Service Included

I love food.

This does not mean I necessarily love eating. I have to be in the right mood to eat, a problem given my current milking status. But I love food in all of its incantations.

I love cooking.
I love selecting produce (and meats) - though I hate grocery shopping.
I love farmer's markets.
I love cookbooks.
I love the Food Network (especially anything with Alton Brown).
I love trying new food (not the same as eating).
I love festivals with food.
I love talking about food with anyone who also likes it - one of the reasons Himself and I get along so well - we sit and dissect the potential ingredients of anything new we eat and play amateur critic at every new restaurant we visit.

Most of all, I love reading about food.

Because food is a growing obsession, there are more and more books out about food - especially narrative nonfictions - one of my favorite genres to read. Favorites include: Julie & Julia a dialogue about a woman who sets out to cook and eat every recipe in Julia Child's The Joy of French Cooking in her tiny New York apartment, Garlic & Sapphires - the delightful tale of Ruth Reichl's misadventures and split personalities she creates as the New York Times restaurant critic, and Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain's behind-the-scenes look at the underbelly of the culinary world.

This weekend, I gleefully picked up a new narrative - Service Included from the library - the very first patron to check it out. I read the entire thing on the drive to and from visiting Himself's family in The Great Frozen North. It was, as Anthony Bourdain would have referred to it (and as the author commented on), "Food Porn." I was in absolute drooling heaven as I read the author's narrative about her 18-month stint as a captain at Per Se, the NYC offspring of Napa Valley's The French Laundry.

More than my love of reading about a 4-star restaurant from the waitstaff's point of view, was my vibrant memories of my one (and probably only) dining experience at a similar restaurant - Maestro at the Tysons Corner Ritz Carlton. As she described the food, the philosophies, the adventures, the setting, I replaced it all in my mind with my own 4-star experience. Chef Keller became Chef Trabocchi. Laura, the manager, became Emile. NYC became Tysons Corner. The food - American with a French influence became regional Italian with an American influence.

Last Halloween, Himself and I took advantage of a complimentary dinner at Maestro as guests of the chef and manager. I had hired the entire back-of-house restaurant staff for an event earlier in the month and was rewarded with the most exquisite dining experience of my entire life.

We, as guests of the chef, were given no menu - instead we were asked if the chef could cook for us (of course!) and how many courses we would prefer (Himself, starving, answered that the suggested 7 courses was fine). What we didn't realize is that, as guests of the chef, we would also get several extra courses - resulting in an 11-course, 3.5-hour dinner that stuffed us so full we didn't eat for another 24 hours. It was absolutely divine.

For 3.5 hours we were the only people in the universe, it felt. A cast of waitstaff swirled around us, anticipating our every need before we even knew we needed it. We sat, entranced, watching our food prepared in the open kitchen - like watching a silent ballet. We enjoyed the 50+ bite-sized dishes (tasting again - my favorite way to eat). We tried not to look like a couple of "wanna bes" and tried to limit our amazement and drooling to after everything was said and done.

Had we paid for the meal, we would have been out $400+, not including tax and tip. It cost us the extra $40 I put toward the 20% gratuity the house picked up for us (a startling revelation - I never expected the house to also comp our tip!). We left, feeling uncomfortably full and completely satiated, vowing to never forget the experience.

It made reading Service Included even better because I had lived, even if only for a few hours, a 4-star life, and I could easily picture everything she described - the sites, the sounds, the indescribable flavor of black and white truffles, the feeling of being the only people in the room - the most important people in that split second.

It made the red curry we had for dinner last night very dull indeed.