Sunday, September 24, 2006
by Ospite. 
We've coined it as the "nationwide spinach recall" on the floor. We're not supposed to mention "Escherichia coli" or "e. coli" or "kidney failure."
Patron Situation 1:
"You guys aren't serving any spinach are you?"
"Yeah, we figure that the chances are pretty slim of getting an infected batch."
Hey, you've got to have just a little fun with them. She turned a little white.
"I'm kidding. We knew before it hit the media and we haven't had spinach inhouse since before you saw it on CNN. Fear not, we're spinach free."
"Thank God."
Apparently people think that we prefer lawsuits to keeping our customers safe.
Patron Situation 2:
"Ok...so I don't want any spinach anywhere near my food."
"Don't worry sir, there's none in the restaurant at all."
"Ok...so they won't have any raw spinach near what I order?"
"No sir. We've thrown all the spinach out. There's none anywhere."
"Ok...good. I don't want to hear about spinach near my food."
"As far as I know sir, there isn't spinach within a quarter mile of where you're sitting."
"Really? That close? Maybe you should make all my food well-done."
"Absolutely."
Because I hear that e.coli travels by word of mouth...
Patron Situation 3:
"I'm sorry to inform you that in that salad, we'll have to substitute romaine or bib lettuce instead of the spinach."
"Oh God. I hadn't thought of that. Well, at least you're on top of things. Has this whole debacle caused problems for you?"
"Well, it effected far more dishes than I'd immediately thought, but most customers have been very gracious and understanding."
"That's good. I take it you got rid of all the spinach you had in the restaurant?"
"We certainly did. We immediately removed all presence of the dark green leafy terror."
She laughs...then pauses.
"Wait, did you compost it? Please tell me you composted it. If you didn't I'll feel ill all night. I'd hate to think of pounds and pounds just wasting away in your dumpster."
"Sure madam. We..uh..we composted everything."
"Thank God."
Really we had it incinerated, but I simply can't have an ill patron at my table...nor one that finds us (and therefore me) to be lacking environmental savvy.
Patron Situation 1:
"You guys aren't serving any spinach are you?"
"Yeah, we figure that the chances are pretty slim of getting an infected batch."
Hey, you've got to have just a little fun with them. She turned a little white.
"I'm kidding. We knew before it hit the media and we haven't had spinach inhouse since before you saw it on CNN. Fear not, we're spinach free."
"Thank God."
Apparently people think that we prefer lawsuits to keeping our customers safe.
Patron Situation 2:
"Ok...so I don't want any spinach anywhere near my food."
"Don't worry sir, there's none in the restaurant at all."
"Ok...so they won't have any raw spinach near what I order?"
"No sir. We've thrown all the spinach out. There's none anywhere."
"Ok...good. I don't want to hear about spinach near my food."
"As far as I know sir, there isn't spinach within a quarter mile of where you're sitting."
"Really? That close? Maybe you should make all my food well-done."
"Absolutely."
Because I hear that e.coli travels by word of mouth...
Patron Situation 3:
"I'm sorry to inform you that in that salad, we'll have to substitute romaine or bib lettuce instead of the spinach."
"Oh God. I hadn't thought of that. Well, at least you're on top of things. Has this whole debacle caused problems for you?"
"Well, it effected far more dishes than I'd immediately thought, but most customers have been very gracious and understanding."
"That's good. I take it you got rid of all the spinach you had in the restaurant?"
"We certainly did. We immediately removed all presence of the dark green leafy terror."
She laughs...then pauses.
"Wait, did you compost it? Please tell me you composted it. If you didn't I'll feel ill all night. I'd hate to think of pounds and pounds just wasting away in your dumpster."
"Sure madam. We..uh..we composted everything."
"Thank God."
Really we had it incinerated, but I simply can't have an ill patron at my table...nor one that finds us (and therefore me) to be lacking environmental savvy.
6 Comments:
I love the spinach stories, keep them coming. Particularly the thought that e.coli in the ground as compost is so much better than a controlled burn in a sanitary waste container.
You mean you managed not to sneer at eco-lady, saying:
"But madam, much like the original culprit of infected cow manure, that would return any e. coli present back into the food chain to appear unpredictably in other foods long after your befuddled butt forgot about it. But hey, at least they'd be /vegan/ e. coli, right?"
isnt it only fresh spinach that is banned?
i'm not real up-to-date.
Technically, hasn't the ban been lifted?
My sister the server is going through the same thing. She says people keep picking green things out of their food and accusing the green things of being hidden spinach. I had no idea people were so OCD. I thought I was bad. So glad you all "composted" that spinach!
Heh. I had a customer pick up a large leafy forkful of salad and yell across three tables to ask me, "Is this spinach?" I laughed and assured him we didn't treat our customers that way.
Sadly, moments later another table of mine informed me that they knew one of the women who had died. And one has to wonder if it can get into the spinach, can't it get into the other leafy greens?
It ain't easy being green!
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