Menus

Menus are great. They're glossy and visually appealing, and they pack a wealth of concise information into neatly organized columns. Menus tell whether a restaurant serves Coke or Pepsi products, give prices and ingredients for most entrees, and they also list side options as well as any related costs of substitutions or extras. The hours of operation, contact information, and restaurant policies (such as adding an automatic gratuity to large parties or charging to split an entree) are almost always listed somewhere on the menu. And although it may not be a fascinating read, it certainly is worth the while.

It's a wonder then, that more people don't take the time they're given to read the menu. I get it, though. Sometimes the restaurant can be dark. The print is too small for some, while others can't focus when they're hungry. And most people are distracted by something: their kids, their phones, or the game on TV. That's where I come in. I am paid to know the menu, inside and out. I have memorized ingredient lists and been thoroughly tested on my menu knowledge, and I can rattle off side options like a pro. I know the soups of the day, and which items are (or can be prepared) vegetarian or dairy-free. I can usually predict how long it will take for the kitchen to cook a well-done steak or a salmon fillet on a busy Friday night. And if there's a question that I don't know the answer to (like whether the breading on the chicken has an ingredient that could trigger some obscure allergy), I am happy to find out.

For the most part, I don't mind reciting burrito or salad ingredients to a table. I use the time to establish a rapport with my customers; it's like making small talk about the weather, only with food. When I am knowledgeable about the menu and can answer people's questions quickly and definitively, it reflects positively on my work ethic and overall intelligence. The only time I am not willing to list every ingredient in the kitchen is for a take-out order; people who don't know what they want then they call inevitably end up getting put on hold, because there are other people calling who do know what they'd like to eat.

I ask only two things of dine-in patrons: First, if someone at your table has a question (like what types of cheese are offered) that you would also like to know the answer to, please pay attention the first time. My willingness to rattle off sandwich toppings decreases exponentially every time I have to repeat them to the same table. And second, please don't get snippy with me when I ask follow-up questions about your order (such as how well to cook a steak). Some menu items have more options than others, and I am just trying to get your order right the first time. There's no need to be condescending, and besides-- if you're going to act like you're smarter than I am, you should at least be able to read.

Please Wait to be (Con)ceited

It's high time I get the ball rolling on one of my "bucket list" projects; I'm not getting any younger, you know! Since most of my ultimate goals involve spending a great deal of money or amassing a wealth of knowledge (to travel to far-away places or to save the planet), I've decided to start small. I've always wanted to write a book, and since I don't have the vivid imagination of a fiction writer or a novelist's patience for outlining plots and developing characters, I need to write about what I know. And right now, what I know (and have known-- off and on-- since high school) is what it's like to work in the service industry.

I know how it feels to be judged for wearing an apron, stocking shelves, and preparing food. I know what it's like to be the source of people's (usually misdirected) anger, and I've been trained to accept criticism, insults, and ridicule with a smile. I know the torment of being overqualified for the part-time positions I have held. And I know the agony of not being able to tell those who assume I'm unintelligent, that I've chosen this less-than-desirable employment because its part-time hours and ever-changing schedules are what has given me the freedom and flexibility to put myself through school and to pursue my true passions.

I believe I can provide readers with a (more or less) objective view of life as a service-industry worker. I hope to share my experiences and present my insights in a collection of essays/short stories/vignettes, and my ultimate goal would be to publish these works in book form (see [copyrighted!] working title, above). And until Congress mandates that every American citizen hold at least one job serving the public, I'd like the revelations in my book to be the next-best thing! If my stories can get even one person to think twice about the way they speak to a cashier or a waiter-- to wait to be conceited-- I will consider this endeavor to be "mission accomplished."

So in an attempt to make at least one of my dreams become a reality, many of my blog posts from here on forward will be restaurant (or retail) related. All I ask of you, my dear readers, is to tell me what works and what doesn't. Tell me what you'd like to know as well as the topics I should avoid. Don't be afraid of hurting my feelings; I've worked retail. I've waited tables. I've been trained to take even the harshest criticisms with a smile. With that said, let the food fight begin!

Random Acts of Kindness

I was standing in a dank subway stop just north of downtown and feeling a little downtrodden. I was wet and out of breath, having gotten caught in a sudden downpour. My hair was frizzing and my wool coat (a clearance-rack, TJ Maxx special) had begun to smell not unlike a wet dog. A guy with a boom box was sneaking sideways looks at me, and it seemed like the train would never come.

