, we turned my messy kitchen into a cooking studio (ha.ha) and stumbled our way through 3 recipes! Here's a picture of one:

 
This being the first go, I am sure everything will look very weird and awkward.  Hopefully we will get better after learning a few things from our first session.

If there is anything you'd like to learn how to cook, please don't hesitate to leave a comment!  And if you applied for sidekick status, don't fret.  I am going to have a rotating cast of sidekicks.

You can look for the first video in about a week, depending on how horrible the video is and the size of the task of editing.  I kept forgetting about talking to the camera, so I did a lot of wondering around the kitchen grabbing things while talking.  I'm sure it's going to loads of fun for the editor (sorry Meat!).

Not surprisingly, dishes on the podcast will be very seasonal in nature, and yes, I will post the recipes here of course! 

woohoo! I've been wanting to do this forever.

Market Report::June 5th

 
 Saturday morning was actually a bit cool - kind of refreshing, actually. Of course by the time the day was over, it was swelteringly hot and humid and by the time I was at work I thought there was a very likely chance I might die of heat stroke.

But, on with the market.  This week I failed completely in my effort to take note of the provenance of each item I purchased.  I apologize heartily.

It was a kind of brief trip this week; I was mostly keeping an eye out for things to use for my first cooking podcast! There were lots of strawberries (it certainly hasn't been the greatest year on record for strawberries, what a disappointment) and asparagus. I kept my marketing confined to Clintonville, mostly due to laziness and lack of funds.

I was rather surprised to see so many cherries at this week's market - perhaps it's because it's been so hot so early this year, or maybe I'm just imagining things, but it seemed a little early for cherries.  Nonetheless, I bought a pint each of bings and Ranier (are they still Raniers if they are grown in Ohio?).  Later, I saw some beautiful sour cherries at the Elizabeth Telling stand, but by then I was unfortunately out of money.

I stopped off at Wishwell to buy some broccoli and asparagus:

 
 I was pleased to discover what I think might be a newish farm this year - my attendance at Clintonville was sporadic last year - Swainway Urban Farm.  The people running the booth reminded me of lots of friends of mine - mellow and laid back.  At any rate, I was happy to see they were selling delicious delicious pea shoots! I love those! These were real shoots - no flowers yet.  I also like the tendrils so, Swainway people, if you're listening...tendrils and flowers are delicious too.  Swainway was also selling shiitake mushrooms! Last week, Toby Run didn't have any shiitakes yet, so I was happy to see some at Clintonville:

 
I really think that's about it.  Most of this week's loot went into the stir fry Husband made for himself whilst I was working last night, but it all looked wonderful.

And what did you get this week, Kitties?

It's Farm Market GO Time in Central Ohio::Here's Where to Go

When I started writing RW in late 2004, I read everything I could about local farmer's markets.  I couldn't wait until the farm market season began, because farmer's markets were on the very top of my list of things I wanted to write about.  At that point, I had been to lots of roadside markets and markets out in the country.  I knew about the North Market, but other than that, I had always gone to the country where I grew up for my local produce.  If someone had told me I would be able to lazily stroll past a market on my way home from class or a cocktail in just a few years, I would have laughed.  

The first time I went to the Clintonville market, there were about 3 farmers in a parking lot in Clintonville.  At that point, Clintonville Commons was under construction, and I think it might have only been the second year for the market.  Since then, the Clintonville Farmer's Market has grown to include over 50 farmers and vendors.  That is pretty amazing, and it shows how the demand for local produce has increased significantly in the past decade.

When I began RW, Pearl Alley was small and charming - it was one of my favorite markets because despite being downtown, if you got there early you could get in and get out with all of your necessities for a few days without a huge crowd! How things have changed!  These days, the Pearl Market has outgrown Pearl Alley and is now spreading onto Broad street and this year, even on Gay street!  What a great attraction for our city.  Pearl has grown to include tons of food vendors - it is THE place for street food in our fair city (at least for centrally-located street food), there are tee shirt vendors and woodworkers and toys and handbag makers - it's just a really great market.

I am overwhelmed and happy with the growth of the farm market scene in Columbus.  Recently on Columbus Underground or Twitter (can't remember, I'm sorry!) someone said that Cincinnati totally outdid Columbus in the farm market department.  I was a little incredulous.  I just can't imagine more markets in a similarly-sized city.

