adios con amor

this is me.

 

i'm having a momentous moment. can't you tell?

the new restaurant where i worked is currently blowing up the NYC food scene. that's right. worked. last week, i quit. it wasn't the place. all the people in it were amazing. fun. supportive. vivacious. the work was insanely stressful. the food was ridiculously delicious. the person making it even more so. (ooh la la.) in the few months i'd been there, i made fast friends, felt comfortable and at home.

good by end of night deliciousness in a bowl.

but I'M DONE! no more scripty special telling. no more fetching people things. i fully committed to the club and they to me, which means last night i had a very serious conversation about the appropriate shoe choice for someone dancing on the bar. i couldn't ask for a better fit.

still, the other night, i saw one of my coworkers from my previous restaurant at the grocery store and after we gave our umpteenth hug goodbye with promises to get together next week, a huge wave of nostalgia slammed into me. i had moved on, but it felt almost like the opposite. everything about that old life had become stale, from the same walk to work, to the same conversations i kept having with the guys in the kitchen. but i'd loved that sameness for 5 years. and now it was over. having left my newest restaurant, it really really is over.

i texted a friend about it and her response was, "well, it's all just a flash in the pan, isn't it?"

touche. life. it's here. until it isn't.

in a testament to how terrific the people were at my last gig, the Chef de Cuisine, made me an omakase for my last meal.

omakase translates in Japanese to "i'll leave it to you"(sez wikipedia). when up to my CDC, he chose to feed me the entire sushi menu, along with some kind of scallop, rice, and spicy mayo broiled in a half scallop shell ridiculousness.

 

this is sea urchin. and after a hate hate relationship,
i've decided okay, yes, it is delicious, kind of.

sadly, i don't have a picture of the scallop shell concoction. but i do have this photo from the evening. it was taken by the TimeOut NY photographer.

someone please tell me to stand up straight more often.

she knew she was capturing images of a hot new restaurant, but she didn't know she was capturing a photo that on the very small scale of my life was even more momentous.

goodbye Chez. goodbye that Corrie.

hellooooo dancing on bars.

yes!