For some reason this morning, by 9AM I felt like I'd already put in a full days work!
Last night's prix-fixe was very popular. We even sold a few pieces of the dessert a la carte.
I never got a chance to get a photo of the first course - a composed salad with roasted peppers and mozzarella cheese. The entree was a piece of catfish stuffed with roasted tomatoes, wrapped in bacon and served with a drizzle of lemon butter sauce. Looking at the plate, I realize how wonderful it is this time of year to see that every single vegetable - including the first course peppers and the tomato inside the fish - is coming from Kent County farmers. Even onions, from Arnold Farms, make it onto the plate. That is Kevin's mantra these days, "I love living in Kent County".
Dessert was a slice of cornmeal pound cake with some of Mr. Harlan's White Marsh Orchard peaches. I did put a few tablespoons of sugar over the peaches, but they barely needed it.
We still have not been able to get any soft shells, much to my and many others disappointment. Kevin could get frozen ones, but that is not what we want to offer. Last week he finally got an order of 3 dozen; when they came in you could have cut your fingers on the shells, they were so hard. They weren't accepted, of course, but I have to wonder what happened to them. Did someone throw them back into the bay, to turn into real hardshells? Or did they get tossed in a dumpster, dying for no reason? If someone had only taken them out of the sloughing box a day or two sooner, they would have been beautiful. I just hope they didn't die for nothing.
Now I want a soft crab sandwich worse than anything!
Tonight is Burger Night, probably the most fun night of the week. We get a real mixed crowd, many of whom come week after week. Lots of younger people, lots of regulars, lots of talk and joking around. I know I have much too good a time on the floor sometimes, but I just can't help it. It's contagious! I get yelled at for spending time chatting with "friends", aka customers, but it is in my nature to talk - I am, after all, my mother's daughter. I don't get to socialize every night; for instance, Tuesday nights when I am on the bar and on the floor, there is not too much time for small talk. And a super busy service has me scrambling around just like everyone else on the staff, hustling here and there to make sure each guest has everything they need in a timely and courteous fashion. But when there is talk to be had, and time for it, I am on it!
I hate that it is August already. My college bound bus girls have written their departure dates in the schedule book; it is dark again in the morning when I get up; lightening bugs seemed to have all but disappeared. Why is it that this month always seems to harken the end of summer, rather than the middle, which is what it is? And why can't we slow down the last few weeks of summer and speed up the entire month of January?
We haven't had a chance to watch too much of the Olympics. A little bit here on the computer and a few minutes late on Saturday night. It doesn't seem to have interfered with our business though, which was what I was afraid of. July went out with a bang and August is off to a good start. Typically this can be our busiest month of the year, with September and October offering a fair challenge. So far we are right about where we were last year, although I feel as though July might prove to be a little behind. It is notoriously very hard to make a profit in this business, and we work very hard to make every penny count - from saving the carrot and onion scraps for stock to cutting up old menus for scratch paper. A bit of extra business this time of year is what we count on to help keep us in the black, making it possible to get through those extra long weeks of January!
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