- Full Title: 28 Day Diabetes Diet Meal Planner- Menu Me!: Lower Carb Menus & Easy Recipes
- Autor: Easyhealth Nutrition
- Print Length: 94 pages
- Publisher:
- Publication Date: December 30, 2014
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: B00RNFSV56
- ISBN-13:
- Download File Format | Size: pdf, epub | 1,84 Mb
OOK TO CELEBRATE THE GARDEN
MATT WILKINSON
Thank you so much for picking up this book and reading it. I have many cookbooks and not one person has thanked me for buying, reading or using them—so thank you. I hope that as you read it, you will be inspired by the same love of good food that inspires me every day.
CONTENTS
A GREEN THUMB
ASPARAGUS
BEANS & PEAS
BEETS
BROCCOLI
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
CABBAGE
PEPPERS
CARROT
CAULIFLOWER
CORN
CUCUMBER
EGGPLANT
FENNEL
GARLIC
HORSERADISH
LEAVES FROM THE GARDEN
NETTLE
ONION
PARSNIP
POTATO
PUMPKINS AND SQUASH
RADISH
TOMATO
ZUCCHINI
BASICS
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A GREEN THUMB
SO WHY A BOOK ON VEGETABLES, I HEAR YOU ASK
It’s quite simple. Thinking about the vegetables first is how I cook. I look to the season we are in to get my ideas about what will be on the menu where I’m working or what I will eat at home that night, and there is no better way to find out what is in season than looking at the often underrated vegetable. I build my dish around what vegetables are in season because this is when they will be the cheapest, most readily available and, most importantly, taste the best—and surely this has to be the most important factor when cooking, It’s a simple concept that when things are in season they taste so much better … But, then, how have we lost this simple thought process to eating? Look at each season. In spring, I walk into the garden and I feel alive—there is a fresh and crisp feeling in the air and soil, the trees are budding and their leaves have sprung forth. When I harvest the beans or peas from their stalks, there is a zingy snap to them—whether cooked or raw they taste so sweet. In summer, the earth is warmed and the plants almost hot to touch; with careful watering, they stay alert as though they are ready for battle. Just close your eyes and think of the smell of tomatoes—it’s unmistakable and makes my mouth salivate waiting for the first bite. Autumn arrives and the mood around the garden softens, the plants are readying themselves for the cooler weather. The vegetable patch has had a great time; the basil, sorrel, spinach and Swiss chard are looking magnificent and the butternut squash and zucchini are still going great guns. When winter arrives, I add the year’s compost and some manure to the soil and look at my blooming red cabbages that have been in the ground for so many months now. The broccoli is so alive and glowing such a deep green that I think I might harvest it for dinner tonight, and the salad leaves are crisp and so fresh.
Once I have decided what seasonal bounty to make the most of, and considered how the flavors will marry together, I then add the protein to my dish, usually meat or seafood, then some carbs if needed.
If you think back to times gone by, this was the way everyone had to eat. For most people, meat and seafood were not readily available, were too expensive or were hard to store (no fridges or freezers then). Over the past fifty years, technology has meant we can be a little lazy in our food thinking with great cuts of meat and seafood on hand. Today a lot of people think about what protein they feel like eating—will it be beef or chicken, fish or pork? Then what starch will be added to bulk out the meal and, as a final touch, throw in a few vegetables. This is where I’m a little different with my veg-first approach. I hope you feel inspired, while reading this book, to try the old-fashioned method to choosing the vegetable first. Vegetables are so much more diverse in flavor, types and availability than any old piece of meat.
MY FAVORITE VEGETABLES?
You might also be wondering how I arrived at the list of vegetables included in this book. Well, I can’t begin to tell you how hard it was to select them. (In fact there is even one vegetable in the book that I do at times detest. I’ll leave that one for you to discover, kind of a Where’s Waldo element to the book.) But let me tell you about some vegetables I didn’t have room to include: the sweet, earthy and diverse celeriac (celery root) and its sweeter, sexier looking cousin, celery; the Welsh national emblem vegetable, the grand ole leek; two personal favorites of mine that have the same ending name but come from different families—the delightful and thistle-looking globe artichoke, and the earthier yet knobbly sunchoke; and lastly the glorious funghi family, which some of us hate but others love (technically not vegetables, although they too come first when I am planning a meal). Perhaps, one day, there will be book number two, where I could include these: The Vegetables Mr. Wilkinson Forgot.
