Pleased and Peeved in one day

Posted by Jacqueline Church Jul 24, 2006

Just back from a heart-warming wedding of good friends Tom & Leslie and notice an interesting juxtaposition of three food service related experiences.

• One, the New Haven Connecticut Wooster Street mecca for pizza lovers was a revelation. I love learning about something I thought I knew. Great server gave history (Sally's opened in 1938; original pizzas didn't have mozzarella, that was an American addition), gave advice on ordering, cracked jokes and served every table in the joint.
• Two, stopped by The Capital Grille in Providence en route back to Boston today. Nothing like a perfect steak (Delmonico or "Del" as Paul calls them, med-rare), glass of wine (Profile Meritage - incredible!), heirloom tomato salad - you know I love them, to take the sting out of having to wait for rush hour traffic to disipate.
• Three, culling through the weekend's emails I see a response from the Foodnetwork "Customer Service" staff that hits me like a slap in the face.Iron Chef Cat Cora recently used some peppers she quickly referred to as "Basque peppers." As you know, I'm reviewing the seminal Basque food guide and could find no reference. So, I dropped a note to the FN staff. The response goes something like this: "we don't give recipes. Enjoy the website and our shows." Of course there's the perfunctory "thank you for your interest..." yeah, that sounds like you're really grateful...

oy vey.

Stay tuned for my Basque notes, more on Sally's Pizza and other food musings from the weekend.