Round and Round we go...

The next edition of the Round Table has been posted by Ali over at El Vermino Blvd

Take that, and this too...

A couple complaints I’ve been saving up are as follows:

For only the second time in my serving career, I got stiffed. Both were unexpected, the second especially so. The stiffers in question this time were two girls, probably early to mid-twenties. They were friendly, enjoyed their food, got what they ordered in a timely manner. There was no hint to me that they had no souls. I didn’t figure them for a huge tip, so when they slunk out without making eye contact I wasn’t hugely surprised. But when I saw they left absolutely no tip, well, it was unexpected. What was unexpected too is that it didn’t piss me off terribly. I let it go quite quickly. Don’t ask me why. Not tipping without cause is not just insulting; it is a betrayal of all social conventions. And without social conventions, we are but savages.


Second complaint: if as a customer, you say to the server something like, “Wow, we are the last ones here. We must be keeping you late,” then you already know you are driving the staff crazy, keeping people late, and generally making life miserable for the workers of the restaurant. And honestly, no matter the reply you get from the server (from the rude, “yes you are keeping me,” to the professional, “not at all, take your time”), you can rest assured you are not wanted. It’s that simple. So if you see you are the only group left in a restaurant, you see the staff rushing about busily doing various clean-up jobs, and you are not actually eating something or waiting for something, then please leave.

And for the love of God, don’t sit there ten minutes waiting to pay the check while the workers hold their collective breaths waiting for you to pay.

Lastly, I am ashamed to admit what I can only describe as borderline racism and/or elitism on my part. I was serving, near the end of my shift, and I got a two top. Two women, not white, but of two different ethnicities; the specific ethnicities does not matter. They seemed to be what is typically referred to as ghetto. I was annoyed because a) I didn’t want a table this close to being gone, and b) due to stereotypes, I figured on a bad tip.

Things didn’t look bright when I arrived at the table. One girl was on her cell phone and the other had such a sour look it wasn’t as if she had sucked a lemon, but rather as if she had been water-boarded with lemon juice.

As I waited on them, I realized the two girls seemed to be quite nice – and I found out the sour-faced one was feeling sick (she was even so nice as to apologize for not eating the food she ordered, that she loved what she had tasted, but that she was feeling quite nauseous). I rounded up some toast in an attempt to perhaps settle her stomach.

By the end of the meal, I was happy to have waited on them, but I still felt a little leery about the tip. Not totally because of racial stereotypes, but also because of age, and especially because the two (white) girls who left no tip had been in early that very day. I am happy to report the left me with a 22% tip.

They also left me with a guilty conscience.


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Updates...

Sorry for the lack of content lately - I'm just back from vacation and will get some posts up this week...see you soon!

Daisy, is this family of yours?

Although she probably won't admit it, I have to assume this story concerns a relative of Daisy's.

Gather Round!

The best Service Industry Carnival is up and running. See Round Table Volume 13.

I don't like to wine...

I hate answering wine questions. There, I’ve said it. Even though I feel I’m of around average intelligence, I just can’t seem to wrap my head around more than the basics of what wine goes with what, how one describes the tastes of wine, or why certain wines are good for this and not that.

I have some of the very basics down. White wine for fish and all that. A nice red wine for meat dishes. And I’ve been able to learn how to fake it for my poor customers that ask my opinion – I’ve focused on a few of our wines that are big pleasers and I talk them up. Which is usually fine because they are in fact good wines, it’s just I don’t know why. I can’t discuss why red wine A is better for the dish than red wine B. And fuck have I tried! I’ve read Food and Wine Magazine. I’ve asked why such and such works with such and such. I’ve tasted new wines as we get them. But without somebody spelling it out for me, and me then writing it on a little cheat sheet, I’m lost.

And I really can’t tell you what makes a wine better than another. I envy people who can distinguish great wines. I once had a customer who bought a $100 bottle of wine and insisted I try it because it was his favorite. I did try it but had to feign being impressed – honestly, although I could have determined it was better than other wines, I could simply not appreciate it any more than I would have a $20 bottle of wine.

Perhaps wine isn’t my thing. I don’t know. Probably by now it’s a mental block. But I’ve got my trusty cheat sheet to get me through.

Until they change the wine list again. Then you are on your own.

Heritage Update

Funny, in looking at ship's manifest, I've already found something I didn't know. While my grandmother's port of origin was Naples, her city of origin was actually Vicenza in far northern Italy. Could explain my mother's blue eyes and fair skin....I always thought they were due to the milkman.

Adiamo!

I grew up in the Berkshires of Massachusetts – not the uppity rich milieu, rather the blue-collar life where everyone worked either at General Electric, Various Paper Mills, or some type of construction. My locale had basically two ethnicities – Italian and Polish. Growing up, I always felt a bit shortchanged as a kid in regards to ethnic food. My mom was first generation Italian – her mom had come in at Ellis Island. One would imagine me running into grandma’s kitchen to the smell of warm dough rising, or to the bubbling of marinara sauce, or to the sight of grandma rolling meatballs. None of this is true.

Oh, I wanted it to be. My best friend next door used to get yelled at in Italian by his grandmother. And when I went with him to her house, she would have stale bread that was kind of sweet for us to nibble on (as an adult, I think I’ve positively id’d this as biscotti). If I happened to be with him at his grandmother’s for dinner, she’d always insist we children have a bit of wine. I remember eating pickled deer tongue one time (I only ate it because I thought the word “tongue” was just a descriptive word, not a literal description). And my friends of Polish decent would have big round grandmothers who cooked kielbasa and glumpkies and all sorts of weird sounding but strangely tasty stuff.

I felt left out, and the fact that we weren’t Catholic due to my parents being on their second marriage (in those days, they kicked people out of the Catholic church for getting divorced) only heightened my sense of being something other.

Which isn’t to say my grandmother wasn’t authentic. She was very Italian. But her cooking – not so much. Hence, my mother, while she could cook typical stuff, never really was into cooking, and certainly knew no traditional Italian cooking methods – perhaps though she knew them, but was long past caring since I was an “oops baby,” the youngest of six.

Whatever the reasons, I found myself jealous of my friends who grew up with ethnic foods. As is typical of second and third generation immigrants, I’m trying to reconnect to my heritage. I’ve begun trying to cook traditional dishes of Naples, Italy and trying to give some perspective to my kids, who are now a watered down 1/4 Italian, 3/4 mutt, or as we call it, American.

I’ll let you know how the cooking goes, maybe put up some recipes. I think also to reconnect with my heritage I’ll marry a woman with lots of facial hair. I’ll update that quest as well.

Ciao!


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Never off the clock...

Something that sucks about being a server is that you are never off the clock. Every time I go out I look at the situation with server eyes. I know this is true of other jobs too, but it is especially true of serving.

Case in point:
I took my kids to a local greasy spoon for breakfast. It was a busy Saturday morning. I noticed when we sat that two college -aged girls at a booth across from us were almost done - I noticed because I had wanted a booth and cursed the luck of not coming five or ten minutes later. I shouldn't have been upset because as we were getting our food, they were still there. They had no plates in front of them, had the bill and the payment sitting in front of them (in this place you bring your bill to the register), and yet they sat. And sat.

Towards the end of our meal, I said to my oldest, "Don't ever do what those girls are doing. They cost their waitress good tips by using her booth during the rush."

Even as we got our coats on, they were still there. Still. There. The poor waitress.

At least in having the "talk" with my son, I may have helped future servers...