Because Monica is my friend

I will participate in the redefining of Judith Griggs

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, here is an excellent version of the story.

Letter that I just sent to Chipotle

Good Evening.  


Today I went to Chipotle on Sunset Hills in Reston for a take-out order. My family has eaten at Chipotle restaurants before, and we like it because we can control what goes into our meals. My husband is allergic to beans, and we like that we can see our meals being made, and ensure that he is not going to bite into a beef and bean burrito when he has ordered a beef burrito. His allergy is actually quite severe, but we have always felt comfortable eating at Chipotle because of the stated ability to see our food being made and the knowledge that the restaurants use safe food handling practices.  


Tonight, as I was standing at the front of the line, the woman behind the counter was making either a phone or fax order--the orderer was not present. After placing rice and beans on the burrito, she placed shredded pork over the beans. Another woman behind the counter told her that it was supposed to be part pork and part beef, so she removed half of the pork (which had been in contact with the beans) and put it back in the bin that it came from.  


Not a single person said anything. I told her that she had just cross-contaminated the food, and she looked at me like I had two heads. I obviously was not able to order food for my husband at that point; I had no idea if this had happened before (to the chicken or beef) or if it was only the pork that was contaminated.  


In an era of allergies and other health issues, it is vitally important that food preparers be educated to not cross-contaminate food. I cannot imagine that it is the policy of Chipotle to correct incorrect orders by putting food back into their bins after they have already been added to a dish.  


Thank you for your time.  
Lynne Powell


Update:
Received this message from Chipotle:


Lynne,

Thanks for taking the time to address your concern. I am sorry to hear that your visit to our Reston restaurant yesterday was not impressionable. We shouldn't be depositing food back into their container after they have been incorporated into an order to avoid cross-contamination. Because the health and well-being of our guests is of utmost importance to us, we'll follow-up with our team at this location and make sure that this does not happen again.

We'd like to invite you back for a meal on us, if you'll willing to give us another try. Simply send me your mailing address, and I will send you a couple of free burrito cards shortly. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention so that we can address our team and correct this.

We hope to see you soon!
Sincerely,

Louisa
Louisa Fredrickson | Marketing Consultant
Chipotle Mexican Grill

Responded with:

Louisa,

Thank you so much for your quick reply. I would be willing to give Chipotle another try, but I am concerned about how long I should wait for the follow-up at this location to take place. Should I give it a week? Or will it happen sooner than that?

My mailing address is:

Lynne Powell

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Thank you again for your attention to this matter.

-Lynne Powell

Update:

Received this message from Chipotle:

Good morning Lynne,

I heard back from our area manager for Reston and he informed me that this would be addressed immediately with our crew. I will make sure that our team our there is in touch with you to assure you that we have properly followed-up with our team regarding your concerns, and that cross-contamination will not be an issue going forward. I am optimistic that you will hear from them soon.

And I will send the Powell family a Chipotle treat this morning—you should receive the cards next week J  Come see us again soon!

-Louisa

And then received this message:

Hi Lynne,

I spoke with Alex (our General Manager at this store) yesterday and he already has addressed this with his managers and crew.  I am really sorry you had to experience this.  You can trust me in that this is definitely not the norm.  You should feel free to try us at any point; as this should have been corrected immediately.

Again I am really sorry this had to happen to you, but I appreciate you taking the time to let us know about this.

Thanks,
Brian

So I thanked them both and am looking forward to my next trip.

Restaurants to which we will not return: Ariake in Reston

I never intended to post bad reviews here. This was supposed to be a place of love and sharing of food. But it is actually because of a food love affair gone sour that I am posting this today. 

Ariake is a sushi restaurant in Reston, on Colt's Neck Road and Glade Drive. We started going there when it opened. This was well before Micah was born, and in fact, it was there that I went for my hush-hush pregnancy sushi. We have been going there for so long that we remember the things that used to be on the menu, that are not anymore, and that the waitresses will always bring for us because they remember us. Our children have always been welcome. We have always been welcome. Until tonight. 

Here's a hint to restaurant owners out there: If you don't want children in your restaurant, don't provide high chairs. If a restaurant provides a high chair, I always make the assumption that we are welcome with our kids. In fact, when we entered today, there were two other tables with small children. 

We ordered our food: a sushi/sashimi platter for two for Adam and me, another special roll, a cucumber roll for Micah, and agedashi tofu for Lillian. Drinks (beer for the adults and lemonade for Micah) were also ordered. We had, in fact, had a pretty rough week and wanted a nice dinner and a beer to try to make up for it.

