Ask Todd, Answer Gansie: Who Is a Foodie?

govegan

What used to be a semi-regular feature, where I would pretend to know as much about dining as the Washington Post restaurant critic, has trailed off. Tom Sietsema‘s food chats became either bigĀ  bitch fests (yes, children eat at restaurants, shut up about it already) or intricate critiques of not so exciting DC dining establishments, so I haven’t kept up in relating the interesting questions back to you.

The Washingtonian retains its own restaurant critic and hosts its own food chat. I don’t read Todd Kliman‘s chats, save for the snipet I get emailed to me every week. I’m usually entertained, but never was I so intrigued until I read this question.

Washington, DC: Can a vegetarian/vegan be a “foodie”?

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Ask Tom, Answer Gansie: Stop the Bitchin’

emptychair

A semi-regular feature where gansie gets to pretend she knows as much about dining as the Washington Post food critic.

D.C.: Dear Diners,

We want to make you happy, we want to provide you with great food, great service and have you leave us satisfied and content. That being said, we also like to minimize any potential problems (make them invisible). So when you arrive for a table and the dining room looks “half full” and we ask you to wait for a moment it may be that a server has just been triple sat (three tables at once) and we need to make an adjustment in the seating to give you a table in another section or maybe someone in the kitchen just dropped a tray of prep items, or passed out or well, just about any and everything. Please try and understand we are not trying to make you day any more difficult or harried, we are only making last second adjustments to make everyones experience better. And yes sometimes we fail. We’ll try and do better. Ciao!

Tom Sietsema: Hear, hear. Thanks for shedding some light on what goes on behind the scenes. Tell us where you toil!

gansie: <Relief> Wow. I absolutely love this confession. Well, maybe that’s the wrong connotative interpretation. I love this gossip. Even though I worked as a waitress, I never learned the art of hosting. It’s a practice in politeness, mathematics, politics and patience. I too am guilty of being all pissy when I see empty seats and the host tells me it’ll be a few minutes. With the calm of a dining room staring me in the face it’s easy to disregard the backstage craziness and perform an under-the-breath huff of frustration. Here is a lovely reminder: chill the fuck out or go home and fry yourself an egg.

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