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My Page: Danielle Lattuga

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Column: Missoula's Dish

I’ve grown to love more than loathe this week of my life, every year. As each day of it passes, I wake up with more ease, almost restless, but well rested. My focus settles on the simple processes of life and the intensity of the senses that grows also with the passing days. My body feels lighter, more vital. I am comforted by the sheer notion of taking care of myself—even when I am choking down the 14th glass of ruby tinted fluid; a blend of beet, tomato, celery, parsley, spinach, carrot, and cucumber. Sometimes I am tricked into thinking that I am drinking dirt. And in some way, I am—all these vegetables, born of the soil. The earthly bounty; uncooked and juiced to infuse my body with nutrients, goodness and “cleansing” properties. I’d be lying if I said I loved the taste of it. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

At the end of a busy night, I love nothing more than to sit my metric ton booty down on a bar stool, sip on a glass of wine and balance the till. The stories of the evening pass through my fingers on the tickets I’ve written for each of them: "Those two were sweet, sharing every course, clearly, madly in love. That family was funny and a little crazy -- the kid drank milk like a fiend and wouldn’t touch anything green. Those guys were a little uptight, until I got food and a good bottle of wine in front of them...Oh yeah, and then there was that one table. Three of them were just fine, but he, HE was an arse. But I won’t start with that, or it will just make me angry all over again."

That night, I thought all the stories had been told. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

Regardless of the title given to those of us who have spent hours scraping, scrubbing, spraying and stacking all manner of cooking and eating utensil in the illustrious dish pit, one thing is for certain, it is a position of respect, one that receives little public attention, but on which the flow of the service is so undeniably reliant.

Case in point: I recently visited an establishment to try out their version of a dirty Grey Goose Martini. Yum. It was a busy evening. We ordered our drinks and waited. Yum was on hold. For twenty-five minutes. When our server returned, the drinks were nowhere to be seen on her person. I glanced behind her back to see if she had a tray full of beverages anchored to her butt. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

I don’t do button downs. Or is it button ups? Whatever, I don’t do either. I’ve endured a few uniforms in my time, but thankfully, I can say that I’ve actually gotten by better than most in my league, of servers that is. I never had to do polyester stripes. Not even a maroon collared short sleeve, and most fortuitously, the only version of “flare” I’ve been subject to is that of my own invention -- big, distinct jewelry. I have avoided one of the worst offenses in my book, that of the bowtie. It’s fine if a woman wears a bowtie, but only if that woman likes to wear a bowtie. Annie Lennox comes to mind. She rocks. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

“We have a lot of money, and we’re never eating here again!”

They were standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, scattered like dirty laundry tipped out of a basket.

“Good, that’s good.” I exhaled the words with a snicker, my arms folded across my belly, my head cocked slightly to the left, jaw set somewhere between laughter and fury. My heel rested against the door, holding it open as my co-worker tugged on my arm, trying to get me inside before things got any worse.

When I said, “Let’s take this outside,” I only meant let’s go outside and not disturb my other, polite, mostly sober and completely courteous customers. I meant, let’s not let you embarrass yourself further. She thought I meant, “Let’s rumble.” [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

In this part of the world, the shorter days arrive with winter, and people come in earlier for dinner. They want stew; they want meat, hot drinks, rich pastas, and dessert. Many of us change our menus accordingly. Energy levels shift. People are quieter, moving a bit more slowly, and sometimes, even grumpy. We shorten our hours and get more sleep.

Of course, the holiday season seems to hold an energy unique to the winter humdrum. During these few weeks, we see people warm up a bit and dig into their reservoirs of kindness, even if some do develop a bit of a frenetic edge demonstrated by the appearance of the “holiday shopper in the headlights face,” in which you see only the whites of their eyes as their gaze darts from rack to rack, shelf to shelf. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

In Missoula, we are lucky enough to have a few restaurants that are not only chef-owned, but also happen to be the first solo expression of a chef’s vision. I consider this luck, because there is something so very pure about a restaurant that represents some of the deepest, freshest creativity of one person’s dream. These people have taken a space and an idea and shaped it into an experience of dining, and a style of dining, that sets it apart and seduces the community into a craving; of food, of atmosphere, of service. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

It’s just this one small corner. How can it cause me so much angst?

Happy diners are squeezed in around this table- it’s deep grainy sheen holding them all together. It’s finished wooden complexion absorbs the sound of their wine glasses set upon it after a toast.

They are comfortable sitting so close to one another, this family and select friends. She’s just graduated from college. They don’t mind that their elbows touch. Knees clunk together under the table. Toes touch. I raise my voice above their laughter. Proud father teases me. I tease him.
[more]

Missoula's Dish

I moved to Montana when I was 21 years old. I have not sat around a table on Thanksgiving with my family, since. Occasionally, one of my sisters has made the road trip from the west coast. This year is the first year that I can leave and join her for the holiday.

I no longer work in the restaurant business, yet it is the restaurant business that reinvented the notion of family for me, and in fact those that have helped ease the void of living so far away from my own family are those who I have worked with over the years. After all, we’ve shared the kitchen and the dining room, day after day, and often, even when we close for the holidays, we gather in one of our homes and share a meal. [more]

Column: Missoula's Dish

I lowered the square white dessert plate onto the table in front of her, and instead of chocolate dream cake, there was a mahogany box enshrouded in flowers—maroon, white and deep red.

She looked down at the plate, and her eyes slowly rose to meet his. I turned and stepped away from them, dark motion in the corner of their field of vision. Fading.

They were seated at a tiny round table, in the corner, tucked away from everyone, except the world outside. [more]

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