Chef Donald Link Day

I’m out of order and I’ll catch y’all up sooner or later, but I’m kinda tipsy and high on life.  I met a culinary hero tonight and I’m just giddy!

We had a lazy, slow morning because we stayed out way too late last night.  And this is where I’ll rewind to when I get back to reality.  But this morning started with a fruit plate to balance the fat and meat I’ve been eating non-stop.

Then we started off walking with a goal in mind. Like the mothership calling me home we went to Butcher for lunch.  Beer, a carcuterie plate, pastrami sandich and a pork belly sandwich and I’m in heaven.  I might as well go home now.

As if the day wasn’t perfect after eating that goodness. We walked off a bit of the lunchtime pork buzz and napped before embarking on dinner… (dah, dah, dah…)

We walked to Herbsaint for a 7:30 reservation.  We walked out of there 2.5 HOURS later and I cannot say a bad thing.  Our server Joe was exceptional, darling fella who took great care of us.  We ate our way through the small plate section so we could sample it all!  and it was ALL GOOD!  My top picks were the spaghetti with guanciale (pork cheeks) and the beef short ribs.

Now, I am not one to fawn over celebrities and I generally leave people alone unless they are thrown in my face.  But when SIL said, Chef is in the kichen tonight, I nearly wet myself.  The next time sweet Joe made his rounds, I prefaced my request with No is an acceptable answer, but I would LOVE to meet Chef.  I’ll see what I can do, he said.  Brother said, she came all the way from Oregon and I added it is Donald Link Day, we had lunch at Butcher.  He’s really shy, I’ll see what I can do. 

We’d nibbled more and I’d just so happened to have freshened my lip gloss, when I get the HE’S COMING from across the table (my back was to the kitchen).  Chef walks to the man of the table and I love my brother, he directs Chef to me.  He talked to us for a good 5 minutes.  I told him he inspred me to make bacon.  He told us about the book he’s working on now (I can’t wait!).  Chef Link was delightful and charming.  The rest of the evening people in the restaurant and the wait staff kept looking out to see who Chef had gone to talk to.  Brother looks like Bob Villa so that always a good rumor.

I’ll sleep a good sleep now and have dreams of pork bellies dancing through my head.  ahhhh…