It's All in the Presentation

So last week I took a meeting. (I just love phrases like "take a meeting.") But I digress (as I usually do)...So last week I took at meeting with the marketing/private dining manager at a local restaurant the is curiously categorized as "casual upscale."(Or was that "upscale casual"...?) OK, I'm digressing (again).

He told me this sad, yet intriguing story:

The restaurant serves these Belgian-style frites made with truffle oil. True to European custom, they are served wrapped in a newspaper cone. The man who does the wrapping is a Spanish-speaking gentleman. He does not read English.

A customer becomes inconsolable while eating some of said frites. Why?

Because the frites have been wrapped in the obituary section. The customer saw the picture of a friend/acquaintance/relative.

Can you imagine breaking bread with someone and getting the news of a death by way of an oil-stained newspaper cone? And did I mention that we were eating these very same frites as he told me this story? He told me that now all obituaries are removed before the newspaper is given to the man who wraps the fries.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.