However, this being said, twenty-three out of the twenty-four vegetables in this book I could not live without (and, in writing the book, I’ve come to appreciate even the one I had long dis
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om manager
Personality traits
Salaries
Education and training
Advancement prospects
Unions and associations
Other dining-room personnel
Chapter 6: Living the Good Life: Working in Hotels, Resorts, and Spas
Seeing What Working in a Hotel or Resort Is Like
Making food for many people in many different areas
Understanding kitchen structure
Getting Acquainted with the Hotel and Resort Staff
Executive chef a la hotel
General manager
Head banquet chef
Banquet manager
Other culinary hotel and resort staff
Exploring the Spa Scene
Enjoying a slower pace
Placing an emphasis on nutrition
Gourmet cooking with high-end ingredients
Meeting the Spa Players
Executive spa chef
Other culinary spa careers
Chapter 7: Cooking for a Crowd: Volume Cooking
Catering: It’s a Party!
Working for a catering company
Catering to your own needs
Career profile
Cooking for Institutions
Considering institutional cooking
Looking at types of institutions
Career profile
Part III: Taking a Specialized Approach
Chapter 8: How Sweet It Is! Becoming a Pastry Chef or Baker
Measuring the Difference Between Pastry Chefs and Bakers
Edible Artistry: Understanding the Job of a Pastry Chef
Working as a pastry chef
Finding out where pastry chefs work
Career profile
Sifting Through the Job of a Baker
Working as a baker
Finding out where bakers work
Career profile
Savoring Specialization
Becoming a chocolatier
Decorating specialty cakes
Gaining Education and Experience
Baking/pastry arts certificate
Degrees in baking/pastry arts
Externships and apprenticeships
Chapter 9: Life On the Inside: Personal and Private Chefs
Personal Chefs: Making Meals Easier
Pros and cons
Working for multiple clients
Finding out where personal chefs work
Career profile
Private Chefs: Cooking for a Single Client
Pros and cons
Working for one family
Finding a job as a private chef
Career profile
Chapter 10: Old and New Trends: Food Artisans and Scientists
Taking a Traditional Approach: Food Artisans
Seeing what food artisans do
Finding out where food artisans work
Career profile
Looking to the Future: Food and Culinary Scientists
Checking out food and culinary science jobs
Finding out where food and culinary scientists work
Career profile
Chapter 11: Drink Up! Jobs in the Beverage Industry
Working at a Winery
Positions at wineries
Career profile
Tapping Into Breweries
Positions at breweries and microbreweries
Career profile
Pouring Drinks at Restaurants and Hotels
Positions at restaurants and hotels
Career profile
Part IV: Checking Out Non-Cooking Careers
Chapter 12: Culinary in a Media World: What It’s All About
Getting Your Love of Food in Print
Types of food writing jobs
Career profile
Sounding Off on Food
Broadcast opportunities
Career profile
Taking Food Online
Jobs within the digital media industry
Career profile
Chapter 13: The Star Makers: Public Relations and Marketing
Taking a Look at What Culinary PR and Marketing Professionals Do
Playing the name game
Contemplating the pros and cons
Spending a day in the life of a PR and marketing professional
Spotting Where PR and Marketing Professionals Work
Career Profile
Personality traits
Salaries
Education and training
Advancement prospects
Unions and associations
Chapter 14: Showcasing Food for Others
An Apple for the Teacher: Culinary Instructor
Getting the basics on culinary instruction
Finding out who culinary instructors are
Seeing where culinary instructors work
Career profile
Giving Food the “Wow” Factor: Food Stylist
Clarifying the food stylist job
Exploring food stylists’ workplaces
Career profile
Say “Cheese!” Working as a Food Photographer
Discovering what it’s like to be a food photographer
Finding out what kinds of places hire food photographers
Career profile
Chapter 15: Careers in Purchasing: Specialty Foods, Cookware, and More
Getting the Lowdown on Purchasing
Buying and Selling Specialty Foods
Purchasing for specialty food stores
Purchasing specialty foods for the grocery store
Career profile
Purchasing Cookware and Kitchen Equipment
Working as a purchaser for cookware stores
Managing a cookware store
Career profile
Buying for and Selling to Restaurant Owners and Chefs
Buying restaurant supplies
Selling restaurant supplies
Career profile
Noting Other Careers in Purchasing
Part V: Landing the Job, Moving Up the Ladder, and More
Chapter 16: Landing a Culinary Job
Starting Your Search: Where Do Yo
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y pass when I don’t cook at least one of these recipes. Bonhomie for the belly and succour for the soul.
