Preparing to launch

So it's official. In just a few short weeks I will show up for my new post. I've accepted orders - it's all been very formal - the orders are in fact around 70 pages long! - for a new boat, a beautiful vessel, that I will join in Savannah, Georgia.

Everyone at the restaurant has had to suffer my repeated question, "Have you seen my boat?" After which, if they haven't (and sometimes even if they have), I pull out my phone and show them a few pictures of her under sail.

Family meal
My second sublet in New York has been a studio in Brooklyn Heights. Another fortuitous Facebook match-up. But this apartment has been more or less vacated, since its owner is moving out. The first night I arrived, not having eaten all day, I had very little to make dinner with - strange leftover ingredients from a few meals with friends: broccoli, bacon, vermouth (for my martinis), currants, and some Korean hot sauce. Voila.

In my last weeks at the restaurant, I have taken great pleasure in making family meal - which feels a lot like serving up meals for a crew. This is a meal commonly served to the staff at restaurants prior to the beginning of service. At some restaurants, it becomes a competition among the cooks, who otherwise don't get a chance to show their own talents and preferences because they are bound to the chef's menu.

So one night last week, designated with the task of making the vegetables for the family meal and handed a bunch of broccoli... well, you can guess how this story ends.