annabelle

Oh, David. Honestly, it's not like she's single-handedly taken down the NYSE. Martha Stewart couldn't even do that. The plaintiff is only including Paula Deen in the suit because she has deep pockets. Bubba has been a pack of trouble since he was a teen. Paula tried to help him out and got burned.

We'd be naturals, ladies.

Are those candy-cane beets? I can't get them here in Smallville. I should grow some, I guess.

If they're willing to go 50-something, I'm there.

Thanks, GF. I had heard something about that from my son who also works in television.

Should be? Who decides should? I understand the First Amendment just fine, thanks.

You were. You said people should not fly the Confederate flag and called it analogous to Nazi Germany.

I'm not about repressing anyone's First Amendment rights, now matter how much I disagree with them, thanks.

I doubt it, Twyst. One can only get away with being an outlandish fool if one is part of the victim class of the perpetually aggrieved and outraged.

Yes, we learned all about it in school. And endless documentaries on television. There were many blacks who owned slaves back in the day, including Michelle Obama's family of origin. That was all over 150 years ago. Uncomfortable facts exist in all of our histories. Blaming an old woman for using a common word (and I do mean common, as in we didn't do that in my family) was the result of her relating an incident of being held at gunpoint by a black man. People need to stop getting their dresses over their heads about stuff like this or at least be consistent and refuse to listen to rap music or watch Quentin Tarantino movies.

Jeff Smith was a pervert. Who cares if Paula used politically incorrect speech? Does anyone here ever watch any other cooking shows and listen or try to listen to the sound between the bleeps? It would appear that kitchen/restaurant staff have lost the ability to speak without swearing a blue streak. Everything except f*** is bleeped out. I guess it is okay to take the Lord's name in vain or the legitimacy of another's birth, call a woman a b**** or a man a lot of other things. But toss out a remark about one's race? Katie bar the door.

Paula has just proved that honesty in a deposition, isn't the best policy. Paula is an old woman with a limited education who hails from a town that is a wide place in the road, not from Savannah. The people in her hometown have a pronounced drawl such as hers. She can't be stupid or she wouldn't have parlayed her brand and her restaurants into an empire. She's a good mother who has secured her sons' futures by launching them on their own careers. The problem lies in the deposition she gave regarding a lawsuit her brother "Bubba" is involved in about an incident that took place years ago. The salacious parts (OMG! Someone surfed porn at the workplace! This has never happened before! Ever! Someone slapped a waitress on the fanny! Someone told a dirty joke! Someone said "Nigga please"!) are fodder for those who hate her and the race baiters and PC police. Further, the anecdote about her planning her brother's wedding and the language used would seem to be hearsay to this non-lawyer. I was raised by Southerners and seldom were the racial slurs used, usually by my Arkansas grandpa when he's had a few. It wasn't until I moved to the North, the Rust Belt to be precise, that I encountered such racism as I'd never seen or heard before. The really terrible part of this racism, was that it was so casual and seemed to be used by everyone from child to granny.

Oy, Edward. If you think government is "impartial", you need to get out more.

Brave Restauranteur should lay in a supply of "Out of Business" signs, if history is our guide.

It could be themed with hats. He still has the hat.

Isn't this an awful lot of carbs? I'd make a bunch of itty bitty frittatas in muffin tins and keep them warm. Grapes. Cheese bites. Lots of coffee.

Ed there are nine pages here. Go read.

No. I'm pretty sure we've covered them all.

You just know ServPro or another provider is going to make and supply them to anyplace that sells donuts and croissants. Einstein Bagels will even have them.

So, they get fired and go to work somewhere else as a Chef III? That doesn't seem right.

Wait six months and they will come to a Dunkin Donuts near you.

So, using this system, Edward J, if one is underperforming as a Cook III, may he or she be busted back down to a Cook I, depending on the infraction? I think what you are advocating is a military style brigade system for the FOH, much like that in the back of the house as is used in Europe and less formally, the US, yes? This sounds like a ripe opportunity for government oversight, adding yet another layer of bureaucracy (and costs) to operation. We're in the middle of a grand scandal regarding government overreach right now. I think this proposal would be met with cold water and a firm "No".

What? You mean equality of outcome isn't a guarantee?

My goodness, Rob. You already have this hypothetical case before the SCOTUS?

Yes really. They cannot extrapolate the data set collected to the myriad restaurants in the, let's use the contiguous United States. The sample size is too small and the time frame of the experiment is too short. The data was collected over three luncheon services in a chain restaurant. There are too many variables that they have not controlled for. The data was collected using self-reports of which many were spoiled and discarded, further shrinking their data set. (Self-reports are notoriously unreliable.) Their conclusion goes on to make a comparison between tipping taxi drivers and tipping servers in restaurants as if the two were equivalent. They are working backward toward their conclusion and making the data fit their hypothesis even if they have to break off a piece and hammer it in there. I used to design psychological experiments in grad school. This one is poor.