{ Cooking at home }
‘Heat is just another form of seasoning,’ I was once told by that Celtic force of nature, chef Richard Corrigan. This is a man whose intelligence is matched only by his generosity and, as ever, he’s spot on. The flavour and texture of a piece of meat is affected by the amount of heat used, from quick sear to slow simmer. Yet too often the amateur cook fears real heat. We soften our onions on a piddling flame, and complain that it takes 30 minutes, not ten. We’re afraid of burning our meat, rather than browning it. And we struggle with gas that seems to have only two settings: nothing and too hot.
Experience is everything, and the more that I cook and learn, the easier things become. I still panic at the thought of hollandaise sauce, for example, yet soufflés hold no fear. It doesn’t help when chefs tell us how easy everything is, forgetting that they can bone chickens in their sleep, whereas I’d rather braise my own nose than attempt it again.
Professional chefs do have many advantages: when they dry-fry chillies, they have extractor fans that are so powerful they rip the words straight from their lips. No question of gassing out the house as it does at home. Nor do they have to contend with the smell of burnt dripping hanging around the sitting room for weeks after cooking huge portions of boeuf Bourguignon. Or the stench of chip fat clinging tenaciously to every fibre. They can blacken steaks to their hearts’ content, flambé duck without fear of ruining the ceiling and fling the fat with reckless abandon. That is the point of a professional kitchen.
At home, things must be a little more subdued, but it’s never quite as calm as the blessed Delia might suggest. She makes it look easy, as she’s been doing what she does, beautifully, for many years. All I’m saying is that cooking is often messy, smelly, noisy and painful. That a pan full of hot fat will always spit like a cobra when introduced to a handful of raw meat. And sharp knives continue to slice open even the most lauded of hands. Don’t fear the heat, and cooking suddenly becomes a whole lot more easy.
{ Fat }
Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, we worshipped fat. Fat was health, wealth and happiness. ‘The fat of the land’ was something to be coveted rather than disdained. We hankered after great wobbling dollops of marrow, gleaned from the bone with a specially shaped scoop. Fought over the last scrap of chicken skin. And lusted after lard, dripping, suet, schmaltz and butter. Fat carries flavour and aroma, provides the sexiest of textures, allows us to relish in our meat and delight in our food. Without fat, life would be one long lunch with Hare Krishnas.
Fat is also utterly essential to human life: our brains wouldn’t function without the stuff, our cells would cease to survive, join the bleedin’ choir invisible. Hormones would wither and die, immune systems buckle.
If the body were allowed to choose its fuel, it would go for fat, no question. Fat provides double the energy of similar amounts of protein and carbohydrates. Yet 50 years back, saturated fat suffered a spectacular fall from grace: from hero to zero in a matter of months. Scientists noted that coronary heart disease had suddenly become the biggest killer of all. At the same time, after the bleak paucity of the rationing years, there was an increased consumption of animal fats. No surprises there. Fourteen years of mock goose and Woolton pie will do that to an appetite. Scientists put two and two together and came up with four and a half. More animal fats, more heart disease, ergo animal fat is a gimlet-eyed, stone-cold killer. Animal fats became Public Enemy Number One. Despite the fact that there has been no conclusive proof linking saturated fat with heart disease, fat’s image was changed for ever.
