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This is my blogchalk:
United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.
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Paul Hinrichs:
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002 |
I had another abrasive little encounter with a customer yesterday. A woman asked for tomatoes on her tuna sandwich. I said we don't have tomatoes when they're not in season. "That's unique," she said; they were in the supermarket yesterday. I said, "But they're pink and hard, and I won't serve them. We'll have tomatoes next July."
So begins day 3 of breadman Mark Furstenberg's Slate Diary. The rest elaborates on the mental constant balancing act bewteen giving the customer what they want and giving them what is good. He errs on the side of good, but provides a fair argument for both viewpoints.
I've been on the periphery of the restaurant business much of my life, with friends and contacts that are owners, chefs, and regular help. For a few years, I provided smoked salmon for a local restaurant. The owner, who has since departed to Nova Scotia, had no patience whatsoever with demanding customers. A lifetime in the business will do that to anyone.
One night a week, he had an "all you can eat" night for calabash. Some customers came only when this invitation for gluttony was on the menu. Seeing one of these couples fill their plates for the 4th time, he cut them off.
"But it says 'All you can eat'," the woman protested. "That's right," said Dave in his husky bos'n mate voice, "...and that's all you can eat!"
4:56:43 PM 
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Epilogue: There is a whirring of a single-engine plane in the sky. No one notices much, it's just a sound. The pilot pulls a lever and a plume of vapor forms behind, trailing off into a straight line. A complex set of maneuvers; levers released, pulled again, clanks, breathtaking turns, engine crescendos, decrescendos, lines, arcs, and intersection penstrokes form a few cloud words.
But, this time, no friendly winds arise to make them disappear. Gremlins possess the cloud molecules and convert them to lighter-than-air granite. They stay there, hanging in the air, and the best of manmade weapons bounce off them like rubber arrows.
They are not a dream, they are real words.
3:15:57 AM
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The third wave of first generation mushrooms were sauteed up for dinner last night. There are now two large ones left standing and a whole bunch of tiny ones getting ready for the weekend. Don't want to count the mushrooms before they sprout, but if the instructions are accurate there will be mushrooms for as long as the next month - probably about 2 pounds a week until it poops out
These are not really portobellos as the box says. They are common white mushrooms, not the cremini that grow into portobellos. The caps aren't speckly enough. Still, it ain't a bad deal for $20 and it's a lot of fun. In the end, it will average out to about $2 a pound for fresh mushrooms, which usually go for about $3. For me, it was worth it just to get to know Larry, as good a mushroom as ever there was.
2:35:02 AM
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