Restaurants continue to thwart me.

Today is the evening of my 50th birthday (don't laugh; you'd think I had better things to do) and my younger brother very kindly offered to take me out to lunch today. "Have you ever eaten at Salvatore's, that nice Italian place?" he asked.

"Why, no," I replied; "Indeed, I have not."

My brother tells me that it's quite good food for such a small, lesser-known restaurant, and offered to take me there. Nice guy, my brother is!

Today was a Sunday, and my brother actually had to work for a few hours at the office later this afternoon, so we had to get there around 1:00 PM. The after-church crowd beat us there. I arrived ahead of my brother, it's blazing hot outside, and this having been my first time at Salvatore's, I didn't know one had to be signed in by the head waiter for a table, and that guy was nowhere in sight, leaving me to stand there alone, awkwardly. Adding to my discomfort was the insufficient air conditioning. It wasn't much hotter outside on the asphalt. As I waited as instructed by the "wait here to be seated" sign, there is no one at the front counter to greet the guests.

Yes, I realize that any restaurant is going to have these challenges during peak times, but hear me out. One of our small town's church-goers, who'd also come there to eat but was behind me in line, wearing his nice shirt and tie (which no one but lawyers wear around here, other than on Sunday mornings), then takes advantage of my lack of understanding of the rules...and actually pushes me out of his way, stepping in front of me, and made haste to scribble his name and the number in his party before I could put my own "John, party of 2" name on the shopworn paper tablet.

Again: I was there first; Mr. "I Just Got Outta Church; So I'm Holier Than Thou", who cut in front of me in line. (Don't get me wrong; I'm not a "hater". Many of my best friends are Christians, and don't be have like this.) He gives me a sidelong look as if knowing bloody well that this behavior is hardly "Christian", but who cares; he's done his obligatory act of obeisance for the week during Sunday services that morning, right? It's now every man for himself!

We'd have been better off patronizing this local food truck with the unfortunate name. This is really a "thing" here.

Finally, the manager, an effete little creature with an air of great pretentiousness for a guy whose restaurant is in a small rural cattle-town next door to a wal-mart, slowly makes his way to the counter by the entrance and asks me "what I want". He might as well have asked, "what are YOU doing here." I tell him, "well, it's me and one other person, who's on his way." And no, I wasn't dressed badly so as to earn this disdain; I knew this was an allegedly nice place, so I'd worn a polo shirt, my best shoes, and so on. I didn't stand out as though I were some heathen interloper among these fine, holy worshipers who continued to glare at me as though my very presence might delay they themselves getting waited on. (That part was eerie, by the way.)

I turn aside for perhaps one minute to text my brother that this might not be a good idea, and in that tiny interval, one of these fine pillars of the community has defiantly scratched my name off of the wait list and written in his own there instead!! Really?!? The manager, of course, has vanished again, and could clearly care less. (For all I know, he was an accomplice.)

Hoo-boy, I can't wait to leave this Google review. My brother arrives, sees the mob, and we throw in the towel... There's a nice BBQ joint next door, so we head there. The food there was great, the wait was not long at all, and the service was 100% top notch, with the friendliest, most polite waitress you'd ever hope for. She even allowed as how her friend works right there at Salvatore's, and tells her that the managers there are known to be all passive-aggressive like that if they don't like you.

This is the second time in a month that I've had a bad experience in an Italian restaurant. Italian food is the best! Why can't Italian restaurants in the Midwest have not-rude service?? I don't want to bore you with the other story in the same blog post, so I'll save that for later. In the meantime, check out what I found at the grocery store!

It's summertime grillin' season, and I ran across this at the store while looking for more black peppercorn for my dining room pepper grinder.

Mind you, my small apartment's "dining room" is maybe 7' by 8', after some of it is taken up by my deep-freezer, and the dining table in it doubles as a poker table. Don't judge. Anyway, as soon as it's convenient, I'm going to mix a little of this intriguing seasoning into some ground beef patties, marinade it in something savory overnight, and grill some awesome burgers.

For now, I'd better sign off and post this. Maggie, in her increasingly grumpy old age, is demanding her dinner a couple hours earlier than when I usually feed her & Molly, and her bitter complaints are getting on my nerves, ha ha. :-)

FEED. ME. NOW.