A Book and a Restaurant

We'll go with the good before the poor...



This was a book of which I read the majority for my class. As you can tell by the title, it's about the everyday life: the cooking, cleaning, and leisure time that takes up much of our time. For example, the section on food examines everything from the way we choose and prepare food, to the sensuality of food, and on to the historical cultural connections that influence what we consider edible.

And speaking of food.

I made the mistake of wandering into Seattle's oldest restaurant, The Merchant's Cafe, for lunch yesterday. The smell of barbecue Lays potato chips that came with my turkey melt has finally dissipated but was the inspiration for this post. I was lured in by the history but should have turned away when I saw only two occupied tables. I brushed off the lack of diners and remembered an interview with August Wilson that I read which supposedly took place over coffee here and thought, "if it's good enough for him, it should be good enough for me." Well, that wasn't the case on Tuesday: in addition to the chips and the strange-tasting sandwich, the diet coke was flat and even the pickle was bad.