Dear Feastlings,
In the last batch of brown paper bags we got in, one in four was not properly glued at the bottom. It seems to me an apt metaphor for my industry, and for the world at large right now. It’s now normal for 25% of our products to be defective. I can’t speak for everyone, of course, and I’m sure someone is perfectly content with the way things are going, but for me, the new normal continues to be ever-new and rarely to be normal. Yes, we continue to maintain the facade of normalcy- there’s a new menu that we began yesterday, as if it were a normal month:
https://www.eatatfeast.com/dining/menus/lunch-dinner
and we’ve put together a wine tasting for you this Saturday, as if it were a normal Saturday:
We’re even preparing an Easter feast despite the fact that being open on a Sunday has become abnormal for us, but whatever it takes to offer up a little alleged normalcy, we’re here for you.
And we’re trying our best to convince ourselves that it’s all normal- sure, it’s normal for a line cook to go home with a blitzkrieg stomach ailment the minute the dinner rush is over and everyone needs to begin cleaning their station. It’s normal for two adult men to self-medicate themselves out of a job in the space of a month. It’s normal for someone to show up and update our point of sale system without being asked to, discover that the update has disabled the credit card reader, and walk off with the tablet without a word. Sure, it’s normal for masked officers not to identify themselves and grab a doctoral student off the street in Boston and move her to a detention center in Louisiana before a federal judge can rule that she must remain in Massachusetts. It’s normal to incentivize voters with a million-dollar check or two. Every day, I’m forced to stretch my definition of normalcy.
I hope the paper bag I grab to breathe into has a sealed bottom.
For my part, I’m lobbying for a truly new normal. Yesterday, I picked up one of our dishwashers at home- he was feeling dizzy and weak- and took him to urgent care, and then to another urgent care after the first one couldn’t treat him because they didn’t accept his insurance. I’d like it to be normal to do that. One of our regular guests last night left us a quite-generous unfinished bottle of wine to taste. That would be a pretty great normal thing to do as well. The Rincon Rotary Foundation has put together a benefit for educators in the Tucson area, which I’d like to be normal.
https://www.tucsontasteofchocolate.org/
Kent and Lisa Callaghan yesterday donated several cases of their new wine, “La Osa,” to the benefit dinner we’re doing for Flowers and Bullets on April 19th. I’d vote for that to be considered a normal act of kindness and generosity, and in turn, I’d like what Flowers and Bullets has done to revitalize their community to be normal as well.
https://givebutter.com/EsG9ir
I’d like not to care whether the brown paper bag is sealed on the bottom because I don’t feel the need to breathe into it. That, my friends, would be a new normal I could love.
In the meantime, here’s some love for all of you- gratitude for your support, a feeling of warmth when we see you enjoying food and drink with friends and family, and a brown paper bag at the ready in case you need one too.
Love,
Doug and everyone here at Feast