It’s not true that more than half of all restaurants fail within their first year. It actually takes almost two. Don Day’s Wife and I even play a little game. On the way home from our first (and very often only) time at an ambitious new restaurant one of us will just...
It was always an awkward space. It was plunked between a bakery, a hotel, some upscale boutiques and a hallway that led to a usually empty Mezcal bar, then opened into a mall-style food court with all but two of the tenants (Birdie’s Burgers and Tacolicious)...
In 1994, a guy named Stuart Bastow walked into an Ottawa piano bar. The 20-something had never sung in any venue except perhaps a shower but, thanks to a pint or two of courage, the next thing he knew there was a microphone where his glass used to be. By the time he...
Gustavo Aguilar was the first real restaurant sommelier I met in San Miguel de Allende. Sure, when the restaurant Cent’Anni opened a few years ago, he also had a lot of management responsibilities there, but when Cent’Anni’s servers needed to bring some sage advice...
I was reading a story on the digital publication Milenio recently. It said that there are more than 1500 different species of chile peppers in Mexico. One five zero zero! That means that I have about 1488 types of chiles to still experience before I die. But I’m...
For the normal man, September is the start of football season. For Don Day, September is the start of truffle season. As I write this, I am not in front of my 60-inch Samsung, checking my fantasy league performance; I am in the heart of truffle country hoping to...
The Champagne Lady. That’s what they call Don Day’s Wife. For seldom a day goes by when she doesn’t tootle a flute of sparkling wine. It’s rarely real Champagne. Usually it’s a French Cremant. Occasionally, a Spanish Cava. And once-in-a-while, an Italian Prosecco. But...
“If I were asked which would be the best fruit, I would choose without hesitation, cherimoya. Its taste, indeed, surpasses that of every other fruit.” There were two reasons I had to write about cherimoyas. I had been reading this book Life In Mexico, a...
Don Day doesn’t dance, unless he’s had a few drinks. Don Day doesn’t cook, no matter how many drinks he’s had. Because Don Day’s Wife doesn’t allow him to cook. In fact, Don Day is staunchly discouraged from ever entering the kitchen. Well that is until there...
The name of William King is not listed among the great ones of the earth. No monuments will ever be erected to his memory, for he was only a cook. Yet what a cook! In him blazed the fire of genius which, at the white heat of inspiration, drove him one day, in the old...
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