In the News / Business Plan Review / Sequence of Service / Other Reds

Like with the last few days of the school year every year up through high school, the last few days just feel...wistful, breezy, the last few grains popping through the hourglass. With Culinary Arts, we were jamming on our final buffet, with each student focused on pulling off three heur d'eurves. Now, we're just banging on about a template for a business plan for which much of the research will be made up, as there is not enough time to really get the information.

In the News was abbreviated, but dedicated mostly to pizza. Like last week's Bruni monologue on the state of the pie, this week brought a huge article in New York Magazine. The interview with Una Pizza Neapolitana's Anthony Mangieri made me want to just punch him in the face -- he's everything that is wrong with NYC pizza today. One thing that I really didn't like about NYMag's coverage is that it didn't really address where NYC pizza is going. Clearly, we're in a trend bubble and by this time next year many of the pizzeria's that have opened in the past 12 months will be closed.

Next up, Richard dedicated his time to reviewing the parts of the business plan template -- presentations start Monday. When mine is complete, all will be posted here.

Sequence of Service: basically what it takes to be a waiter or waitress. Up until now, I thought I could easily slip into this role with out experience. Now that we saw a training video for service staff at the Palm chain of steak houses....I definitely could be a server at a restaurant that doesn't suck as hard as the dickwads who are supposed to act like retarded monkeys towards the guests like at the Palm. I like service that is restrained and direct, clear and unobtrusive. At the Palm, they're all buddy buddy touchy feely, ick. SHUT THE F UP, I'M HERE TO ENJOY MY FRIENDS, NOT YOUR SMARMY ACTING!!

Still, there is a lot of detail work that goes into being a good server at a good place. Respect.

The class ended with a tasting of eight red wines, all of which tasted a bit like musty alchy vinegar, except for a barolo, that tasted like musty oaky alchy vinegar.