A Rainy Night in Georgia

It’s a stormy Saturday morning here in Tel Aviv outside our soul food kitchen in Tel Aviv.

I walked our dog Funny, who is terrified of thunder but in her dotage seems blessed with limited hearing that keeps her slightly more content at these times. Oddly enough, she’s afraid to venture back inside the house. Go figure.

Irit is still snoozing. Her influence though doesn’t stray very far, and, based on her advice, I’m roasting a mix of garlic, padron peppers, and zucchini on this amazing ceramic comal platter that a dear friend sent to me from Savannah. I also tried, based on her guidance, to bring out some food to a homeless soul who is camping out in front of our house along the boulevard, with a ten meter long mountain of mostly plastic bags he collects. The collection is nothing short of impressive, and he spends hours each day going over his inventory. He doesn’t want any food. But he’s happy to take some of our excess plastic bags that we try unsuccessfully to bring home.

A local company that aggregates chefs such as Etzlenu sent us an SMS yesterday, indicating they were not pleased with the number of people landing on our page, despite the fact that revenues are up — and so as a form of punishment, we were being relegated to the very bottom on their list of chefs. They don’t like my outspokenness, basically, and want to teach us a lesson. It’s personal. If business management is indeed limited to a strategy of carrots and sticks, I wonder how long such a company can sustain itself managing solely by sticks. It’s OK. What goes around, comes around.

Seems like it’s rainin’ all over the world.