I got ALL of that beat. Way way back in the Summer of 2003, the guy I was dating had gotten me to sit down and watch Office Space for the first time ever. Everything I’d heard before had not prepared me for how little I would be impressed by the film. Sure it was funny, but as I’ve said before, my “office” movie is Nine to Five. The things I remember most from Office Space are Gary Cole and “my O face”.

After I called the Superman III scheme a few seconds before a character mentioned it, he realized the viewing was quickly going downhill, so he shook up a batch of cosmos but the only snack he had was a jar of pickles. We weren’t proud, we were short on funds and we weren’t putting on pants, so pickles it was.

Lemme tell ya, the best ideas are born of desperation! And as it so happens that today is another day when I’m not proud and happen to have a pickle handy, I’m takin’ it back to ’03! Unfortunately, supermarket jar dills work much better than the deli variety, it relies more on salty than sour, but if you’re a homemade pickle person you can easily make them to your taste. So don’t bother with pickle juice with your cocktails, think more about a pickle pairing!

I’m a bit excited about this year’s new offering, the Toffee Mocha Latté. Even though I don’t normally go for their candy-like drinks, something about that chocolaty toffee sauce just sounded so good! So far, it hasn’t disappointed. I ordered one this morning while they set out a sample tray and it’s not quite like a candy bar dunked into a coffee, but has just enough sweetness in the opposite direction from my usual Vanilla Latté to make it a viable option. I hope other customers like it as I wouldn’t mind seeing it stick around even after the colder months. There have been more than a few seasonal drinks at the ‘bucks that I’ve loved, but have never been seen again.

So here I sit, in my air-conditioned office, sipping my espresso drink while the sun’s already ramping up for a hot day out there and yet… life is good. Happy September, everyone, and here’s to cooler days!

After surviving a birthday happy hour last night for Thrifty DC Cook and the subsequent 2-for-1 cocktails at Halo, I was sort of slugging through the day with a serious craving for pizza. So I thought I might knock off over to Matchbox on Barracks Row for lunch. Since I’m following their twitter account: @MatchboxDC, I noticed their daily posted soup and pizza specials and there was no question I’d be heading over. After a failed plan to meet up with some friends, I aimed to head out on my own, but some co-workers decided to come along with.

We split their Steak and their Serrano Ham/Pecorino Romano pizzas–and 6 mini-burgers–and were completely satisfied. Generally my team doesn’t take long lunches, so getting out of the office is a treat for us. The service at the Barracks Row Matchbox is always friendly and patient with us even when we have a larger group. My only complaint about Matchbox and it isn’t severe is that it sometimes seems like the food can take a little while to get to the table. On the few occasions that we haven’t gotten appetizers, our stay seems like it’s much longer than just the hour we’re there. But overall, it’s a great choice for lunch. They also tweet their nightly dinner and weekend brunch specials. They really get how twitter can help their business.

So as we’re in the office and post-lunch full & sleepy, I catch up with friends on twitter making them jealous with my pizza pics. I got the heads up that Curbside Cupcakes is heading down near my office. I confess to a wee bit of teasing them as I’ve seen them posting their locations to twitter and Facebook and I was a bit vocal on twitter asking why they never visited my part of the city. Ok, I pouted, I ain’t too proud about it, but it worked!

I hung around the office, tracking their updates and waiting for them to announce their location. It was right on my way home! When I left the office, I could see the pink mini-van in the distance and what most surprised me was the number of people walking right past them to the metro. However we did talk for a while after I bought my dozen cupcakes, and it really wasn’t the best time for them to be there. At that time of day, most people were thinking of heading home and as we know, WMATA frowns upon eating on Metro trains!

I picked up a nice assortment of cupcakes, and they insisted I taste one since I’d never had one before. WOW! With the icing they’re yummy, but I purposely avoided it on my second bite and the cupcake itself was moist, tasty and sweet. Everything you’d expect from hand-mixed, homemade cupcakes. Yeah, they don’t machine mass-produce these and it’s apparent from the look and taste–in a good way!

As delicious as the cupcakes were, just as much fun was talking to them about what they do and it’s really apparent that they love it. Another customer drove up to the van and they recognized her from yesterday–she’s stalking them! And not to toot my own horn, but they totally called me out as the reason they came to that part of town. I’m not saying pouting always works, but… don’t discount it!

So the lesson is that if you have favorite local restaurants, check out their social media accounts. A lot of newer restaurants are on twitter, but others maintain Facebook pages while others prefer to monitor their Yelp pages. Check out the places’ websites to see if they’ve embraced the social web. The people making the updates are usually very friendly and responsive and it’s a great way to let places know how much you enjoy their food and service.

It’s also a great way to keep yourself stuffed throughout the day. No complaints!

Herewith is a modest list of dos and don’ts for servers at the seafood restaurant I am building. Veteran waiters, moonlighting actresses, libertarians and baristas will no doubt protest some or most of what follows. They will claim it homogenizes them or stifles their true nature. And yet, if 100 different actors play Hamlet, hitting all the same marks, reciting all the same lines, cannot each one bring something unique to that role?

Even though he only seems to mention servers in his introduction, I would note that some of these items aren’t solely the server’s responsibility even if the customers are inclined to only blame the server for them. Still there are a lot of good points and it makes you wonder when our expectations as diners are either too high or when they’ve become too low.

Some of my favorites:

• Do not make a singleton feel bad. Do not say, “Are you waiting for someone?” Ask for a reservation. Ask if he or she would like to sit at the bar.
• Do not recite the specials too fast or robotically or dramatically. It is not a soliloquy. This is not an audition.
• Do not bring judgment with the ketchup. Or mustard. Or hot sauce. Or whatever condiment is requested.
• Do not serve salad on a freezing cold plate; it usually advertises the fact that it has not been freshly prepared.
• Do not ask if a guest needs change. Just bring the change.

I’m usually never a fan of “blog entries” that just consist of lists, but these two articles seem fairly well thought out, if a bit heavily weighted on the side of the patron. And 100 items does seem a lot, though after reading them through, there’s a lot of common sense mixed in with general hospitality rules. Still, I’m not going to keep this list in my pocket and judge my dining server experiences by it!

Seriously though, with all of the geeky things I do in life, it has always seemed odd–especially to my family–why food seemed to emerge as and eventually match many of my other hobbies in terms of importance. When I was a kid, my main concern was that we never ran out of peanut butter and jelly, but the potato chips always had to be Lay’s. In high school, I took cues from my mother who–bless her–wasn’t always the greatest cook. She has her standards, and some items she excels at, many things picked up from her mother, but realistically she had the “working mother/wife” role, so churning out 5-star meals wasn’t high on her list of priorities. When I went to college, I was all about Top Ramen at first, but slowly started to notice other things in the store–canned items, mostly, but it was a start. My roommates were most impressed when I added real shredded cheese to the blue box Kraft mix.

I can’t really say when the food bug bit me after college, but before I tackled proper recipes, most of the dishes were just applied knowledge of what goes with what. Not a very impressive statement for someone who’s “top dish” at that point was oatmeal, but you have to start somewhere. Along the way I tried more things, usually just for myself, though I noticed that everyone loves baked goods! Many people say that once they realize they can make bacon at home, there’s no need to leave the house again. For me that food item would be cheesecake. Well… steak too. In any case, enough about my cooking history. If you’ve read my other blog, you know that my cooking experiments have their measures of success and failure, but they’re all fun.

That’s what I’m hoping you’ll most find here: an appreciation of the fun of cooking, the joy that we all find in food, pictures and reviews of my food and that of others, and you might just learn something along the way!