Restaurant Raconteur

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Sarge gave me some inspiration with his post the other day about going out to eat, so I thought I would document the resulting thoughts.  However, I might be a little overly confident with that title. I will tell a little story here, but I can't be sure it will be with any skill or wit per Webster's definition.  Raconteur is a word I've heard before, but doubt I've ever used it here.  I saw it twice very recently and liked how it sounds.  It was in a book called Calico Joe by John Grisham.  Known mostly for his legal thrillers, this one is about a baseball player in the '70s. Another sports related story that I absolutely love of his, one of my favorite books, is Playing for Pizza.  It's about a disgraced quarterback who runs away to Italy to play in the Italian League.  While there and dining in the owners restaurant, he discovers that while he has a paid contract, most of the players on his team are paid in food, hence playing for pizza.  Highly recommended, mostly due to his descriptions of the food that will either get you salivating, or looking for flights to Italy, but probably both.  I read years before our trip to Rome, and it cemented my interest in going.

As for Sarge's post, Marchetti's does sound delicious. I've had my recent fill of Italian as my command Christmas party was at a Italian restaurant in the Little Italy neighborhood of San Diego, Nonna's.  I hadn't seen that word before seeing it on a Netflix movie title about the cooking from a bunch of Italian grandmothers. I had the chicken pesto gnocchi which was excellent.  Last night we attended a benefit catered by a gentleman we know who owns The French Gourmet restaurant here in San Diego. 

I saw an article that said the restaurant was closing on January 4th.  I'm saddened by news of restaurants or businesses shutting down, sometimes because they lose their lease as the owner wants to sell to a developer to build more apartments.  You know the saying, "you can't stop progress," and that's definitely true here in San Diego.  However, it's the way this progress is progressing that I really dislike.  In an attempt to accelerate new housing growth, the city has changed all sorts of zoning laws and fast-tracked development.  The builders can now put up apartment buildings in single family zoned neighborhoods, buying up lots for far more money than buyers can afford (driving up housing costs), using money they don't have to spend on lots in more costly multi-family zoned areas.  But even worse is that these dwellings are without parking.  They let developers build without any space for vehicles if they are within a half mile of a bus route which is pretty much anywhere.  But few in California take public transit.  Those apartment dwellers will just take up all the local area city street parking that is already congested.  That leads to angry residents, cars being keyed, no room for resident trash cans, or cans being moved to driveways and thereby ignored by the trash trucks, etc.  I don't think the city actually cares about it residents, or even about the need for more housing.  I think they're just after all the developer fees to help close a $3.3B pension deficit, but that's different pithy political post for another day.

Anyhoo, after reading a few lines of the article, I quickly got online and made a reservation to support him in his final days of culinary amazement.  His restaurant is a quaint and stylish little place, looking like some cottage in the French countryside.  It has a French bakery in the front and a small seating area off to the side.  We've been many times for special occasions, and even Easter and regular brunch.  And he's catered many of the benefits we've attended over the years.  However, after I finished making the reservation I finished the article.  It turns out he is not getting pushed out by a landlord, he is the landlord.  He himself has decided to retire at 71 years old and he has accepted an offer from a developer, one that has been after him for 10 years.  He stated that it wasn't yet time and the offers were never serious enough to make him consider it.  However, they significantly increased it recently as well as buying an adjacent lot, offering him $7 million for the loss of the business, the sale of the building, and the lot it sits on.  While I don't necessarily want to see another congested apartment complex without parking, you can't stop progress and I cannot blame him for accepting that figure.  

Either way, we will enjoy our dinner, it just won't be with sadness for him.  At the benefit last night there was a silent auction and I noticed his name on many of the items.  Seeing how he's flush with cash he was feeling generous.  Not sure how many items he took away, but he has plenty of time and money to continue that type of philanthropy and I wish him well.

I hope your Advent season is going well.  Besides the Christmas party and the benefit on Friday night, our weekend social calendar wasn't finished.  I put on a nice red suit as part of the local VFW's "Santa at the Ship" event which gives out toys to junior military families whose father or mother are either on deployment or recently returned.  My Mustang Club purchases the toys and donates funds for the bikes.  I wasn't supposed to be Santa this year as a 92yo VFW member asked to play the role,  and they wanted to indulge him, seeing how you never know if he'll be able to do it in the future.  However, he got quite fatigued lifting children onto his lap so he had to leave about halfway through the day.  I was in the Alert-5 position though and quickly transformed into St. Nick.  

Mrs. Claus always makes Santa happy.

Other than that, we plan to have some neighbors over next weekend for a Christmas Open House, but that will be the end of us being socialites for the season.  The rest of the year should be rather quiet and low-key.  I plan taking just a few days of leave, bracketing Jesus's birthday and New Years.  Work is already quiet as the active-duty folks are allowed to phone muster for much of the Holiday stand down.  I roll my eyes at that, but it keeps the gate traffic down!  I'm not sure I'll write again this year, so I'll wish you all a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.