We are very well positioned here in Columbus, as far as farm produce goes.  We are right in the middle of two distinct growing regions, and aren't far from a third.  Because of our location, we have a ridiculously long season for things like asparagus and strawberries.  I love that about our city.  When one farmer looks at you sadly and tells you it's their last week for asparagus, you know it's the first week for a Northern farmer. It's great.

Here in Columbus, it is now possible to find a farmer's market every day of the week except Sunday (if I'm wrong, please correct me).  I love weekday markets because they tend to be a little less crowded than their weekend counterparts. We owe a lot to the Wayward Seed Farm: they have worked hard to begin at least three of these Midweek markets, bringing them to Dublin, Worthington, and even the OSU campus.

If you ever need help with a market, please don't hesitate to ask.  I will either investigate and write about the market or join you to help learn to navigate the market in the most efficient manner possible.  To be frank, I applaud those of you who take your kids to the market.  They might be slightly less exciting than the grocery store, but there are still cookies and stuff to beg for.  

One of my favorite moment happened at the Worthington Farmer's Market when a small boy - probably about 4 - was dragging his mother by the hand and saying "Mommie!! Radishes!! I want some of those radishes!" Priceless. It's a local food blogger's dream come true.

Note::This list is by no means comprehensive. Some information is so outdated that I've left certain markets out entirely (dear market masters: anyone can set up a rudimentary website containing vital information in an hour. Or a Facebook page in about 3 minutes. There's no excuse. Put your information online and keep up with it.). I tried to include markets within a 45 minute radius, and then it occurred to me I left out Dayton entirely.  I will update soon.  If you are outside of Central Ohio and are wondering about what markets are in your area, please visit the awesome website Local Harvest; it is one of the most comprehensive sites dedicated to local eating in existence.

Without Further Ado....

Monday Markets: I actually couldn't find any.  Mondays must be recovery day.

 

Tuesdays

    Worthington::This year marks the first weekday market in Worthington! 4pm - 7pm at the Sharon Memorial Hall, 137 E Dublin Granville (161)

     Downtown::Pearl Alley Market 10:30am - 2pm on Pearl between (and including) Broad and Gay Streets.  This market features tons of food vendors and makes a refreshing change for lunch breaks. Park on Long or Spring and walk if you don't like looking for parking.

    Hilliard::4pm - 7pm this market begins on June 15th, so don't try to stop by next week, okay? Corner of Main & Center Streets.

 

Wednesdays

    Dublin::4pm - 7pm at the Dublin Community Church, 81 W Bridge St (161, just west of Dublin Road in Old Dublin). This market has grown to 15 vendors, and there is plenty of easy parking lot parking for those who might skip other markets because of heavy traffic.  There is a  gluten-free bakery, a bonus for many people.

    Westerville::3pm - 6pm at the corner of N. State and E Home streets (uptown Westerville). Strangely, this is one market I have never been to, owing to the fact that I've worked Wednesday nights pretty consistently since beginning RW. I have a friend who lives in Westerville,  however, and she likes this market a lot.

    Creekside (Downtown Gahanna)::4pm-6pm beginning June 30th. This market includes crafts and jewelry as well as produce. Going to Creekside is like a little vacation, especially if you live in an urban area.  It's really charming.  That being said, I haven't been to this market yet.  If you go, please let me know how it is.

    Athens Farmer's Market::10am - 1pm 1000 E State St in Athens (about 1 hour SE of Columbus) Athens is widely considered to be the Berkeley of Ohio - they have an amazing food scene for being a small college town.  

    

Thursdays

     Blendon Township::3pm - 6pm. this is a brand new market for 2010, so that's cool. This market is located in Southern Westerville, at 6350 Hempstead Road.

     15th St Market::I am super excited about this market, because it is the closest to home, and I have Thursdays off throughout this summer! woohoo! I am also excited that students might be encouraged to shop for local produce.

     Downtown Powell Market (Far North)::3pm - 6pm in the Municipal Building, 47 Hall St

Fridays

        Carrousel District Farmer's Market (Mansfield)::4 W 4th St 9am - 2pm

    Downtown::Pearl Alley Market 10:30am - 2pm on Pearl between (and including) Broad and Gay Streets.  This market features tons of food vendors and makes a refreshing change for lunch breaks. Park on Long or Spring and walk if you don't like looking for parking. 

