The Family Meal

Everyday at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., Massimo eats with the family. His restaurant family - not ours. In restaurant kitchens all over DC, New York and I'm sure the rest of the world, the kitchen and dining room staffs gather, in somewhat of an orderly fashion, to grub. For we office workers of the world, this is a pretty nice perk. Most of us are stuck eating Subway or that New York style Chinese buffet at $20 a pop, and in front of our computers no less.

But since the restaurant business is all about the balance between profit and food cost, the staff meal meal doesn't exactly consist of truffle risotto and a nice Chateau Lafitte. In fact, at least when I worked at the restaurant as a hostess, we usually ate penne in tomato sauce and salad with balsamic dressing which is a pretty nice little repast by most standards, but if you eat it every day it gets depressingly boring. And eating at 5 o'clock when you get off work six hours later just sets you up to stuff your face later - and there's no healthy food around after 11. Seriously.

Still, the family meal is precisely that - a time for the staff to eat together, hear about the daily specials and give each other shit. And once in a while, one of the Salvadorean or Mexican line cooks will make a great big pot of spicy chicken soup, or, like the other day, the menu will include:

chicken parm
fried rock shrimp
whole roasted chicken
cilantro rice