Last Minute Gifts

All the rich people are in a panic. They’re not as rich as they thought they were. Many of them will now stiff housekeepers, bellmen, waiters, drivers, and all manner of service people in the name of austerity. That’s the way. Some look at it like a party, where everybody gets to dress down and use the kitchen, fire up the Viking, watch some movies. Great Depression nostalgia, but with good wine. Sometimes, you just have to spend a buck. After all, it’s Christmas.

Many rich people don’t know a thing about money, except how to spend it. One guy I know said that it’s a good thing that rich people have money, because they know what to do with it. True enough, but many of those people haven’t a clue how to get rich, only how to be rich. And they love each others company, unless they invested with Bernie Madoff, which is like being in a club that practices cannibalism, only you don’t find out until its too late.

Bernie’s sales force was legion and none of them were on the payroll. They were just getting dividends, proud to say: The fund is closed. You can’t get in. But I know someone who knows someone. And boy, do they have money. That money was taken care of by Bernard Madoff, the rabbi of have some, get more. There were so many people clamoring to give their money to Bernie that the world was too small. There was more greed than planet. But the only people who got health insurance were his kids, who seemed to accept greed as the way of the world, as a virtue that trumped the other Cardinal Sins. The rest ate each other.

It all fell apart in China, where they'll eat anything but money. Money they burn, but only the fake stuff. The Chinese don’t understand the ephemera of money, the burden of money, the idea that money is something to turn over to someone else because you can’t do a thing but spend it. The Chinese like to see the money – on the table and into their pocket. Whenever I’m doing business with those guys I bring cash, which is going to happen more often since The Fed just lowered interest rates to zero, which doesn’t hurt the Fed too much, since the Chinese are the ones holding all the cash. And you can forget tips in China.

Taking Inventory

I have two girls working for me. They handle concessions. They both want to take over the world. The problem is, they just got started. They hate each other and they hate me. They haven’t figured out how to hate me together, which is good. And it hasn’t dawned on either of them how to actually make a sandwich. Once they figure it out, I’m toast.

One of them came to talk about 'branding.' I told her that I hate that word. I told her to substitute the word ‘reputation.’ She looked at me like I was a dunce. I explained to her that a sandwich is eaten one person at a time and that you have to make each person want more than one sandwich. Think content, I told her; style will take care of itself. Besides, style is not your strong suit. Boy, was she pissed. I’m sure I should have said: “play to your strengths.” It was a failure of tact, which makes everybody suffer.

The other one wanted to tell me how to truck cheese. She just read an article on line somewhere and she was crazed – times and temps, air pressure, crust, shelf life. She was shouting at me. At first I was amazed and then, as she kept talking, my mind started to wander from the certainty of cheese to her contempt for me. She was talking to me like I was two years old and knew nothing of cheese. I wanted to throw a tantrum. I am cheese. I know where in Caserta to go on Christmas but here in town I get my cheese from one guy, who delivers, and if he dropped dead I know where I’d go next. In fact, I might go there sooner than later. One thing is for sure. Cheese is not a problem. And that’s what I said, perhaps too loudly.

Neither one is talking to me, but neither to each other. Every time one gets an idea, the other accuses the first of stealing her idea. I’ve explained my belief that ideas are useless. It’s all in the making. They have some crazy sandwiches in Hanoi, but I couldn’t deliver them here. Besides, people aren’t calling me up looking for a duck slider or soft-shelled crab on a bun. Roast pork is more like it, with some tooth to the bread. Rare roast beef, mortadella, the stuff we know. I once had a cook in Milan tell me: This recipe is 1000 years old. Who am I to change it? My father made it for 70 years. I’d rather spend my life perfecting it.

I told this to the girls. One said that it sounded boring; the chef must be boring, likewise his restaurant. The other one agreed. In a rare moment of harmony, they trashed a thousand years and a family’s pride. I was worried that it might interfere with the normal work flow, but the next day they were back to suspecting each other’s motives as they filed their inventory sheets, which is the good thing about doing inventory, it keeps everyone quiet.

Jersey Tomatos

I just got back from Miami. It was a trade show, so I can write it off in 08, which is going to be the last good year I’ll see for a while. From now on, break-even is the name of the game. That’s what I told everybody down in Florida. I call it the 99-cent club. Count us all in for a dollar, along with the three stooges from Detroit. But they have their expenses covered. And compensation is deferred I’m sure. By the time they’re gone, they’ll be set. The rest of us will have to settle for less.

People tell me my prices are too high. I had a guy who made me explain to him what I spend all the money on. We were both at The Raleigh. He’s buying drinks for $20 apiece and he wants to complain about the price of a hoagie. When I look at a prosciutto, I understand why a guy wants $300. It makes sense to me. But some guys want 5. I met a couple of guys who wanted 7 - Italians, selling the last pigs on earth. And they didn’t care that the guy from Michigan could deliver bulk at 2 and change, because it’s domestic. They laughed at him. And you know what? Most of my customers wouldn’t know the difference. And neither would you. But that’s the thing with ham. It’s a cult.

I like to walk the floor at trade shows, see the people. I go to fairs all over the world. It’s a way to get around. It doesn’t add much to the price of a sandwich, and I always come away with something good. That’s how I met my wife. She was helping out her brother, who was selling oxygenation, which you need to farm fish. My wife was the beautiful girl attached to the pitch, which everybody needs. It’s no wonder the Italians can charge so much. We were introduced at a party given by some vacuum packers. The minute I met her, I was ready to start a fish farm. But I tend to stick with what I know, which is what I tell my wife, now that I know her.

Here, a global sandwich. That prosciutto is domestic, in case you were wondering. That tomato? Some guy in Chile grew it for a guy in Holland who uses a Greek to get it here, where I buy it from you know who, who got it from some Chinese. I used to get my tomatoes from Jersey. The guy who grew them drove them here in the back seat of his car and took the money in cash. Those tomatoes are easy to miss, I'll say that.