Service Included

 

I have an unfortunate habit of going to the bookstore and grabbing random books in addition to the one I had originally planned to buy. I picked up this book based in the front cover. Like the chef’s tasting menu she hawked, these little tidbits encompassed a wide range of Damrosch’s life, to the delectable dishes about the restaurant to the underseasoned bits about her personal life.

I must begin by confessing that I am a server, and have been for several years, at different styles of restaurants. The first half of the book was enjoyable for me, as I recalled my own efforts in opening a restaurant–though certainly not the grilling that the Per Se servers went through–and at rediscovering new foods. Lots of career waiters are foodies at heart, and Damrosch really manages to convey this love affair with food combined with the anxiety that comes with Saturday night dinner rush.

However, as many reviewers have said before, the second half of this book was a let down. Okay, so she and Andre went to somebody’s wedding: why is this relevant? The diner the couple frequented started off promisingly, as she compared the two dining experiences, but fizzled when she couldn’t really tie it to anything else in the story. The drama between her and Andre’s ex should have been much more prominent, especially considering they work together. Restaurant people are all about drama, so the fact that the whole fiasco was so downplayed meant that she was leaving a lot of juicy stuff out. She was either being nice or hiding some details about her own self, which makes for a boring book! And she spoke about the amount of money she was making, yet she and her sommelier boyfriend shared a studio apartment? Though I guess I’m not completely knowledgeable about NYC rent rates.

I guess I’m basically saying that Damrosch could have written a much better book if she had had an editor who had pressed her into bringing all of her stand-alone chapters together thematically. I have a livejournal so I can read about my friends’ daily trials, and I don’t need to buy a book. There’s nothing wrong with Damrosch’s writing, technically, and in her food-driven ecstasies I was right there with her. But the book would have been much better if she could have brought it all back to the restaurant, brought it back to the reason we bought the book.

Also, especially after seeing lots of like-minded reviewers here, how did this book become a New York Times Notable book? Is it because it mentions the Gray Lady so often in reference to its food critic, or is the literary committee just that much in love with this blog and it’s occasional references to NYC landmarks?

Soapbox moment: she quickly glossed over her reasons for quitting, and that may or may not have had to do with tip sharing with the chefs. Some reviewers have jumped on this as shocking, but it is a fact of restaurant life. Chefs at nice restaurants like that don’t work the line because they want to: it’s the stepping stone to a better job as executive chef somewhere else. At times, it gets physically demanding, but for waiters, the job is always physically demanding. You may see an older chef, but rarely an older waiter. Unless they go into management, a waiter can’t stay in the industry indefinitely, while for a chef it is a career move, as much as one starts in the mail room in an office. And finally, in your local restaurants that aren’t vying for Michelin stars, the kitchens are filled with immigrant workers because there isn’t a lot of promoting or career roads, and like I said, it’s hot and at times, physically demanding. Plus, for some darn reason every guest wants to order their food at exactly the same time, so you’re suddenly inundated with twenty orders that still have to be ready in 12 minutes. You’re not going to find too many culinary graduates there without a promise of promotion. So I would appreciate it if, whenever you hear someone complaining about the racial heritage of a kitchen staff, you should kindly ask them to rethink their opinions, or even try it for themselves someday. < /soapbox>