Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Waitstaff Words

Okay, so a few of you are curious as to what "ISSN" stands for. It stands for "International Standard Serial Number" and it is used by libraries, search engines, and others to index the periodical world.

Next question.

My wife, being mostly unemployed and enjoying a little extra time at home, has been watching a little extra television and her favorite channels remain HGTV and The Food Network. Because of her, I actually have some small understanding of who people like Paula Deen, Alton Brown, Bobby Flay, and Rocco DiSpirito are.

So this is for her ... and for anyone else who wants to eat a little lighter.

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THINGS YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR FROM THE WAITSTAFF

"Oh, sorry, hon, we're all out of coffee."

"Tonight is 'Tip and Spit' night. The more you tip, the less we spit."

Any non-verbal rumbling from below their neck.

"Hey, lemme know if you find a rhinestone stud ... I dropped one of my nose piercings about five minutes ago."

"Okay, I'll put that order in, but you'll need to sign this waiver, first."


[selected from Chris White's Top Five on Food]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: From the Romans the French adopted the word seison, which meant "sowing time." The word eventually came to denote any unspecified length of time. By then, people had learned that certain foods could benefit from a bit of aging, and this process churned out the verb, saissonner. In 1066 William the Conqueror brought the word to England where it became "season." Since seasoning some foods was meant to improve their taste, the word soon came to be applied to *anything* added to food that made it taste better.

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