Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Those are the days of the week now, and sometimes time doesn’t move linearly, and all of a sudden that chore you did yesterday was actually last week but also tomorrow. I keep going back to Gabriela’s advice from the CS Journals V1 — set time limits for activities and allow your brain to rest, from time to time.

This week, we have new faces, new thoughts, predictions about what the restaurant industry might turn into, memory lane tasting notes, and some work from the Writing Workshop Counter Service and Eat Me. Drink Me. hosted this weekend.

If you haven’t, also make sure to check out our STAY-AT-HOME Art Benefit, donating proceeds to Service Workers Coalition in Brooklyn, and to the artists who have submitted. We are stoked.

Peace and love and health and creativity. Come let your minds wander.

Banana bread is supposed to be like cake. I’ve gone outside today.

The store has more soap.

I locked the door before bed.

The store has more towels.

The laundry was changed over.

The door was locked.

The door is locked.

Casserole Pot of Dreams

Words by Kelly Reid

“The Casserole Pot of Dreams” was born out of a need to fill my achievement deficit that being made unemployed had caused.  I – like so many of Counter Service contributors – am in the restaurant biz, and after working 50hrs a week everything came to an abrupt standstill and it was – surreal.  

I freely admit it’s always my secret dream that we’ll close the restaurant (especially if it is before a brunch service) and I lock up and walk out the door. Well, careful what you wish for darlings.   

At first I was elated at my new found freedom – until I wasn’t, so I took a leaf out of my cousins book.  She had created an “Activity Jar” for her kids to keep them amused – they had all written fun things to do on pieces of paper and put them in the jar.  Then a random slip is drawn and whatever is on the paper is completed.

Now, I had recently bought a house and had done exactly nothing on it – so I made a list of all the things I was able to achieve (big and small) and put it in the largest most ridiculous vessel I had – a casserole dish.  I would document it on Instagram to keep me accountable and hopefully provide some entertainment for others.

While it started out as a bit of a joke, The Casserole has helped fill the anxiety void that my lack of daily focus and caused and has reversed the angry Hulk picking fights with her boyfriend back into mild mannered Kelly.  Most importantly I’m learning new skills and I’m stretching my brain again and feel excited to get up each day.

Chanel’s almost too perfect, seemingly scripted string of words bob around my mind: I only drink champagne on two occasions, when I am in love and when I am not. As if she knew it would become a trite but beloved maxim. I cannot help but agree. 

For me, dirty martinis are a sensory series of milestones celebrating and emphasizing life’s highlights and lowlights. 

The first was a hangout in my early twenties in the Village with a slightly older, veteran restaurant colleague. After closing, we hopped across the street to Ditch Plains. He ordered. Vodka martini, dry, lemon twist. I followed suit, admiring and intimidated by his seniority and presence.  

As a captain, he fluttered about the floor, very theatric, red tendrils framing his sweetheart-shaped face, always speaking from his diaphragm, ready to belt a tune. A musical ear and Southern lilt suited him well. I adored him.

 In his domain, and in my ignorance, I deferred. Make it two, please. I restrain excitement, thinking James Bond, sophistication, finally holding a stemmed glass resembling what the older clientele with timeless attire request. He happily laps up. I slowly, painfully, sip a tasteless, burning liquid waste of $14.  

The fullness and digressions of our conversation numb the blows. Hearing my thoughts, he orders a second round of martinis—this time dirty. Salt. Chilled brine. Three olives to suffice hunger. This is it, this is my drink.  

Two of those later and on our way out, he snickers. We’re adults; drink what you like. 

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 A dear friend’s birthday falls in early January. We started at Donna. It was a snow day. My GM hours didn’t allot much for early evening activity, but this Sunday the post-brunch crowd lulled. She texted that most dropped out of the fete, given weather and shitty or costly transportation. 

 Wanting her to still have a full celebration, I pry my bartender and two investors in town to join us later. My then-girlfriend, now-wife, met me at work and we flew over in an Uber.  

 Donna was packed. Filled to the brim with a restless, young Williamsburg, protesting a quiet Sunday in, fearing being prisoners to cells in the beehive we call apartments. Making it past the door I see my petite friend’s bleach blonde hair, a buoy in the sea of heads and chatter.

 We hug, nestle into three stools, and order our first round of obligatory dirty martinis. Now in our thirties, we reminisce the badge of our twenties, its joys and pitfalls, through people-watching and shit-talking. Giggle over bad pick-up lines, commenting on articles of clothing—Is that a slip?! No, girl, a babydoll dress. Delias?! No, stop.

 Second round of martinis. We witness someone peel out of A Christmas Story-esque snowsuit to a summer maxi dress. The third round is met with deeper layers of talk between friends, where vulnerability and intimacy lie. 

We rally to another bar where a friend is spinning ‘80s new wave. My bartender and investors join. Cocktails and eons later, my friend is in the midst of a lap dance, my wife is channeling her inner 80s video vixen, and I’m tossing tequila back with two Irishmen at the bar. 

We were home by 1:30am. 

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A few days before my wedding, I meet my grandmother at the airport, drop her belongings at the hotel and take us to Durant’s for lunch, an old-school steakhouse in Phoenix. We embrace and are seated on a horseshoe banquette, at a table worthy for a heavy conversation between two mob bosses. The chophouse is dimly lit and dripping in warm vermilion.

