Be our guest

Slashfood created a top 10 food songs. I have to admit I didn't know half of them, but #5 made me kind of happy inside. I must say I miss the days when weekends were spent wishing I was a Disney princess and not occupied with oodles of homework. Growing up is overrated. I suggest you just don't do it.

In case you haven't already become bored of me and looked up the Top 10 list, "Be Our Guest" from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" is #5. In a world where shows like Hells Kitchen and Top Chef focus on the drama and underworld of kitchen life, it is easy to forget that the food industry is a hospitality industry.

Whenever I think of hospitality, I think of Chef Lou. He was my executive chef at the Bar Harbor Inn in Maine and, well besides being a wonderful wonderful man, he liked to remind everyone in the kitchen that this was an industry where hospitality was the most important thing. He despised Anthony Bourdain - who I love - because he felt that men like him who uncovered this dirty underbelly of the food industry hurt the industry. Every guest at the hotel was his guest.

Of course that didn't stop him from leading guests on in his kitchen tours and telling everyone that I was the pastry chef or that the pastry chef did not speak English and had been working since 5 that morning - we didn't actually go in till 7. He told his white lies while winking like a little boy causing harmless mischief. In the end every guest at the Bar Harbor in was given the royal treatment, and Chef Lou appreciated anyone who went the extra mile to make someone happy.

Cooking is a social sport. Where is the fun in a wonderfully executed meal when no one is there to share it with you. Don't have any idea what I'm talking about? Invite a friend or two over this weekend and try that vegetable lasagna recipe you've been dying to try. I promise you will have a lot of fun, and you might start a lovely tradition of sharing food and gossip with close friends. Look how wonderfully happy the characters at the Beast's castle were over one lovely guest.



Happy Eating!!!

Emily