Saturdays

Jefferson Community Market (NE side)::9am - noon at Jefferson Community Park 7494 Clark State Road. This market begins June 12th. Yet another I haven't visited! I might have to take a road trip one of these Saturday Mornings.

      Logan County::8:30am - noon at the corner of S Detroit and Chillocothe streets in downtown Bellefontaine.

        Main Street Market::(Canal Winchester) 9am - 1pm 36 S High St in CW.

       Athens Farmer's Market::10am - 1pm 1000 E State St in Athens (about 1 hour SE of Columbus) Pretty much considered to be one of the best markets in the state of Ohio. One of the only places I know of where you can buy shrimp at a farmer's market.

        Worthington::9am - noon probably the largest in Central Ohio; definitely one of my favorites.  It seems this market grows by leaps and bounds every year.  You can find everything here and there is frequent entertainment.  Numerous special events throughout the year and other shopping whilst cruising the market.

    Clintonville::9am - noon Just south of High & North Broadway.    

    North Market::8am - noon and beyond, usually there is entertainment and there are also frequent special events with chefs cooking.

No excuses!! Get out there and shop! 

 

 

The 'Dube.

Anyone who has ever lived near THE Ohio State University in the past 50 years knows about the Dube.  If you think it's called The Blue Danube, you haven't lived here.

The Dube has been around so long that I have waited on 70 year old couples who remember going there when they were young.  They are always pleased and relieved to hear it's still open.

So I'll admit I used to kind of look down my nose at the Dube; I thought I was too grown up for it.  I thought it was fun paying $10 for martinis. Silly waitress.

Then a few things began to happen - a few people whose opinions I really trust told me how much they love it; I met a few of the bartenders and they were super cool; Husband began to work nearby, and of course, it's in our 'hood. I made him promise we'd go soon: "we don't have to eat, I said - we can just go to drink - I've heard it's super cheap." Now, Husband and I are barflies.  We get our best conversations taken care of whilst sitting in bars, and we just love to chill after work with a nice cold cocktail.  When we were both employed in the Short North area, we would go to MoJoe several times a week after work, and I still miss my kitty cats there (xo Pants and Rodney!!), but we aren't likely to venture far out of our way for after-work drinking.

You know, this raises a question: why don't more bars have restaurant worker happy hours? A few bars have "Industry Night" here and there, but I'd love it if I could get off work and have a $4 martini at 11pm on a Tuesday.  Why should 9-5ers get all the good deals?

At any rate, Husband finally agreed to go.  Not having set foot in the place in a decade, I was hit with a small wave of nostalgia to walk back into the space after all these years.  I wondered if any of the artwork done by friends of mine still graced any of the ceiling tiles or if it had been replaced by younger artists - maybe even 3 times over by now, who knows?  Would I feel like a grandma with all the students? Did they still have a great jukebox?

I was relieved to see that we were not dinosaurs walking in; there is actually a very diverse crowd which hangs out at the 'Dube.  The younger folks, who haven't yet become barflies themselves, take up the tables, and the bar is a rotating mix of blue collar workers, restaurant workers, and the occasional slightly mad character and entourage.  

We perched at the bar where Husband was delighted to discover a very nice bottle of grappa behind the bar.  And here is where the Dube shines.  They buy everything. They have everything. They have things you've never seen or heard of - even those of us who work in bars and restaurants and think we've seen everything before.  From cheap beer to recherche single malt scotches, from shots of Bärenjäger to Johnny Walker Blue, the Dube has everything.  And if they don't have it, chances are they'll get it in.

So there we were, Husband and I, sitting at the bar at the Dube for the first time since we've graduated from college.  We each had a shot of grappa, and then a shot of Bärenjäger, along with a few draft PBRs scattered about.  When the time came to walk home, we about choked looking at our tab: $14. We thought maybe some friends had bought some of our drinks, but no - each drink was listed, everything was just really, really, extremely reasonably priced.  We were sold.

I have to admit, I still haven't eaten at the Dube in ten years.  I did have a few delicious pickle chips and some Tabasco one nights whilst doing Dill Thrills (pepper vodka with Tabasco and pickles, in the style of shots of tequila, sort of.  Lick the Tabasco from your hand, drink the shot, eat the pickle: yummy!), but I haven't had a full meal.  

