The Worst Person in The World......Catering Style

This should be different......

Chloe....and Mother Earth.... finally got revenge on me for my Diet Coke aberation. An old, flat, lost can of sticky formaldehyde dumped all over my former computer right at 6 o'clock on Monday Night, with a Store full of whining Carmel altecockers.....

As they say in Boston: "My hard drive.... shit the bed!"

The computer died just post food menu....but before Lee got out a wine menu. Lee had arrived at the last minute from his real job of winemaking, still wearing rubber boots and soaked in Pinot Noir....."Hmmm. No wine list? Well, I guess I could just ask them to trust me, huh?"

The look that passed between us was one of the saddest I can remember, given its brevity: "Yeah, like rich white goyishers would trust the opinion of a hardworking young winemaker who just drove there over two mountain ranges after a ten hour day....and who is at their table not for the money, but because he loves all aspects of wine and wine service and just wants to do a good job for its own sake.....in the cheapest restaurant on the planet......well, in California, anyway.

Like that should ever happen.

Our real clientele don't even order wine....they just let Lee bring it....I mean, really. He knows the wine; he knows the people; he knows the food, he is fatally honest and efficient.....why not let Lee deal with the wine? But these folks don't come in until 8:30. A long two hours......

Anyway, my friend Horace sent along one of those internet survey chain letter things....where you write down your favorite movies, books, TV shows, vacation spots, jobs, places you would rather be, people you would rather be with, etc.

The email went all around the world. There was one woman who kept popping up as the one a bunch of folks would rather be with....but that is another story. The TV show that everyone watched was Keith Olbermann....a Cornell guy I must point out.

Keith has a segment each night where he nominates "The Worst Person In The World". It is usually Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly.

Last week one of those studies came out about depression, suicide and substance abuse in the workplace.

SHOCK!! HORROR!!

The number one worst job in the world for depression, suicide and substance abuse........

Restaurant cooks....

Followed closely by bartenders, waitrons, etc.

And you thought it was being a Christian Republican Member of Congress.......

Anyway, those of us in the midst of depression, suicidal tendencies and multiple and various forms of substance abuse were not surprised in the least.

And, after a long discussion.....we realized that it is not the job....or the pay....or the long hours....or the brutal working conditions......or the fact that our art is temporary and ephemeral....and when the moment of joy is past....a pile of shite remains that we then get to clean up while everyone else is sleeping.

No......It is you fucks. Well, not you guys that are actually reading this.....but all those other people.

So, we have been considering our version of The Worst Person in The World.

Some nominees:

LA Art Guy:

I am tending bar in the Creepiest House in the Universe.....(all grey and black; unsealed granite in the kitchen so that WATER stains....and we have to cover the entire kitchen in linen to protect the counter tops and floors from H20.....a known stainer.

The hostess and the architect must be from the W.C Fields School of Liquids. (When offered a glass of water by an anxious hostess, the great man replied: "Madam, I don't touch water. Fish fuck in it.")

I am working off a four foot table, which is covered in crazy expensive martini and champagne glasses the host supplied. He has his own martini mix, pre-made. He has insanely expensive white and red wine, and stupid champagne. A little gin....4 oz for 40 people....no bourbon, some scotch and an ocean of vodka. Two bottles of beer.

His daughter comes up to the "bar".

"I'd like a Chambord Kir Royale."

"Well, Sweetie.....I'd like a cure for AIDS, but it is not likely this evening...."

"You don't have Chambord?" Sniff....exit stage left.

Obviously I have a tiny little penis.

I used to tend bar at The Colony in New York City.....in three years, no one ever ordered Chambord....and even us Future Alcoholics of America never bothered to taste the dusty bottle we had on the back bar. Even the handbag designers and the fag hags never ordered it.

I should have it on a four foot bar covered in glassware, though.

Next up....The Sister of the host: "I want a vodka gimlet."

"Yeah, well....I am rooting for the Eventual Success of the Revolution of the Proletariat...........that is more likely, Sweet Cakes."

Vodka gimlets require Rose's Lime Juice....of which, of course there was none. I squeezed limes, added in aloe syrup, shook it like a fucker in a shaker.....and made something close.

"When I go into MY neighborhood bar....there is always a proper vodka gimlet waiting for me...."

There goes that tiny little dick thing again......I should have pulled that one out of the ethos...or my ass..... even though the last vodka gimlet I made was at John Gardiner's Tennis Ranch in 1978 for Ethel Kennedy. One should be prepared, I guess. Ethel and The Sister are both from Virginia.

I should have known.

Now I know why I get all those Penis Extender emails........

The capper, though: Hollywood Art Boy,

"I want a Pina Colada."

"Yeah, well.....I was thinking about a blow job right about now.....neither one is likely."

"Well, then....how about a Mai Tai?"

This is an adult human being.....looking at another adult human being....standing behind a four foot table covered in glassware, with three bottles on it.....none of which are rum...and none of which are any sort of fruit drink of any kind. I mean....WATER stains this kitchen....what would coconut milk do....or pineapple juice. Jesus Christ, the architect would shit the bed.....

Sniff.

