Dear Feastlings,
Whether or not you can see from my emails that I’m riddled with insecurities, it hardly matters. I’ve grown accustomed to them, and frankly, insecure as I may be, with time in the foodservice industry, one develops enough coping mechanisms that one can occasionally deflate an angry guest with a sniping remark that’s glazed with sugar, or unleash a series of expletives in the relative safety and muffled atmosphere of the kitchen, shake it off and get back to work. So really, the subject line isn’t about self-criticism so much as it’s about a genuine shortcoming.
When I checked to see how many of you had signed up for the Last Sunday wine tasting, there were a mere sixteen guests, and as much as we Tucsonans are known for waiting until the day before to decide whether we’ll attend an event, it became clear to me that the likely reason that we hadn’t had many sing up for the tasting was that nobody knew what we were serving with the wines. Although I wrote the pairing menu days ago, you’d never have been able to read my handwriting, and since I need to include heating instructions with said menu, it took until this morning to get it dashed off to you. Some say curiosity killed the cat, but I maintain it’s procrastination.
Or at the very least, poor time management. I’m hoping that this posting of the menu turns the tide and we see the eighty or one hundred guests that we customarily see at this tasting, as the wines are downright remarkable, and only one of them is an affront to Passover, and not because it contains flour, but because it contains shrimp. We’re doing a flourless onion cake for the second course. Want to see what it’s all about? Here you go:
And that doesn’t preclude you from attending Saturday’s tasting as well. Heck, if you got a relief check, I can
scarcely think of relief more effective than wine and food. Here’s what Saturday’s tasting looks like:
There’s also still ample time to order food for Easter
or donate a meal to someone staying with the Primavera Men’s Shelter
or pick up a loaf of bread (for those of you who commented on the oatmeal porridge bread from St. Patrick’s Day, we’ll be making that again tomorrow. Today it’s cinnamon raisin pecan, baguettes and our customary sourdough levain. And with that, I march off to meet our various and sundry wine purveyors. I may not spit a drop today.
Yours,
Doug