Of course, the jukebox is still great - there are plenty of options for youngsters and us old grunge rockers alike.

The other day on Twitter, there was a discussion going on about trying to budget and spend less on eating out and drinking out.  Of course, nothing is cheaper than entertaining yourself in the comfort of your own home, but if you sometimes have to get out of the house, you will never feel guilty about downing a few at the Dube. 

info: not surprisingly, the Blue Danube appears to have no official online presence, but you can still find them at 2439 N. High St (Old North/North Campus).

The 'Dube.

Anyone who has ever lived near THE Ohio State University in the past 50 years knows about the Dube.  If you think it's called The Blue Danube, you haven't lived here.

The Dube has been around so long that I have waited on 70 year old couples who remember going there when they were young.  They are always pleased and relieved to hear it's still open.

So I'll admit I used to kind of look down my nose at the Dube; I thought I was too grown up for it.  I thought it was fun paying $10 for martinis. Silly waitress.

Then a few things began to happen - a few people whose opinions I really trust told me how much they love it; I met a few of the bartenders and they were super cool; Husband began to work nearby, and of course, it's in our 'hood. I made him promise we'd go soon: "we don't have to eat, I said - we can just go to drink - I've heard it's super cheap." Now, Husband and I are barflies.  We get our best conversations taken care of whilst sitting in bars, and we just love to chill after work with a nice cold cocktail.  When we were both employed in the Short North area, we would go to MoJoe several times a week after work, and I still miss my kitty cats there (xo Pants and Rodney!!), but we aren't likely to venture far out of our way for after-work drinking.

You know, this raises a question: why don't more bars have restaurant worker happy hours? A few bars have "Industry Night" here and there, but I'd love it if I could get off work and have a $4 martini at 11pm on a Tuesday.  Why should 9-5ers get all the good deals?

At any rate, Husband finally agreed to go.  Not having set foot in the place in a decade, I was hit with a small wave of nostalgia to walk back into the space after all these years.  I wondered if any of the artwork done by friends of mine still graced any of the ceiling tiles or if it had been replaced by younger artists - maybe even 3 times over by now, who knows?  Would I feel like a grandma with all the students? Did they still have a great jukebox?

I was relieved to see that we were not dinosaurs walking in; there is actually a very diverse crowd which hangs out at the 'Dube.  The younger folks, who haven't yet become barflies themselves, take up the tables, and the bar is a rotating mix of blue collar workers, restaurant workers, and the occasional slightly mad character and entourage.  

We perched at the bar where Husband was delighted to discover a very nice bottle of grappa behind the bar.  And here is where the Dube shines.  They buy everything. They have everything. They have things you've never seen or heard of - even those of us who work in bars and restaurants and think we've seen everything before.  From cheap beer to recherche single malt scotches, from shots of Bärenjäger to Johnny Walker Blue, the Dube has everything.  And if they don't have it, chances are they'll get it in.

So there we were, Husband and I, sitting at the bar at the Dube for the first time since we've graduated from college.  We each had a shot of grappa, and then a shot of Bärenjäger, along with a few draft PBRs scattered about.  When the time came to walk home, we about choked looking at our tab: $14. We thought maybe some friends had bought some of our drinks, but no - each drink was listed, everything was just really, really, extremely reasonably priced.  We were sold.

I have to admit, I still haven't eaten at the Dube in ten years.  I did have a few delicious pickle chips and some Tabasco one nights whilst doing Dill Thrills (pepper vodka with Tabasco and pickles, in the style of shots of tequila, sort of.  Lick the Tabasco from your hand, drink the shot, eat the pickle: yummy!), but I haven't had a full meal.  

Of course, the jukebox is still great - there are plenty of options for youngsters and us old grunge rockers alike.

The other day on Twitter, there was a discussion going on about trying to budget and spend less on eating out and drinking out.  Of course, nothing is cheaper than entertaining yourself in the comfort of your own home, but if you sometimes have to get out of the house, you will never feel guilty about downing a few at the Dube. 

info: not surprisingly, the Blue Danube appears to have no official online presence, but you can still find them at 2439 N. High St (Old North/North Campus).