After five years of service at a four-star resort--in banquets, room service, fine dining rooms, high tea, private bars, presidential suites, in white gloves and white jackets, in cumberbund and black ties, in heels, short skirts, long skirts, silver service and bone china, in bartending, table-serving, running trays, cocktailing, among first cooks, dishwashers, sliver polishers, housekeepers, middle managers, dispatchers, and the German woman who all those years hemmed my uniform pants and fitted my skirts ("in a week you'll be asking me to make it tighter and shorter when you see how the other girls wear them," she said the first time I met her and I tugged at the bottom of that tiny black front-slit skirt)--
and knowing full well that all works in miracle tandem, for every table is a theater--
I am no longer a diner at ease. I would rather not be served at all, but if it so happens I am with friends who are treating me to dinner, I try to look away when somebody botches the performance else I become one of my terror memory guests who sent everything back, complained to the manager, and left a poor tip as a lesson--
I know dining too well to be impressed--
but I had the best food I've ever eaten--and I mean it--last night at Miguel's: the calimari breaded in masa harina, flash fried, and served with sliced pepperoncinis, red bell peppers, and sweet cloves of roasted garlic; the ceviche filled with tiny lemon-cooked scallops and shrimp and tossed with fine bits of serrano and cilantro; the halibut crisp, tender, served with thin crisp shavings of fried plantain, a crisp squash medley, creamy rice, wilted spinach, amazing.
Wow and thank you.
My homesickness begins.
