There are certain critical times in the food business. Mother’s Day is probably the most crucial holiday delivery for us on the distribution side of things. Everything must be perfect for mom. Caterers have specific functions that must be perfect, like weddings or awards banquets. I received a call from Chef Steven Alton King of David Walley’s Resort up in Genoa last week. He was livid. He had ordered quartered chickens for an event, and his sales rep sent him chicken leg quarters.
I say all that in order to say this…4th of July is really a breeze. The most pressing issues I encountered as a distributor was a last minute delivery (like 6am this morning) of some special order serving utensils, and a bungled order of shredded cheddar cheese (my fault) hat was fixed in under 20 minutes.
BBQ is king on the 4th. As I traveled through Pebble Beach I must have seen a half a dozen smoking bbq pits fired up before 10:00 am.
Around noon I decided to stop in and pick up some ribs, and to try and find some juniper berries at Smart and Final. No such luck. They had not a rib left in site, and the clerk had no clue what a juniper berry was. So I drove up to the large Albertson’s in Sand City.
It brings back memories walking into a grocery store on a holiday. They are understaffed (It used to be time and 2/3rds –overtime pay, plus you got an extra floater holiday, I don’t know what they are paid anymore). Customers sometimes have “short fuses”. And product is running out due to lack of deliveries and manpower. Folks were circling the meat department trying to figure out what to grill since the ribs were all gone.
I left Albertsons without Juniper Berries but with plenty of ribs, some Nathan’s hot dogs, watermelon, chips and adult beverages.
My grill was hot and ready to go at 4:01 immediately after the cut off for Thursday deliveries. But this was just warm up..this weekend with the kids all gone I’m heading to a river to cook and swim and generally carry on.
Happy 4th to you All!
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