That’s not to say that one could survive solely on a diet of butter, bone marrow, lard and milkshakes. Too much of anything, from rice cakes to lardy cakes, is never a good thing. The palate would start to tire and the body bloat. A healthy diet means a balanced diet, lots of green stuff, nuts, pulses, fish and the rest. Fat doesn’t kill; rather, too much of the wrong kind can. Allied with sitting on your vast, wobbling butt all day, munching Quavers by the ton and slurping entire reservoirs of Cherry 7-Up. So in short, embrace animal fats, revel in them, but don’t exist solely upon them. And buy the very best you can afford. Fat you can see, wrapped around kidneys or hugging a leg of lamb, is not the stuff to worry about. It’s those hidden buggers, creeping around all those processed foods, that are the truly dangerous foe.
Spaghetti with meatballs
{ SERVES 4 }
500 g/1 lb 2 oz minced pork
250 g/9 oz minced steak or beef
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You might associate chia with the 1970s grassy-haired fad product, Chia Pets. But today, it’s the latest superfood, a tiny black seed from the desert plant Salvia hispanica. Chia is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, protein, and antioxidants, and when it’s added to a liquid, it thickens that liquid into a pudding-like consistency. For this recipe, use a refrigerated variety of coconut milk rather than the thick type that comes from a can.
JAR SIZE: half pint
MAKES: 1 serving
½ cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons chia seeds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon coconut flakes
¼ cup diced fresh tropical fruit like pineapple, mango, or kiwi
1. Place the coconut milk in a small mixing bowl. Sprinkle the chia seeds into the milk and stir to combine. Stir in the vanilla and maple syrup.
2. Transfer the mixture to a half-pint jar, scraping up any stray seeds. The mixture will not completely fill the jar. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.
3. After the pudding has thickened, toast the coconut flakes in a small, nonstick skillet. Toast over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the coconut has turned lightly golden, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Transfer the coconut to a small plate or bowl, and let cool. Spoon the tropical fruit over the chia pudding and sprinkle the coconut on top. The pudding will keep, covered and refrigerated, up to 3 days.
Note: If possible, give this pudding a stir a couple of times as it’s setting. This will help distribute the seeds and prevent them from settling on the bottom, which creates a gummy layer in the bottom of the jar.
Raspberry-Chocolate Smoothie Jar
I didn’t understand what the fuss was about smoothie bowls until I finally tried one: Thick, creamy, and icy cold, it was like eating ice cream with (healthy, of course!) sprinkles on top for breakfast! Keep chunks of fruit in the freezer so you’ll be able to make one of these jars at a moment’s notice. An immersion blender and a blending cup are just the right size to blend up a single serving. And although I’ve chosen the combination of dark chocolate, berries, and toasted walnuts, you can choose your own delicious toppings. Granola, dried fruit, a drizzle of honey…the choice is yours.
JAR SIZE: half pint
MAKES: 1 serving
6 ounces vanilla Greek yogurt
½ medium banana, cut into chunks and frozen
¼ cup frozen raspberries
⅛ cup fresh raspberries
1 tablespoon toasted walnuts
1 tablespoon chopped dark chocolate
1. Using a countertop blender or an immersion blender with a bowl or blending cup, add the yogurt, banana, and frozen raspberries. Blend until smooth, occasionally using a small spatula to stir chunks up from the bottom of the blending cup or bowl. The smoothie will be very thick and spoonable, like soft-serve ice cream.
2. Spoon the mixture into the jar. Top with fresh raspberries, then walnuts, then chocolate.
Breakfast Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette
Buttered toast, tangy grapefruit, a perfectly cooked egg, and, of course, crispy bacon. They’re all here in this salad, which is as delicious at lunchtime (or even dinner!) as it is in the morning.
JAR SIZE: pint
MAKES: 2 servings
2 eggs
3 slices bacon
1 medium pink grapefruit
½ teaspoon honey
⅛ teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium red pepper, cut into strips
1 cup baby spinach
1 cup croutons (see page 18)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1. Place the eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cool water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low to maintain a simmer, and cook for 3 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the eggs, and transfer to a small bowl filled with ice water. Set aside. When cool, peel the eggs but leave them whole. This method makes an egg where the yolk is set but still just the tiniest bit runny.
2. In a medium nonstick skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp, turning occasionally, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer the cooked bacon to a paper towel–lined plate and set aside.