 It is the first adult, honest conversation I am going to have with her. I order a dirty gin martini and for her, a glass of Riesling. Appetizers arrive and we exchange niceties. She asks to taste my cocktail. Ooooh Jasmine, that’s strong! We both giggle.

 At some point, everything spills out of me. Things that have happened to me that I hadn’t shared. Past relationships, my wrongdoings, those of others. Apologies for the distance. Questions about points in family history that I never had the courage to ask. 

 She is quiet, listening. She has always been careful to speak, and keen to listen. She emanates a unique, lush spirituality; beyond her high forehead her locks are long, curled gradients of silver. Her face is radiant, cheeks full and telling that she smiles and laughs a lot. Deeply set brown eyes that have seen, and see a lot.

 After the balloon within me for all these years, hot and full of frenetic matter, deflated and fell to the ground, I looked to her. She held my hand. When my grandmother says love, it’s this curvy, undulating, beautiful utterance. Full of rural Maryland, the o is like a long u-chain.

Our waiter approaches the table, and ever so slightly retreated a half-step, aware of puffy eyes and wiped-away tears. 

Well, I’m going to have another martini. Grandma?

Ohh, me too. Another wine, please!

We were still holding hands. 

The waiter took care of our last round.

1999 Viña Casa Silva ‘Reserva’ Chardonnay Colchagua Valley Chile 

It was December 2012 and we were somewhere south of Puerto Varas, Chile. We went into a local grocery chain that was massive and ugly and not at all what we wanted. We needed a few staples but much preferred the local outdoor markets with a plethora of local seafood and vegetables. It was their summer. I was with my boyfriend at the time. We had been in Chile for 1 month before we decided to visit his good friend who was making beer in Puerto Varas. 

We laughed and cherished the bottle of wine once we found it lingering on the shelf. We paired it with freshly shucked fava beans and large local mussels that we steamed. We must have been in a hostel because we used a communal refrigerator and stuck a piece of tape with my name on the bottle. I am still surprised no one took the bottle. We were suckers for White Burgundy back then so old Chardonnay hit the spot. 

I don’t remember much about the wine, but that it seemed to mimic our relationship. Something luscious and rich, and a bit unpredictable. We had one month together in Chile before we moved to Boston. The Chilean summer presented a brutal transition to the Boston winter of 2013. 

2004 Bonneau du Martray Grand Cru Corton-Charlemagne

It was 4:30am and the wine team had a tradition that once wine inventory was completed, we could try anything on the list that wasn’t unreasonable to open. We used the large white Burgundy glasses and I opened something surprising and a bit impulsive. The bartenders were just finishing up New Year’s Eve and I felt inclined to share. The wine was upwards of $400 on the wine list but why not? No one had tasting notes on this wine. This was educational. 

It was also January 1st, 2016 so it felt appropriate in my own hazy justification. New Year’s Eve inventory always felt celebratory and depressing. How many more years was I going to do this? It didn’t seem to matter because with 4 hours of inventory work behind me (and 3 more hours ahead of me on the computer), it was time to drink and take advantage of the perks of doing this work. 

NV Odinstal Riesling Sekt Brut Nature Pfalz 1.5L 

This bottle was split between myself and the man I am bound to marry. It was August 2017. We drank this over several hours in my 425 square foot apartment. It was fresh and tart and easy. I felt that way around him too.

He introduced me to my favorite white burgundies from Maison Valette and Maison en Belles Lies and Domaine Jean-Marie Berrux. These were savored treats whenever we had them. There is nothing like the experience of being in your late twenties and tasting a flavor you have never imagined, like how drastically different farm fresh garlic is versus the grocery store stuff. Who knew garlic could taste like that? Who knew wine could taste like that? 

These bottles always had me curious for another. They made me realize that I really knew nothing about love and wine and my future and that was okay. That is how it is supposed to be. 

Bründlmayer, Wieninger, Schloss Goblesburg, Hirsch, Nikolaihof 

There was no 1 bottle but close to 8 plus the mini bottles in the Bründlmayer suite in the Loisium Hotel in Langenlois. We collected bottles from each winery we visited and somehow drank ourselves dry when we split the bottles among 4 people post 11pm. 

This trip was with Ashley and Noell from the restaurant for 8 days in November 2015. We decided to explore Vienna and the Wachau, then Noell would have to fly back to the restaurant in Boston and Ashley and myself would travel to Budapest and fly to Paris and then back home. 

The day started with visiting 4 wineries and having a very late and light dinner. The night ended with broken glass, card games, cigarettes. Come 4am or 5am, there was a banging on the door that bolted me out of my sleep. Noell had gone sleep walking in the hotel’s corridors looking for the bathroom. When I woke up, I realized there was an extra human in our bed that I was not expecting. Our friend from the last winery we visited somehow fell asleep fully clothed in our king size bed with the rest of us. We had a 10am appointment 30 minutes away that we were not going to make. I showered after 3 hours of sleep and tried to shake my hangover off. Tasting wine was unbearable. 

Let CS snag your AUX CHORD and Sarah’s Playlist going to have you so focused you’ll lose track of time. I did.