Hello, Feastlings,
This Saturday being Independence Day, we’ll be closed for the day so that our staff can- well, sit at home, not consort with crowds and not set off fireworks in this tinderbox of a town. Still, we could all use a break, and I know my feet will unquestionably be up. Then, come next week, we’ll hit the ground running again- we have lots to figure out. The July menu will begin on the 7th, and we’ll be back to our normal wine tasting schedule on the 11th, when we’ll be tasting four wines from France in order to prepare for Bastille Day.
Then, despite the success of our zoom wine tastings, I have a lot of loose ends to tie up before our zoom dinner. Or, I should say, it’s not really OUR zoom dinner so much as a benefit for the Primavera Foundation. Many of you know that we have, since its inception, participated in Primavera Cooks, a dinner put on in various restaurants around town for years now. In fact, you can find recipes I wrote from when I was the chef at Boccata and the Dish tucked away in Primavera Cooks cookbooks from before the event was an event. And I thought to myself when we were all shuttering that, as miserable as it was for restaurants to be closing their doors all over the world, the nonprofits who rely on those restaurants were going to feel the squeeze as well, so once we had a couple of zoom wine tastings under our belt, I called our friend David Elliott at the Primavera Foundation and proposed that we give this a try. So after a fair amount of planning and an acute fear of whatever we haven’t planned for, we’ve got a dinner lined up that will be part food discussion and demonstration, part wine discussion and tasting, part tasty dinner with various friends from around town, and all benefit for the Primavera foundation, which helps with homelessness issues in our community. Want to know more specifically about what they do? You can investigate here.
I should point out that while Feast is putting the event together and we’re crossing our fingers that we’ve thought this through enough that we can execute it with enough charm, pacing, flavor and camaraderie that it goes well, it’s ultimately a Primavera Foundation event, which means you’ll make your reservation and pay through them, not us. We’re just making everything and putting the event together, which will happen on a Monday- July 13- when Feast is closed, so you don’t have to listen to the thrum of exhaust hoods, line cooks and muttered cursing that happens during normal service at Feast. Want to know more about the event itself? You can check that out here.
I’m excited to eat mackerel and duck and Petit Basque cheese, and to drink wines from Piedmont, Juliénas, Slovenia and Corsica, and to talk about what we’re cooking and chat with some of my favorite people in the wine biz.
The only other bits to mention for now are that tomorrow we’ll be feeding the firefighters of Rural Metro and Rincon Valley fire departments, and we’ll be back at feeding our hospital workers as they enter what’s referred to as disaster surge response. Here’s the info on tomorrow’s donation delivery run.
And we’ve saved the best news for last: three and a half weeks ago, we started corning some briskets, and our patience has paid off. Today we’re offering a Reuben sandwich made with that house-corned beef, accompanied by a reminder that since we make our corned beef with neither nitrates nor saltpeter, it’s
a) not red;
b) moist and tender rather than sliced thin and piled high; and
c) cut into nice, thick slabs.
So if you’re looking for that rubbery red style of corned beef that’s really salty and dry, may I gently suggest that you find some elsewhere, as we don’t have the kind you’re looking for?
We have a bunch of other stuff too, so if you want one more crack at the June menu, here it is.
Thanks,
Doug and your other friends at Feast