3. Supreme the grapefruit (see page 18), reserving the juice. Squeeze the center membranes of the grapefruit into a bowl. Discard the membrane.
4. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together 2 tablespoons of the reserved grapefruit juice with the honey, salt, and pepper. Whisk in the extra-virgin olive oil. Set aside.
5. To assemble the jars, divide the vinaigrette between two pint jars. In layers, add the red pepper, grapefruit sections, spinach, and croutons. Crumble the bacon over the croutons. Slice the eggs in half and nestle them on top. Salad will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 1 day.
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enough, but its answer leads us to some surprising and unex-
pected places. Ecologically, salmon inhabit large swathes of the
North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and, thanks to their intro-
duction in the late nineteenth century by fish culturists, the
South Pacific and South Atlantic as well. For eaters, salmon
are usually one of seven species from the Onchorynchus and
Salmo genera that English speakers call king, keta, pink,
coho, sockeye, masu and Atlantic salmon. The culinary lingua
franca of salmon, however, contains plenty of synonyms and
regional and national variations. In many parts of the globe,
king salmon are called tyee, Chinook, black mouth and chub.
Sockeye go by the names red, blueback, nerka and Kokanee;
coho can also be called bluebacks, though they are more often
described as silverside, white or silver salmon; to many, keta
is simply a marketing term for less pleasing sobriquets like
chum, chub and dog; masu is cherry salmon; pinks are hump-
backs; and Atlantic salmon has dozens of names, depending
on when and where it was caught.
At the same time, salmon nomenclature is actually more
complicated than these regional and national variations, for
the names we give salmon – and the very idea of salmon
themselves – are as much gastronomic as ecological. The
Salmonidae family contains six genera and species, yet
we know only seven species as salmon. Many of the other
species have as much scientific right to the salmon
moniker as the seven species that eaters call salmon. Part of
the Salmonidae genus, Salvelinus, is to all intents and purposes
a salmon. Species in this genus are often anadromous (spend-
ing most of their lives in the sea but returning to fresh water
to spawn) and they exhibit many of the same physiological
traits and evolutionary histories as those possessed by the
fish consumers call salmon. However, Salvelinus often find
themselves in fishermens’ nets and on eaters’ plates under the
names Arctic char, brook trout, lake trout or Dolly Varden.
There are even plenty of Salmo and Onchorynchus that leap
into our pans, but not as salmon. Salmo trutta is the Atlantic
salmon’s closest living relative. Genetically it is more similar
to the Atlantic salmon than pink salmon is to king salmon.
Eaters, however, call it a brook trout. Most perplexingly of
all, scientists studying salmon in the s concluded
that rainbow trout were more closely related to king and
coho salmon than king and coho were to keta, pink or sock-
eye. These scientists cleaved the very category of salmon
in two.
As muddled and complex as it might be, salmon
nonetheless do have a nature – a set of qualities that distin-
guish them from their piscine cousins. For the humans who
wait on shore with nets or patrol the coasts with hooks, the
most remarkable – some might say miraculous – part of a
salmon’s nature is its ability to transform the sun’s energy
into food for humans more quickly and efficiently than
Sockeye fishermen, British Columbia, late th century.
almost any other creature in the sea. In nature’s food web,
salmon promise tremendous returns for people who rely on
turning the sun’s heat into the chemical energy that human
digestive systems then cycle through our bodies. Salmon so
efficiently convert the sun’s energy into food because they
are dietary generalists. Much like us, they eat everything.
They do not have special features like a whale’s baleen or a
dolphin’s canines that might restrict their diets. In fact, salmon are constantly feeding, in large part because of their
gill-rakers, which continually filter food from the ocean.
Salmon passively consume daphnia, diaptomus and cyclops
(all zooplankton), surface plankton, small crustaceans and
dozens of larvae in such a way. They also actively eat squid,
candlefish, herring and sand lance. They thus feed on several
different trophic levels and in a variety of different ways.
When this characteristic is combined with their extraordinary
metabolic and growth rates, a normal fish becomes an
extraordinary producer of proteins and fats, which, some-
time in the not too distant past, exploded from a chain
reaction in the sun.