"I ALWAYS drink Pina Coladas......Why can't you make one?!!!"

Well.....I have two of the ingredients.......a glass......and ICE!!!"

The Worst Person in the World?

OK....Nominee Number Two:

We like to serve Oysters Laura England at The Cachagua Store. These are oysters on the half shell with an arugula leaf underneath, napiered with porcini cream....dosed with asiago and fucked under the broiler. We normally serve six.....for about six bucks. Our cost per oyster is about 80 cents....so this is a suicidally stupid dish for us to serve. 80% food cost gets you thrown out of the Cornell Hotel School. But.....we like the dish; we like the people that order it.....and I am still a little in love with Laura England....the homewrecker in an ultrasuede pants suit that helped me develop the recipe one New Year's Eve.

One Monday, we had 59 oysters that passed muster. We could do 11 orders of five....and have four left over....or we could do ten orders of six and short someone one oyster. As if we would ever sell ten orders in Cachagua on a Monday. We went that direction.

Our buddy, Mr. Reese came in with a festive table. They ordered six orders of oysters, which wiped us out. They got the short order, and we forgot to tell them.

Mr. Reese is cool....he would not give a shit. His guest, on the other hand.....

"I only got five oysters."

"Ahhhh....damn. These Cachagua guys.....can't count above four. We'll take a dollar off your bill."

"No....I ordered six oysters. I want six oysters."

"Well, steal one of your buddy's. That is the last oyster in the house."

"No....I want my oyster."

"Yeah.....Well, I want the Eventual Success of the Revolution of the Proletariat......I will take a dollar off your bill. It is OK."

"NO!"....pipes in the wife....."It is NOT OK! He ordered six oysters....and he only got five!"

Wow.

The Worst Person in the World?

Nominee Number Three: Donation Man

A guy shows up at The Store. He bought dinner for two at a silent auction for Bill the Saddle Guy....something that the Queen of Cachagua and Jamesburg......Joleen Lambert.....put together for some poor old working class artisan without insurance who got sick.

The guy came with his wife, and announced his victory in the auction. He paid $80 for dinner for two, with wine......that we had valued at about $100 for auction purposes.

Then he told us that he was desperately allergic to sugar, and fish, and milk and cheese. He got very angry when he discovered that we brine our chicken and pork.....and that Micah uses a pinch of sugar to jump start the yeast in his home-made bread.

End of the meal came.....and his bill for two amounted to $80.....just what he had paid at auction. And pretty much everything on the menu that did not involve sugar, fish or dairy.

We, of course....had donated his meal to Joleen and her sick saddlemaking friend.

Fuck-wad now demanded his change from the $100 estimated value of the meal, and the $80 he had paid.

"I want my money!"

Yeah, well.......You know the refrain by now.

Turns out it was his wife's birthday. We all sang "Happy Birthday, You Asshole" as they left......

And, of course.....no tip for the girls....

The Worst Person in the World?

Nominee Number Four: Hillary Clinton

We struggle to adhere to an organic standard....for the sake of our own souls, and the sake of the planet.

More than that....we try to buy stuff that is from within a hundred miles....and we like to put a face to the farmer.

We worship Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farm.....even though Joel is a Christian fundamentalist. (Joel is the only Christian fundamentalist we know that does not owe us money.)

Joel believes in sustainable agriculture. He is intensely technical....in an old fashioned way. He has studied the carrying capacity of his land, and only asks of it what it can give him. He knows his nitrogen uptake....and the amount of nitrogen his various critters produce. He matches them all up exquisitely....and even build Rube Goldberg machines to make it all happen. Joel grows heirloom varieties that match his local micro-climate and the local micro-economics.

We believe that our work and our food match Joel's attitudes perfectly.

The exact business opposite of Joel is a company like Monsanto. Monsanto is changing world agriculture by patenting genetically modified seed stock that will not reproduce itself.

In the old days.....farmers harvested most of a crop, but let a portion go to seed so that they would have seed stock for next year's crop. In a passive natural selection process...the crops that flourished in the particular local environment provided ample harvest and ample seed to be a self-sustaining enterprise.

Monsanto patents its seed...and its seed supposedly does not reproduce. Each year the farmers can't use stored seed....they have to repurchase everything from the lab. Their most famous product is RoundUp Ready seed.....where the plants can be sprayed with RoundUp herbicide and only the weeds die.

RoundUp Ready seed stock actually does spread, though....pollen blows around, you see.......to the point that we have had to relax the organic standard in North America to allow for the more than five percent RoundUp Ready gene stock that is now endemic in all our fields. Monsanto even sued an organic farmer in Canada who they found to have a certain amount of RoundUp Ready grain in his fields....despite his best efforts....and WON. A large enough judgement to put him out of business. Fuck that hippy bastard anyway.

Last Friday, Hillary Clinton.....her erstwhile adopted Arkansas twang rampant....finally announced her "Rural America" policy paper in Iowa....where the primary struggle now rages.

The venue for her announcement?

The office of the registered Iowa lobbyist for Monsanto.........

The Worst Person in the World?

Dipshit 1, 2, and 3 are not going to change my life......

This chick is a menace......

Fuck Hillary Clinton.