#63: Gifts.

Gifts. Why does visiting a local haunt after receiving a fine dining experience feel lacking?

It’s not necessarily the food. There is satisfying food all along the fanciness spectrum.

It’s the gifts. Not physical presents. Gifts, as in an intention to delight and connect and make an offering of passion. You feel the gifts in every detail of the encounter. The attention paid. The richness of generosity and caring. Hospitality.

Too often there is a positive correlation between price and gift-giving at restaurants.

Here’s to gifts for everyone in our foodways and social gastronomy as a lexicon toward that end.