Not only do salmon efficiently convert the sun’s energy
into food for humans, but they also deliver that food in
meal-sized packages right into the hands, hooks and nets
of waiting humans. The survival mechanism that first
caused salmon to stray from their natal streams million
years ago today yields this unique trait. Scientists call it
anadromy, and it sends every salmon on a journey from its
freshwater home to the ocean and back during its lifetime.
There are , species of fish in the oceans, but as luck
turns out,
when I entered school that I had the first glimmer of a life different from my own. In my teen years I questioned everything and everyone, causing my parents—and especially my mother—no end of heartache.
When I started kindergarten, I didn’t know a word of English. I had grown up in a Greek bubble. Everyone I knew and socialized with was Greek. My theios (uncles) and theias and my cousins—these were the people I saw on a daily basis; this was my family and my social network. When I went to school, my mother dressed me in a suit with dress shoes and black socks. I got the sense that all of the kids were laughing at me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. When I first distinguished the words “black socks” and understood them, I finally knew why they were laughing at me. They were all wearing jeans and white tube socks. I was the immigrant kid dressed for school as if he were going to church. They were eating hot dogs and hamburgers for lunch. I was eating souvlaki and spanakopita.
Some things got easier—I learned the language and made a lot of American friends—but other things got more difficult and more complicated. I straddled two worlds: the Greek world I lived in at home after school and on weekends—a world my parents knew and trusted—and the American world I inhabited at school. And in each world, I was a different person.
I wavered between these two worlds because I loved my family; the foundation and principles with which I had been raised; the pride of culture, cuisine, and heritage—but I also resented it and my parents, specifically my mother, because she was essentially the one who raised us. My father was always at work and my mother made the rules in our house. The way I saw it, she was the one who stood in the way of me really integrating into the local culture. As a result, she, not my father, was the one who bore the brunt of my frustration.
But as my mother hoped and knew I would, at the end of those rebellious years I came out on the other side with a great appreciation for my family ties, roots, and Greek heritage. While I was growing up under different circumstances, my youth wasn’t all that different from that of my suburban Long Island peers. Happy childhood, rebellious and troubled teen years, and an early adulthood with a loving and caring family: I still sat at my mother’s table and devoured everything she cooked every night of the week at our daily family dinners.
Many people believe in fate, luck, serendipity. You can call it whatever you want. There are so many junctures in my life where, had I turned left instead of right, it would have altered my path—would have changed my life dramatically. Some people know what their passion is from a very young age, some people never figure it out, and, for some, destiny delivers it to their door.
After college, still living at home in my parents’ house, I was working as an accountant and I was unhappy. This was not the career for me, but, admittedly, I was lost and didn’t know what career path I wanted to take. As many of us who weren’t quite sure what to do with our lives did at that time, I decided to go to law school.
I had lived at home during college and now I wanted the opportunity to live on my own. My plan was to apply to law school in California and, after I had saved enough money, move out there and go to school. I needed a job with flexible hours so I could attend classes but still earn enough money to pay my way through school. Becoming a waiter or bartender seemed like obvious choices. But back then, you couldn’t just walk in off the street and get a job in the front of the house (restaurant-speak for the dining room staff). The restaurants wanted a résumé of related experience.
After a month of applying to countless restaurants, one day I commiserated with my sister Maria, who told me that she had a sorority sister whose boyfriend was the manager at a T.G.I. Friday’s. The restaurant was in the next county, a twenty-five-minute drive from where I lived. I never would have applied there were it not for Maria. Maria’s friend asked her boyfriend, and I had a job.
From the minute I hit the floor, I loved working as a waiter. I couldn’t believe what a perfect match it was for me. It was as if I had been groomed from childhood specifically for this role. From a very young age, it was always my job in my parents’ house to make sure that everyone who crossed our threshold was made to feel welcome, to feel at home. I asked people what they wanted to drink and delivered it to them. I made sure their glasses were full and that they had enough to eat. I committed their favorite drinks to memory and for years to come would remember what they liked and be able to serve it to them before they could ask. They were happy and, in turn, that made me feel happy.
It was at T.G.I. Friday’s that I met Anna, the woman who later would become my w