Dearest Feastlings,
Sure, it’s been a bit frantic around here. The holidays always are, and even with the limited business climate of the pandemic, we’ve still managed to force a number of irons into the fire. But today was amazing. I spent the early part of the day working on the food pairings for the Last Sunday of the Month tasting- the wines are not to be trifled with, and I hope the pairings do them justice- but when I looked up to discover that I had to get going and deliver meals to the 110 people who live at Glenstone Village, I went to the back of the kitchen to see none of it ready. Not one meal was boxed, and I had to leave in less than half an hour. I checked with Mike, the chef de cuisine, to be sure I was wrong, and that most of the meals were already in insulated boxes. They weren’t, and I felt a wave of queasy nervousness wash over me, and Mike, without so much as a raised eyebrow, said, “it’ll be ready at 2:30,” and sure enough, I had front row seats to a five-person choreography better than any Nutcracker I’ve ever seen, and in 22 minutes, 110 meals were plated, covered, put into insulated boxes, and I was on my way.
When I arrived at Glenstone Village, it happened in the reverse: a group of six people who work for Commonwealth Affordable Housing emptied my truck like a drill team. The Blue Angels, the Rockettes, Esther Williams? They have nothing on the crews at Feast and at Glenstone Village. Nor do they have anything on you, the people who’ve been donating and supporting these donation runs week after week since March. We’ve now fed over 5000 people with your help, and as long as we keep drumming up donations, we’ll continue to subsidize them with some of our own and keep our staff working by helping various members of this community, and we’ll do it with aplomb, with care, and with gratitude. There are two more on the calendar, and then I imagine we’ll be back to hospitals yet again, hopefully only in the food dropoff capacity.
I’ll have next Saturday’s tasting, as well as next Sunday’s, posted in a day or two, but in the meanwhile, you can amuse yourselves with tomorrow’s tasting,
the Christmas menu (all out of goose breast, but there’s still confit of goose leg and thigh to be had, and two more days to get your orders in,)
there are some hors d’oeuvres for New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day if you’d rather, since we all apparently go to sleep at 9 pm now,
and I always like to throw in a link to today’s menu, and our beer, wine and cocktail collection.
and look at that- I got this all written and sent out before 5:00. Will wonders never cease? Watch your email tomorrow for a link to the wine tasting, and I’ll see you on the screen with any luck.
Your assistant choreographer,
Doug