Everything was generally fine. Lillian ate through most of her tofu and was working on some sushi. Micah was doing his dawdling thing that he does. Adam and I were gushing over the wonderfulness of the sushi. Lillian didn't get everything to her mouth; she's 14 months old. Too old to be feeding baby food (which we never did anyway), too old to be spoon or fork feeding her (which we also never did). She's a voracious eater who does, in fact, sometimes drop food on the floor. Just about all kids do. In most restaurants, we make an apology and leave a big tip. I usually try to do some cleaning up before we go.

Tonight, she was getting antsy, so I picked her up out of the high chair, and the owner's son came over to our table. As soon as I had her out of the chair, he moved the chair out of the way and started cleaning the dropped food. If that had been the end of it, I would have just assumed he was trying to be nice so I didn't step in tofu. Instead, he said, "I'm going to clean this up because it's grossing out the other customers."

"Excuse me?" I said

"It's grossing out the customers to see food on the floor."

"I see. Which customers are grossed out?" I said. "Is there a specific customer or do you mean to say that you are grossed out?

"um, um"

"I see. So you're grossed out because a BABY dropped food on the floor. And you couldn't keep it to yourself."

"It's gross to have food on the floor."

Then I turned to Adam and told him I was going to take Lillian for a walk outside. When I came back in he had brought the check to the table (we were no where near done with either the food or the drinks). I said that I wanted to talk to him and he told me that he didn't want to discuss it with me. We went back and forth a couple of times and he said we should go. He also, somewhere in there, commented that it was a family place. I'm sure. 

One of our favorite waitresses was visibly upset. I commented to her that there are a lot of sushi restaurants in Reston and Herndon, and before I got to finish my statement (that we had been coming here for years now), he overheard and said "well you can go to them then."

I walked out. Adam did pay the bill (I wish he had not) and got a to go box to take the rest of the sushi home. I got in the car with Lillian and pulled up to the front door, then got out to help with Micah. Apparently the manager was also very upset (he knows us as well) because he followed Adam out, and was very insistent that the guy had no say in anything and was just the owner's son.

I said, "Yes but if he were a waiter who treated us that way, he would be fired. You do not use the words "grossed out" in front of people who are eating, especially when referring to their child."

The manager said, "yes"

I said, "But you can't fire him because he's the owner's son. And because he's the owner's son, he does speak for the business whether you say he does or not."

So, we're done with Ariake. DONE. We won't be returning there, except perhaps to drop a copy of this off to the owner. 

Why we love Chik Fil A for kids, and one thing we don't love so much.

We are still eating out and we end up at Chik Fil A a lot, because it is yummy and really very good for kids. Here's what we love about our Chik Fil A. Note that all of the stores are independently owned & operated so your mileage may vary. Ours is the one on Sunset Hills Road in Reston, across from the Target. Anyway, here we are:

• Ambiance is pretty cool. There are flowers on the tables!

• Kids meals are lovely. You can replace fries with fruit, and the fruit is actual fresh fruit and not canned/syrup stuff. Both kids love the fruit and my bigger one rarely asks for the fries. 

• The toy that comes in the kids meal is usually not particularly annoying. If you ask for the under 3 toy, it's actually a book. Recently we've gotten some educational stuff. Not too bad.

• They have lemonade as an option to drink, and it's real lemonade (I found pits in it last time we were there). It's a nice change of pace from the usual choice of soda or juice.

• If you happen to have a baby who is going to be eat off of the table, they give you a plastic table topper to use.

• If you walk in with a baby in one arm and a kiddo holding onto your other hand, they will take your food to your table and get a high chair for you, and make sure you're all set up. And, they'll come back and make sure you're ok and ask if you need a drink refill. That's pretty awesome. 

• They have kid's events all the time. Like, on Monday mornings, you can bring the kids for breakfast and they have entertainment, crafts, story time, etc. And they have Family Night on Tuesdays. 

• They have a nifty kid's play area.

So all in all, for the kids and me, it's a great place. Here's what we don't like:

• They cook in peanut oil. 

Which means my husband cannot join us. I'm sure the flavor of everything would change if they changed the oil, but I don't think that it would change all that much, and it would open the place to far more people. It's pretty much my only complaint.  

CSA this week!

I traded weeks with Amy this week, so we got our share two weeks in a row. And boy was it an awesome one!

