I was down in Muskegon over the weekend and saw an old great lake battleship and a laker. A day later Etta and I watched the coast guard fleet sail into grand harbor for hundreds of people- an ice breaker and a Canadian laker whose painted side taught me that in Canada it’s “coast garde.” I got to ramble about how much I know about lakers. A night after that and I found Great Lake Warriors a reality show about tugboat captains around Chicago/ Michigan and in Lake Superior, including captain Stan Dawson, the wild one- “You don’t have to be crazy—-but it helps.”
At the staff meeting on Tuesday chef Rick and the staff spoke about the new menu format- for the first time in twenty years the grill serves mostly small plates, to share. The menu changed right about when I became a server. Most of the staff had worked with the old format for years. The chefs asked for feedback. After listening more than half an hour I had to talk. I jabbered about shotgun tickets and ordering mechanisms and chef Rick and Deann and the whole staff listened and then said “No, no, no- no way.” I participated.
You are a small plate. You are a big serving of sweet vegan BBQ, grown from grain in the soon-to-be-reduced-to-a-dustbowl high plains.