Suddenly, out of the crowd of bedraggled commuters, burst this impeccably dressed gay guy with a piping hot latte in one hand and his smart phone in the other. Unlike most people on public transit, he looked at me (not through me) and slowed his stride long enough to gush, "Ohmigod I love your coat! And your scarf matches it perfectly! You look fabulous!" And just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone. He disappeared into (what was, by that time) a very crowded platform of commuters.

All it took was one unexpected compliment from a complete stranger to turn my day around. The train came-- I managed to snag a seat while boom box guy stayed on the platform-- and I no longer felt so frizzy or smelly. I'd always heard about the impact that random acts of kindness can have, and I've even tried to do some on occasion. But in the everyday drudgery of life, it's easy to forget how much a kind word or gesture can affect others. So, flattered and a little bewildered, I vowed to pay it forward before the warm, fuzzy feeling went away.

On my way home, I saw a neighbor toiling outside of the corner restaurant, replacing the fall flowers in the planters with evergreens, in anticipation of winter. "Looking good!" I chirped, smiling as I walked past. When she looked up and pushed her frizzy hair out of her eyes, her brows un-furrowed and a genuine smile spread across her face. I didn't stop to chat, but I did smile back. Then I pulled up the collar of my (fabulous) coat as I turned into the wind to block the rain, and I headed home.

With a Little Help...

While changing the sheets is a chore for most, in my home it's become a major undertaking. Not only is my queen-sized bed wedged in the corner of my tiny bedroom, I have two little helpers who love nothing more than fresh linens. In what can only be described as a near-Pavlovian response to the unremarkable sound of unfolding fabric, my two enormous tom cats come running into the bedroom and leap on top of a partially unfolded fitted sheet.

So I'll pick one up and dump him on the floor, but by the time I go to pick up the other, the first cat is right back up on the bed. This continues (with alternating cats) until one wanders off of the sheet and onto the mattress pad. I quickly pull the corner of the sheet with the other cat still on top of it, but the sudden movement causes him to pounce on the part that I am trying to stretch around a corner of the mattress, pawing furiously at the folds of fabric.

Once I have two corners secured, I steer my furry helpers toward the already-smoothed out part of the sheet. This allows me to finish attaching the bottom sheet, and puts them in perfect position for what comes next: the top-sheet application. By far their favorite part of the bed-making process, they crouch expectantly as I shake out the flat sheet. As soon as I snap it in the air and let it fall neatly over the mattress, they bound to the center of the bed and wait for the clean-smelling cloth to settle over them. It usually takes me a few tries to align the top sheet with the mattress, and the kitties think this is great fun.

Once the sheet is as even as it can be (with two moving blobs underneath, that is), I'll tuck the excess under the mattress at the foot of the bed, folding the sides into loose hospital corners. The unexplained movement of the mattress tends to spook Iggy, the larger of the two cats, and he'll shoot out from under the sheet and watch the corner-tucking from the doorway a safe distance away. It almost never fails, though, that he is distracted by a moving white blob in the middle of the bed. With a waggle of his haunches, he springs back onto the bed and pounces on the blob (a.k.a. Jack) and a tussle ensues, until the sheet is twisted enough to reveal one cat to the other. If I haven't completely tucked the sheet in before the blob attack, I have to repeat part two of my bed-making process, much to the delight of my fuzzies.

At this point, I usually walk away and do something else for a bit; the sheets aren't nearly as enticing when they're not moving. So once the cats lose interest, I'll sneak back in to straighten out the top sheet and put on the comforter. Since the pillows don't intrigue them, I usually have to add those finishing touches myself.

Without the ritual, without the fanfare, and without the help I get when changing the sheets, I could most likely accomplish this task in two minutes instead of twenty. And although it would be much easier without help, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

TEA PARTY!

No, I'm not referring to the patriotic East Coast revolutionaries of the 18th century, or the right-wing nut jobs claiming to be their 21st-century counterparts. I'm talking about tea. Loose-leaf tea: black, green, rooibos, oolong, you name it.

I've always been a fan of tea, but having grown up on the iced, unsweetened, Lipton variety, the demonstration and info session I attended during a food tour this summer literally blew my mind. The tour, which started in Chicago's Gold Coast and wound its way through Old Town up to Lincoln Park, took us into a small tea shop just north of the Viagra Triangle.

We each received a 20-ounce cup of an iced cranberry and mango green tea to sip while we listened to the tea guy's spiel. The tea was tasty and the guy was quite knowledgeable... long story short, I fell for his sales pitch... hook, line, and sinker.