Tomatoes
Eggplant (SO MUCH EGGPLANT!)
Onions  (about 6 of them)
Pole Beans
Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Salsa Kit!!!
Chard
Arugula
Thai Basil
Raspberries (YAY!)
Eggs

There were a bunch of eggplants that had been left in the "take or leave" bin, so I got a couple of extra (they were small) in hopes that I can make a whole bunch of eggplant stuff for the freezer. I have offers of kitchen use from a few friends, and with all of the tomatoes and eggplant, I see both eggplant parmagiana and caponata in our near future. Also, if I can find the food processor, that Salsa Kit will be Salsa in no time.

I also think we will have to make some swiss chard empanadas. If I can prep them at a friend's kitchen, they will cook nicely in the toaster oven until I have a real oven again.

So yeah, really excited about this week's share.

Kitchen Update

The kitchen project turned into a monster that we totally were not expecting, for a few reasons:

• underestimating how much help we would have from friends
• underestimating the extent of changes that would have to happen to kitchen infrastructure and of course
• having to add sub-projects after the start because of things that affected other things.

For instance, taking off the backsplash turned into a drywall/skim coating nightmare because we couldn't get the glue off the walls. Taking out the pantry left a big hole in the floor tiles that required a tile patch job. Deciding to switch from a range to a wall oven and cooktop, and adding a built-in microwave, required pulling another 2 circuits which meant cutting a giant hole in the wall.  And then there was the planned removal of the soffit that turned into extending it out and adding lights because it had too much stuff in it.

But things are finally coming to a point where we can hopefully call some parts of the kitchen Actually Done. Here's where things stand:

• ceiling is done. This entailed scraping off the texture, sanding, priming, skim coating, sanding, priming, and painting. DONE. Gorgeous. Needs to be a little touched up.
• skim coating on the walls is done. 
• painting is mostly done. Touch ups will be done after cabinet installation, since we expect to have to touch up after the installation anyway.
• patching the floor is done.
• Lights are installed and beautiful
• Wall cabinets on Wall 1 are done. 
• Base cabinets for Wall 1 are assembled but need backs, cover panels, door hinges, and feet. 

OK, so still to be done:

• touch up paint
• Construct & Install Wall cabinets on Wall 2 (sink wall) 
• Construct & Install Base cabinets on Wall 2
• Construct & Install Wall cabinets on Wall 3 (oven wall)
• Construct & Install Base cabinets on Wall 3
• Construct & Install Pantry cabinet 
• Over fridge cabinet, which is a PROJECT because Ikea did not have the right size cabinet. But I now have a PLAN and hope hope hope I really don't screw it up. If it comes out great I am totally going to post it to Ikea Fans.
• Install molding over and under cabinets
• Install covers under cabinets
• Install all doors, drawers, and handles
• Install interior fittings (lazy susans, etc)
• Install appliances (bring back electrician)
• Pick out granite slabs
• Get Granite people out here to measure and come back/install granite
• Plumbing hookups/stovetop install after granite is in
• And then we have a freakin' party because it will be done!

So we're getting there, but there's still a lot to do. Meanwhile, we have a little table that will hold a rice cooker or crock pot, so I can do a little cooking. Someone freecycled a toaster oven to me so I can do a little bit of baking in small batches. I just can't do anything that requires a stove at the moment! Argh!

But really, I never expected I could do as much of this myself as I did! I'm really proud of both me and my husband. We have the best contractor ever for things like pulling electrical and doing plumbing but we really did almost all of the cosmetic work ourselves. And Adam is now a drywalling pro. And he likes my overall plan for upgrading the whole house, and was even looking at bath vanities this weekend! HAHA awesome!

CSA Goodness!

CSA pickup today and nearly everything can be eaten raw! Yay!

- Tomatoes. It said "take as many as you can eat in a week." Micah decided that was 10.
- Cherry Tomatoes. Because you can never have too many tomatoes
- Peppers. About 6 of them
- Carrots. Lots
- Beets, without the greens this time. Lots (will have to find a way to cook them)
- Lettuce
- cucumbers
- Okra (need to find a way to cook them too)
- sage
- basil. A LOT of Basil. To go with the tomatoes of course
- Eggs

I'm pretty sure I'm going to make some tomato salads. If I can figure out how to get the skins off, I will probably puree and freeze some of the tomatoes, too, since we still have some from last week too.

Plus, there's salad. Yummy yummy salad.