Mysterioso of the Minute

I'll give you my final impressions of the restaurant business, for what it's worth. There's a difference between the busy-ness of the retail world and the busy-ness of the restaurant world. In the retail world, the busy-ness is like the tide coming in and going out. No matter how busy it may be at that moment, no matter how many customers you have stacked up at the register and all the phone lines going at once, it will all pass and there will be some quiet time when you can catch your breath and get ready for the return of the high tide. No matter how busy it may be, in the retail world, you can be very linear.

The busy-ness of the restaruant world is like a permanent high tide. It starts and it never stops until the last person has left the building. In fact, you don't want an ebb and flow of business, you want it to going full bore at all times. people look in the window and see a happening, jumping place and they want to be part of it. As a server, you have to have an excellent short term memory. You have to be able to take multiple orders in quick succession and relay them to the kitchen or bar, pick up an out-going order and generally run around and keep things under control. I suppose the best analogy is this: imagine you are juggling eleven balls, all of different sizes and weights and some are on fire. That's the restaurant world.

I brought my co-worker a funnel and said "You put the fun in funnel." Later I brought her a cardboard flat and said "I'm sorry, I lost the keys to your flat." You can't beat workplace humour.

I met up with M. and K. downstairs on Wednesday night. I had thought that Wednesday would be my last night at the bar and that I would be able to make a last Paisley Martini and Midori Sour for my friends, but it was so slow that the boss said he didn't need a bartender. So instead I got to have a couple of Paisley Martinis and hang out with K. and M. I also had a French 75, something I've been very curious about since I made two during my Mixology Era.

According to the story, which may be apocryphal, when Harry S Truman was a cpatain of an artillery company in France during the Great War, he said to his crew, as they began shelling the German lines with their French 75, "I'd rather be right here than be President of the United States." The French 75 was a 75mm cannon with a lethal firing rate ... it could fire 30 shells in a minute. In honour of this power cannon a drink was created with the local booze ... two ounces of brandy, half a lemon, a table spoon of powdered sugar, shaken together and then four ounces of champagne poured over the top.

The effect, as I discovered is as lethal as the original cannon. Bang! I had the foresight to order dinner and even still I was reeling. So much so that when the bill arrived and I was trying to add the tip in, I realized that I was leaving a $2.00 tip. I had to have K. do the math for me, informing her of my intent and signing my name at the bottom. The next day, while I was having lunch downstairs, M said to me "Thanks for the generous tip. A couple of Paisley Martinis really make you feel good!" "It was the French 75 that did it!" I replied.

As I type this, I'm drinking a London Fog which is a Pernod and gin mix. The drink has that pleasant green colour of absinthe and a potent kick. Another one of these would send me into oblivion. Pernod is the closest thing available to absinthe and has a charmingly woody-licorice taste. I've found a few Pernod cocktails at Drinkalizer and a few faux absinthe cocktails using Pernod at FeeVert. I feel a Symbolist poem coming on ...

I'll spare you that and move on to other informative doings.

Our town has a lot of antique store which in all reality are simply glorified junk stores. The only genuine article after Retroville Cottage, The Antique Store, has bailed out, suddenly, mysteriously and in all likelihood, permanently. They had an odd history and I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. For one thing, while they had genuine Victorian and early XXth Century furniture, you can't charge Seattle prices in our town. It just won't go. And they were hardly ever open. For weeks on end you'd walk past the shop and they'd be closed. Then they'd be open for the next two days and closed for the next six weeks. The story I have heard is that the owner has a severe case of diabetes which forces him to be hospitalized for long periods of time. Even so, his wife frequently worked at the store and he had a business partner. You'd think either one of them would work the store or at the very least it would be worth it to them to hire someone to work there ... after all, they're paying rent if they're open or not. But they were a prevaricating lot, so who knows. They certainly cleared their store out in a hurry!