ahhh, Florida.........

..............well, here I sit in Florida. Trying to get a place open via e-mail is not as easy as it may sound. Although, it has made me think again about what the world was really like before e-mail and fax machines. And, it really wasn't all that long ago.

So, where do we stand with the restaurant? I told all the dirt on the principals that I knew to my investor. Told him what to offer and more important to whom to offer it. It is all this politics which I am surprisingly good at but hate so much. All the reasons that I do not now and never have worked in an office in my life (except for about a month, fresh out of college, and boy was it miserable). I am a chef. An artist? Maybe. A worker? Certainly. An owner? I really hope.

The photos are Fresh Escargots Wrapped in Herb Printed Pasta with a Fresh Basil Pesto Mousseline. I love the earthiness of Snails. Oysters from Brittany in France and Sushi, which I am sick to death of but you cannot have a restaurant in St. Petersburg without it. Ugh.

So, here I am in Florida and my investor just gave me the go on the restaurant that I have been trying to get open all of my adult life. I am ready for all the questions. What kind of food? How expensive will it be? What is your best dish? What is your favorite food? Have you been in Russia long? What is it like in a communist country? Isn't it dangerous? (The restaurant business is dangerous anywhere, actually.) Oh, the list just goes on and on. But this will be a blog that I hope will chronicle the process, for myself as well as anyone who reads it.

But, my confession is that the restaurant is not from the ground up, as the term would have you think. I am in the process of buying the restaurant that I created for someone else and they have let go to pieces. It's a personal thing....