First he showed us the contents of a typical tea bag, which is often just tea dust, the disintegrated remnants of crumbled-up tea leaves. Boo! Then he showed us a loose-leaf tea bag, and then loose-leaf tea that had been brewed in a metal tea ball. Which was better than tea dust, but (as I soon learned) still left much to be desired. Then he whipped out a contraption that looked like infomercial fare but sounded divine.

Loose-leaf tea is hard core, and only die-hards are willing to make the effort, right? Not anymore! This little doo-dad demystified loose-leaf tea for me and my fellow foodies-for-a-day. The tea leaves are measured into the plastic pitcher, and the hot water is poured in on top of that. Once brewed to the desired strength, the pitcher is set on top of a tea cup or mug, and the ball bearings on the bottom of the whatsit allow the steeped water to filter down through a sieve and into the cup, while all of the leaves remain inside of the thingie. Cool!

A side-by-side comparison of the tea leaves from the mesh ball and the tea leaves in the nifty pitcher was astounding; the leaves in the pitcher were free to rehydrate to their former size, which was nearly three times the size of the leaves in the ball and the bag. And according to tea guy, these vessels acted as tea "prisons" and wouldn't allow the tea to reach its full brewing potential. This antiquated and barbaric method of brewing loose-leaf teas also prohibited it from achieving its full flavor potential, too.

It wasn't long before I joined in the chants of "free the tea!" and, once the tour was over and we were free to shop, we returned to the Gold Coast and each bought the requisite amount of tea that allowed us to use our 75% off coupon on a thing-a-ma-jig of our very own. I am confident that this was money well spent; I have brewed more loose-leaf tea this summer since, well, EVER. I guess I am officially a card-carrying member of the loose-leaf tea party!

Lost in Translation

I was sorting through a box of miscellaneous photos this afternoon, and stumbled upon a slip of paper upon which I had written two words: Pharmacy Buddha. Pharmacy Buddha? Eventually I remembered the context in which I originally thought I had heard the phrase; from our personal Chinese tour guide as we were walking through a museum of sorts within either the Lama Temple or The Temple of Heaven in Beijing last fall.

Overly knowledgeable but not-quite fluent, our guide's rapid-fire delivery of historic tidbits, Mandarin pronouns, and trivia information had sent my brain into fact overload on more than one occasion. Adding to my confusion was the utter foreignness of his accent to my Western ear; his pronunciation of some English words sounded quite like other words in our language, albeit with altogether different meanings. I scurried through the Forbidden City on the first day of our trip with a mental note to check his story about the Dragon Lady and her husband's mistress who she fed to a whale, as it sounded eerily familiar to the fate of Jonah (of Biblical fame), until he showed us what he was talking about. Dragon Lady stuffed her husband's mistress down a well, which was still unfortunate, but made a lot more sense.

Even though I don't remember doing so, I must have jotted down "Pharmacy Buddha" as we were peering through the glass at the menagerie of fat, happy, squinty-eyed religious icons on display. He kept referencing the "Pharmacy Buddha", so there must have been some significance to that particular incarnation of the famous deity, but try as I might, I couldn't find any connection between what I was hearing and what I was seeing. None of the figurines was holding a pill bottle or a mortar and pestle or anything, so then I began to wonder whether the ancient Chinese made Buddhas the same way we make Barbies. Barbie-- who, according to Mattel, has had 125 careers and counting-- is a Jane of all trades. So if there is a Pharmacy Buddha, is there not also a Park Ranger Buddha, a Helicopter Pilot Buddha, a Veterinarian Buddha?

A Google search of the phrase turned up quite a few interesting results, but none that even came close to corroborating our guide's story. So what was the significance of the Pharmacy Buddha? Unless one of my religiously diverse friends (with an ear for loosely related cognates) cares to venture a guess, I suppose I'll never know.

To Space or Not to Space?

It's amazing what a difference a space makes! This Redbox kiosk stopped me in my tracks early this morning. I stopped by Walgreen's on my way to work, and in my defense, I wasn't fully awake, but it took me the better part of a minute to figure out what the instructions were telling me. Had this vending machine of DVD rentals suddenly become multi-functional? Is there even a demand to rent the other item they were suddenly offering? I couldn't imagine that there was... I know first-hand that renting has its perks, but some items are just more practical to own. And, call me crazy, but sunscreen is one of those things I prefer to outright own.

If your neurons haven't already made the same faulty connection that mine did, I've zoomed in on the instructions that had me so confused. It wasn't until after my logical side rejected my too-literal initial thought that I figured out they had labeled the sun screen, the mini-shade that protected the computer screen below from the damaging rays of the sun. Phew. That's apparently too much for this grammarian to process on a Tuesday morning!