Serve from the left, clear from the right

At least, we don't have to learn new names for directions, like port and lee.

We practiced setting tables and serving today in the Bistro. Peter's explanation of the placement of glasses and utensils made me think again about my earliest encounter with cookbooks, and how fascinated I was (at the age of seven or thereabouts) by the line drawings in Joy of Cooking. I really wanted to be someone who goes to those parties where there are five glasses as part of every place setting. It was a goal in life that I've achieved, once or twice.

Andy and I worked on the final production schedule, and Peter was quick to caution us about balancing out the cooking load over the four days leading up to our lunch on Thursday. "With this class, you can count on people not showing up," he said, and ain't it the truth?

Today's New York Times has a great article and video about Alice Waters at the Union Square Greenmarket in NYC. I looked for Joe in the background, but failed to spot him. The article also alludes to the Slow Food Nation event that I'd once hoped to work on as my internship, and I wasn't surprised to read that it's being significantly scaled down. Based on some personal and anecdotal experiences with the event planners, they seemed to be overly optimistic about what they could accomplish with the available resources. They obviously weren't using Peter's philosophy: "Under-promise, and over-deliver."