The Chit

A martini night in 3 acts

How an idea becomes a thing is often a convoluted path.

A few weeks ago, on a Friday, I felt the best I had in weeks.

I worked on the 2023 marketing budget, wrote two job descriptions, and did other work I usually dread with a “good attitude.” I dropped off dry cleaning and picked up a lotus root salad for lunch. It was too sugary, just enough fish saucey. Missing something the place on the Lower East Side that I loved used to include, but I don’t know what it is.

I texted L with a craving for an ice-cold martini in a fun outfit at a classy downtown hotel bar with floor-to-ceiling windows. We were in agreement on this.

By the time I finished the budget and he closed whatever goes on in his 13” metal box, it was 7pm. Our plans sounded less cheeky, more annoying traffic meets ‘why would I want to get dressed up right now?’

The martini craving remained.

We walked to Mount Pleasant. No obvious martini locales in sight but we stepped into a divey bar that I had wanted to drink at for a couple years now.

The gray handlebar mustache with a Marlboro red underneath it standing outside was a good omen. Cash only: a good omen. Inside, I had a feeling that the talk-too-loud-because-deaf-from-jukebox bartender, despite it being more of a beer and a shot kind of place, could make a mean martini.

My sign reading was all wrong. No tinis. No vermouth. Really, no glasses or shakers, just cold vodka or gin in a plastic cup if that’s what we’re goin’ for. We got gin & tonics, which were ok. Small chip ice that diluted already flatish tonic, clear plastic cups with the little ridges. Whatever. It was good people-mingling. Hungry, we looked around.

Martha Dear. That’s the name of the restaurant in the basement of some other business across the street from the dive bar, all on the Mount Pleasant main drag. I had heard this place was good, trendy, but really good. Luke was skeptical like he is about things that are trendy and known for “Greek style” pizza. “Like all pizzas need a special angle to be good.”

It was good.

And it had tinis. A kalamata olive martini with a splash of kalamata brine. It might have been vodka, I think.

So cold, briny, fresh. Cold to cure the cold. But it wasn’t the first drink, no, it was after 1 g&t and 1 beer, on a very empty canvas. 

The dips, the pizzas… delicious, the choices, they were hard to make. Menu Anxiety. I took one picture, which helps you paint a picture of how lovely it all was zero percent.

L and I drank the tinis and talked about this thing. That you’re reading right now. How he’s wanted me to work on “Menu Anxiety” for years. He knows I’ll love it. How he’ll do whatever he can to help me just get started. He’ll literally recommend my substack on his substack. 

(Which, if you’re reading this, you likely know he did do, because that’s where you came from, as I have concurrently told no one else about it.) 

We sat at the bar which was a kitchen-line bar. Like it was just… a bar… just before the kitchen starts. Not a bar for alcohol, no bartender. But not as glamorous as an open kitchen bar or chef’s table or anything. Just a prep line, a pizza station, an area for the proofing boxes. Cozy, cozy, cozy. 

The lighting was warm and dim.

The Micros printer on the line went “chicka chicka chicka” real fast. It made me smirk, no longer a trigger after so many years, but a conversation piece thanks to my well-lubricated stomach lining. 

L: What do you call that?

Me: A ticket. A Micros Printer.

No, the one you told me about when it comes out of the host stand. Where it says stuff about the customer.

A chit.

What is that?

Like, you tag them with important details. You can write notes but there are also tags you can make in the system. Say, if, Mr. Boudreaux comes in all the time, when he makes a reservation, we’ll have notes in there about him… likes table 71, VIP, Friend of John Besh, etc. When we seat him, the Micros Printer will print that chit. We hand it to the Kitchen, to the server. So they know.

Yeah. The chit. We should write a book… or a screenplay… or your Substack, it should be called The Chit.

That reminds me…

I launched into stories of my industry days. I showed him a now-defunct Instagram handle that was managed by a gaggle of our hostesses over a handful of years. It featured inside jokes between old coworkers who are now public health professionals, doctors, make-up artists, and graphic designers; caricatures of servers and cooks; and photos of bizarre, only-in-New-Orleans chits. It was inside baseball.

I wanted to reminisce, to tell stories. He wanted to talk ideas, creative plans. We both wanted to talk. And another tini. We got frustrated and raised our voices.

Why can’t I just have fun here?

Why can’t we just… talk about writing? About new ideas?

What’s my writing? I don’t write anything. You write. 

Why?

I don’t know. What am I writing for? I work in “business” now.

The Chit would be a good one. 

I don’t know anything, I don’t know what to write.

Write the chit. 

No-one knows what it means. I don’t know what it means.

They will.

What about “menu anxiety”?

Can I get you two anything else?

Two more kalamata martinis, please.